rickudon

Crime isn't a new thing. Back in 1980 my house in Birmingham was burgled twice; previously a friend living there was mugged. I moved to Hampshire in 1982, no crime for 25 years. Then they closed the part-time police office, got bugled 2 years later. Moved to a village with a police station 100 metres away. 5 years later they.closed that station. Burgled twice in.2 years. MORE.BOBBIES ON THE BEAT.NEEDED!

True that we will never be considered khon thai. If you live in Bangkok , Pattays, etc. then you are just a resource to be cynically exploited. But in Isaan .... we are more appreciated. 14 years in Udon Thani and have never suffered farang pricing in shops or overt discrimination (unlike my experinces from just about 10 days in Bangkok). Probably because Isaan people know what it is like to be considered imferior. My wife's father was a pooyai baan and well.respected. but when she went to work in Bangkok, 10 years in a responsible job and never a promotion or a pay rise, new workers got the same money. She realised that she was not respected. She returned to Isaan and opened a shop. Her sisterfound the same. Result - both married farang.

Agree it wouldn't happen, for a number of teasons. But, yes we need it. The Ukraine war teaches us one thing. You still need a lot of infantry. The UK hardly has any, in a real war the professional army could only defend about one city and would be out of ammunition and reserves in about one month. WW1 - UK had a.small professional army (still much larger than today) but it was devastated on the first 3 months. Ot took best part of a year to train and equip a nrw one. And as one poster has said, where is the infrastructure to house and train the conscripts? I used to live in Hampshire. Aldershot,now nearly a military museum. Bordon - gone. Ordanance supply depots like Liphook - gone. It would take years to build the infrastructure to train all those conscripts. You cannot start doing all this once a war starts, the war would be over before the first conscipt gets a uniform. 12 months service, learn some useful skills so we have reserve force IF needed. Affordibility? Hell, we encourage 50% of our kids to rack up a 50,000 GBP debt by going to University for 3 years.

3 days of heavy rain, garden flooded every morning.

Not a lot of inflation recently, i did notice somd items went up last year, but prices fell this year. Some specifics- Bread. Price rose 20% last year. Milk. Went up about 1 baht a bottle, but price was pretty static for years before. Frozrn mixed veg. A kilo has gone up 10 baht in about 5 years. Crisps. A 5 baht packet is still 5 baht, same as 10 years ago - but hit by shrinkflation, maybe 25% less. 7-11 burger/toasted sandwich. Same price or maybe 2-5 baht more. Fruit juice. Stayed same price for 10 years, but has gone up 25-40% in the last 4. Cheese. Up 20% - but over 10 years. Basic cheddar is now as cheap as the UK. Meat. 100% in 14 years, eggs a bit less than that. Tilapia. Can still get a kilo for 50 baht, maybe up 20% in 14 years. What has changed many more upmarket items, which cost more. Overall, my budget was 30,000 baht a month 14 years ago, now 40,000 baht. Pensions up 50%, so better off.

What about isostatic rebound in Massachusetts? Last ice age there was a large ice sheet over most of New England, When it melted the loss of mass meant that the land mass would start to rise. Couldn't find anything about current rate for the area, but in the UK isostatic readjustment means that Scotland rises by up to 10 cm a century. So lack of sea level rise previously may not be related to warming, but isostatic readjustment. Future predictions are that sea levels will rise by about one foot by mid century in the area.

Obviously you have no idea. British Embassy will do zilch. Only tell next of kin he is dead and maybe a few links to lawyers/funeral services in Thailand.

Last year, only 30,000 'rubber boat people', 1,000,000 'legal' migrants. No wonder unemployment of British people is up. To much competition for the better jobs. still vacancies of minimum wage jobs, but all those University graduates were told they would find good well paid jobs..... ha ha ha. Brexit keeps on giving .... only to the rich.

Yes, 61 avast under estimate. Both my wife's elderly parents fainted in late April (on different days), F-in-l ambulance, M-in-l refused to go and was unsteady for several days - still taking longer naps than before.

My first bank account was easy enough on a visa exempt back in 2010. Next .... not so. Had marriage visa, but first 2 banks flay refused. Third attempt sweet talked the bank clerk and got it. Next attempt (same bank!) for a fixed deposit took 3 visits, a Thai guarantor (wife not good enough?) and took over an hour. Next account ata different branch a lot easier but still took nearly an hour. Just no consistency.

Can you afford health insurance? Maybe when you are younger. As a UK retiree living on pensions, i have a fairly typical net pension of about 60,000 baht a month. At my age (72) health insurance would eat up a third or more of my income. It would require a drastic change in life style, and maybe stull would get priced out eventually. In 14 years health care costs have only totalled about 100,000 baht, mainly dental. I know several people who used to have insurance but got priced out. I do not know anyone who died because they couldn't afford to pay for treatment. I have some pre-existing conditions, but not anything life threatening except in the long term. So also makes insurance less attractive. Everyone i know who died either already returned to home country, died suddenly or were at end of life anyway. No suicides. It is a gamble, but health insurance is like the lottery, not many win....

Something bad has been happening to the Palestinians for a hundred years. When you get treated like that, eventually something was bound to happen. If Israel wants peace, it needs to address the aspirations of the Palestinian people, not impoverish them and slowly steal their land.

Maybe not related, but last month i decided to install a VPN for a.minor need. Then got 8 links stopped by my anti-virus in the next week. I then uninstalled the VPN and the attacks stopped. Are VPN's actually safe? Thid was a free VPN but supposedly with many millions of users. I have no need for a VPN normally, and doubt if i will use one again.

Average high in Udon Thani (30 year average) is 37 Centigrade. Obviously some days are over 40, but most are lower. My own memory over 14 years here is one year we had no temperature above 40, rest between 2 and 8 days. This year - average 40, most days over 40, lowest 38. So average high was 3 degrees higher.

My M-in-L is an extreme pruner, of the hack it faction. She has killed at least 3 trees and a dozen shrubs with her manic attacks.

Using Mke Listers very useful tax guide posted earlier this year, i am reasonably confident that i will pay no tax. I am over 65, married and have a child, on a marriage visa. I bring in 40,000 a month usually so would have little or no tax liability at that level. Also get a civil service pension which should be tax exempt in Thailand under the UK dta. Only issue is proving the provenance of where the money comes from, as i aggregate and recirculate income through 3 different accounts plus saving accounts (because in the UK i get preferential interest rates by doing this).

I am with True and it is a 150 baht a month package. Wife pays.....

I suggest you do some internet research yourself. The amount of CO2 may be very small, but it still has a significant affect. It is hard to completely separate the effect of CO2, because other greenhouse gases also tend to go up as it gets warmer (water vapour rises with temperature). If there were no greenhouse gases, the average earth temperature would be about zero centigrade. This article puts the effect of doubling CO2 levels since pre-industrial times as between 2.6 and 4.1 degrees centigrade. We are already half way there to doubling, and temperature is up by about 1.2 degrees so far . https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/climate/global-warming-temperature-range.html Volcanoes - insignificant about 200 million tons, compared to 24 billion tons from Mans activities. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/#:~:text=According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)%2C the,billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. I do wish people would stop writing crap, because they just do not know. And, currently there is a global coral bleaching event underway, not just Thailand, although level of damage is not yet certain.

That's the wife's contribution. i will stick to fish i grow myself.

The avocadoes leaves are turning brown - guess the April hot weather (average over 40 C) meant either just couldn't get enough water, or root rot has set in. You just cannot win! it was wilting so had to up the water level. Lime trees are doing fine. but currently little fruit and flowers. Lots of new growth though. Mangoes - big tree in the garden died - it was old but kept being heavily cut back because near power lines. 10 years ago lots of fruit. have one other old tree, sometimes pruned back (chain sawed) it is very variable in fruit production - some years none. Down on the farm have 5 mango trees, one from seed, no fruit yet, but growing big (maybe too big) other 4, grafted small trees, 2 have fruit every year, one other had fruit once, 4th was topped by invading buffalo soon after planting, has just one fruit first time. Many other mango trees in the village also no fruit. Do not know why. Wife had another plan - made a jungle spot and water feature with drip irrigation, to try and mitigate the heat. Actually done rather well AND she didn't give me the bill! (well not directly, but house keeping money always runs out before the end of the month). Must try and put some photos up but a hassle getting them off the phone. Dreading the next Electricity bill - hot weather and 2 freezers added (one for me, then wife got one to sell ice-creams in the shop). Trying to get an energy monitoring plug so i can work out the actual consumption of all the appliances.

Financial advisers ..... just parasites. Learn about how to invest from newspapers, the internet, books etc. Then only invest in larger, longstanding organisations, or otherwise it is just gambling. Have twice been given advice - first time was for a life insurance policy with benefits - was supposedly predicted to get me about 6,000 GBP after 15 years - actual was 2,000 GBP, would have made more in a building society ordinary account! Second time was in 2007 when i was made redundant, given a free consultation - he suggested i invest in various funds, for maximum growth. But interest rates were high, and i had heard rumbling about a bear market being likely, so declined. Two years later those stocks had halved in value, but my cash investment bonds were still paying 5% plus (i did have money in Iceland banks, but was careful to make sure they were covered by UK guarantees, and got my money back plus interest in full). UK tracker funds were hit, and although they recovered fairly quickly they then stagnated until Brexit. I dumped those as soon as i got back to pre-crash levels, and invested it in global funds which have done very well, making about 100% over the last 10 years (actually did best during Covid, as a lot was invested in Amazon and computer related companies, who did well with everyone working from home). FTSE has been stagnant for years, so FTSE trackers are currently a bad deal. Mutual funds in Thailand also give very poor returns, I am told. No way would i EVER accept advice in Thailand from a 'financial adviser'. Boomers.... were lucky enough to be a generation when wealth could be accumulated; their parents were just happy to secure a roof over their heads and food on the table. Our children now struggle to accumulate wealth. Student loans, extortionate rents and house prices swallow up that salary. Most will not be debt free before they retire.

Not the first leak at an ice factory in Udon...... a few years ago there was a leak and explosion which killed some workers. A couple of years ago someone wanted to build one next to our fish ponds, wasn't happy about that. Fortunately hasn't happened ...... so far.

Much easier to assess lack of intelligence. Just review a few Aseannow posts, easy to make a decision.

I was given a MAGA hat about 6 years ago. Guy Fawkes was looking a bit cold so i gave it to him.....

The rise is almost certainly due to one thing. Burmese people fleeing the civil war (provinces with increases mainly along the border).