xylophone

You could add a few more folk from African countries who "visit" here, and I have encountered them, and I have nothing good to say about them. I often ask myself why they are here – – the sun? (No plenty in Africa), the sea? (many African countries surrounded by sea, and anyway if they don't like that, then there are other countries much closer, bordering sea), the nightlife? (Plenty in Lagos, Accra,etc). So I can't think of a good reason they are here unless they are looking for opportunities of the unlawful type. Then of course there was the Ugandan streetwalker in Pattaya who made off with a few thousand baht from an English guy who decided to take her back to his room – – silly boy. I worked in Nigeria for over a year and stayed in Ghana (as well as Libya for 15 months) and decided to take a holiday in Malta a few years later, and sitting on the bus in front of me were a couple of Nigerians, and one of them turned round to me and asked me where I was from, so I told him, and he asked me if I had ever been to Nigeria because it was a beautiful country, and I couldn't lie so I told him, "I had been to Nigeria and it was a <deleted> hole in my opinion! No more discourse followed that short exchange. Me, racist? No, just telling it like it is.

Trump and his MAGA followers have often said that they like the "poorly educated" folk in the USA, probably because they readily buy into his nonsense tweets/posts/rantings and lies, so it's not surprising this sort of thing happens because there is no shortage of brainless bogans in that country.

https://www.history.com/news/the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-50-years-ago Some Excerpts from the above to consider: South Vietnam “was essentially the creation of the United States,” the Defense Department would later admit in the Pentagon Papers. It also sent over more and more military advisors, some of whom participated in raids despite ostensibly being there only for self-defense. As part of one such covert operation, the United States trained and directed South Vietnamese sailors to bombard radar stations, bridges and other targets along the North Vietnamese coast. Meanwhile, U.S. warships such as the Maddox conducted electronic espionage missions in order to relay intelligence to South Vietnam. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. But in the pre-dawn hours of July 31, 1964, U.S.-backed patrol boats shelled two North Vietnamese islands in the Gulf of Tonkin, after which the Maddox headed to the area. Read more from the link above; and especially the paragraphs regarding the lies from the Johnson administration as it never disclosed that the US backed raids were taking place, and a second attack almost certainly never occurred, and later on the Navy issued a statement saying, "it is now clear that North Vietnamese naval forces did not attack Maddox and Turner Joy that night! So I will continue to watch the series, as so far as can be ascertained, what is being portrayed appears to be true.

The traffic on the rest of the island can be a bit of a nightmare, but of course it depends upon which time of day you choose to travel – – for example I had to take my Swift into the Suzuki dealer in Phuket town (I live in Patong) for a service, so I had to go the long way round via Chalong roundabout and then head north, and the traffic was fairly free-flowing (thankfully). After the service and a few visits to a couple of shops, I headed back south to Chalong and then onto Patong and again the traffic was flowing well. As the old saying goes – – timing is of the essence!

And there are "mental midgets" out there who will believe this nonsense, and talking of madness, I have a friend back in NZ who follows a mate of hers who is just as dumb, and has been talking about the world being pushed towards a "grand plan", masterminded by Bill Gates, BlackRock etc. ... No matter, because I told her to stop emailing me with any of her nonsense/rubbish, simply because folks like her are just too dumb, and some. Sorry it's off topic a little although it is related to the title regarding "a madness has taken hold"...........

I think it was mentioned on this thread a while ago, "The Vietnam War – déjà vu" which was the first episode of the series of 10 episodes of a documentary made in 2017. So I watched that and managed to find the rest of the series on 1337x.to and have just downloaded them to watch later, mainly because the first episode was so full of information of which I had no knowledge whatsoever, so watching the rest is an absolute must IMO.

Don't let the fact that he was married fool you – – he was as camp as a row of frilly pink tents!

I remember being served quail as an entrée in a rather posh restaurant many years ago and wondered if it had even been worth killing the bird for the small amount of meat which was on it! Now many decades later I have found cooked quail eggs here in the supermarket and very much like them as a bit of a snack!

Thought I would watch an old movie on iPlayer, called "Wilde" about Oscar Wilde and a part of his life before he went to jail, however I switched it off after a while as I couldn't watch the male to male sex scenes and it wasn't just with one male lover, but with many and also with rent boys – – he was eventually jailed for his activities with boys and men and died a broken man after his two-year jail term. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid.

Problem is Olmate, that with the Aussie pension and the exchange rate to baht, many of the poor buggers don't have much of a choice! Having said that, there were some "reasonable" cask/box wines available here at one time, only to be replaced by the Montclair and similar rubbish – – never my scene, but had occasionally tasted the "reasonable" Aussie cask wines when dining out here. Not brilliant but certainly better than the Montclair rubbish.

Yep but could never take to it (and I am not an Aussie!), and the Montclair fruit wine stuff here is grim IMO.

In times gone by these were my favourite wines, along with Chateauneuf du Papes, now I am drinking the Italian Appasimento and the 19 Crimes as my every day drinkers.............but still look out for wine promotions and do try others. No doubt you can stick with the Gallo wines as they would suit your style.

Slightly off topic, but related to Lazada all the same, and it is to do with shaving!! I searched Lazada for a replacement head for my electric shaver (Braun series 3) and didn't go for the cheaper ones because I suspected they might be Chinese copies, so found one advertised which was just over 800 baht, and according to all the text on the site, it was a Braun replacement head, and it looked genuine. It looked fine when it arrived, however when attached to the shaver it was absolutely useless and would have had a hard job cutting jelly, let alone shaving a day old "beard"! So I have requested a refund, however whether I get one or not is a different matter, and the refund is on the basis that it is not an original Braun replacement, but a copy, and one that doesn't work at all (it pulled out more hairs than it cut) so I will see what transpires.

Blonde!!

Favourite dish would have to be Pad Thai with both chicken and prawns, and a liberal sprinkling of chili flakes. Just recently taken to cooking Pad krapow gai as it is easy to cook and very tasty if you stick to the recipe! Thai green curry chicken, with potato chunks added and plenty of coconut cream!!!

Interesting that you should say this, because a friend of mine who has just returned to Patong, and who split up with his long-term girlfriend a while ago, has been on the lookout for an attractive "potential" girlfriend, and as per the old US movie stars name, he has had "Slim Pickens", saying that even if he went for a massage, he isn't tempted because too many oldies/wrinklies sitting outside of the parlours, and he's not that desperate!!!!

Well he could shoot someone..........ah, but that wouldn't work according to him because his base would still fully support him no matter what he did!! Unbelievable, and you simply couldn't make this stuff up.

Certainly was, and a compulsive liar and cheat with it............Oh, sorry you're not talking about the impeached ex pres!! The relationship with Saudi Arabia is a joke and has been for years, even way before the last few presidents. If you want to understand a bit of history about this, then watch the doco, "Bitter Lake". Exellent.

I watched one of David Attenborough's programs the other evening, called "Frozen Planet" and this particular one dealt with the huge volumes of ice peeling off from the glaciers and falling into the seas (not to be confused with icebergs melting). The most astounding part of it was that the world's biggest glaciers have diminished in size quite remarkably, and some whave almost disappeared, and they had set up time-lapse cameras decades ago to record what was going on, and it is there for all to see all to see, and it is frightening. Glaciers that have been there for centuries are now melting and constitute a threat to life on this planet as we know it – – this according to Attenborough and other experts. Climate change is being blamed and the overarching thing that I took from this program was that we are basically stuffed, basically because the very small things that we are now trying to impose on countries with regards to limiting climate change and emissions etc, won't really help in decades to come – – – so live life to the full, drink good wine, enjoy great food, ogle attractive women and live like there's no tomorrow, because for much of the planet there probably won't be!!!!

Oh yes they could, and that's about the same level of building expertise that they will use on this road – – this after a few million baht has been skimmed off to go into various pockets!

A couple of choices I can think of and @pagallim has mentioned one, going north through Kamala and hooking up with the dual carriageway which then heads into Phuket town, and provided the large slips and flooding which were evident yesterday at Kamala have been cleared, then that will probably be the "safest" route, although a little longer. Otherwise go south to Chalong circle and take the road which heads back into Phuket town and takes you directly past Bangkok International Hospital, as there was only one large flood which was holding traffic up from Chalong north. Allow 45 to 60 mins to be on the safe side.

I don't think that's the case TR, as the bottom of that hill is many kilometres away from any beach! And as I was searching frantically for a way around the melee yesterday, I tried every which way but loose, with little back roads and dirt roads, to try and find a way back into Patong, but to no avail and I've posted about it elsewhere.

That reminds me of a joke: – "a large hole has appeared in the road on Patong Hill and workmen are said to be looking into it" (look closely at the pic).

I was in the queue of traffic snaking back from this event into Patong along with a friend, so we decided to turn round and go south, in an effort to get to Wine Pro at/about Chalong! It all turned to custard from thereon in because traffic again came to a standstill at the Chalong underpass roundabout where it was backed up, so we took another road in an effort to get somewhere near our destination and that quickly backed up as the road was flooded – – and how, with people wading almost up to their waist at one point. The police had blocked that off and directed us through a back road, and we had no idea where it would come out but we had no option but to follow it, and after struggling through some very narrow and partly flooded back roads we came out to Chao Fah Road, only a few kilometres from the Wine Pro store, which was fortuitous to say the least. However that was not the last of our problems as after stopping off at Starbucks at Central, we headed back into Patong, having no idea that the road had collapsed, but we were stopped from turning onto the road at the traffic lights at Kathu, so despite the traffic being nose to tail for many kilometres we headed up into Kathu in order to find the back road past the BI School and out onto the airport road. As luck would have it we found a shortcut and ended up just south of the heroine's monument, so then headed south trying to find a way back into Patong via Kamala, but floods abounded and traffic backed up for many kilometres again, only to find that there had been a couple of big landslides in Kamala and huge boulders about the size of trucks had cascaded down with the mud and onto the road, thereby stopping traffic from passing. Eventually we did get past that only to come across a huge flood near the Phuket Fantasea theme Park which we successfully navigated after about 35 minutes in nose to tail traffic, and with the little Suzuki Swift gingerly being steered to the shallowest parts of the water and luckily it didn't come to a standstill. Eventually we got back into Patong at almost exactly 5 hours after starting off our journey for a few bottles of wine – – but at least we got them in the end! Torrential rain, huge floods, nose to tail traffic, landslips and many roads blocked made for an interesting afternoon. As I said, the little Suzuki managed it well, and I enjoyed a few glasses of wine last night, knowing full well that I had managed to stock up my wine fridge, and that I wouldn't be using the Patong hill route for quite some time to come. As a footnote, the torrential rain that we had was unusual in the amount which fell, however the whole flooding and landslides situation was not helped by the poor planning, poor workmanship and lack of "working" infrastructure in and around Patong and Phuket, and sadly this has been the case for many years and has not improved.

I'm just getting used to the second-hand Apple iPhone SE which I bought a couple of years ago (although I think it is a 2015 model) and people keep saying that I should get LINE, however I don't think this model has the capabilities to make it work if I read your post correctly??? However I'm not unduly worried because this thing has a mind of its own and one incorrect touch on the screen can send me anywhere into the bowels of it, without really knowing where I am, so I'm thinking of switching back to my old Nokia flip phone, which has served me well for years and is a delightful little tool. That is apart from the camera which is very poor indeed, but then again I've never really needed it. I only ever use it for its telephone and messages and nothing else, so the Nokia fits the bill..........and no bloatware!!!!!