xylophone

I wasn't sure whether to update this thread or not, however here goes and there are two parts to it: – 1). I had the calcium heart score done at Bangkok Phuket Hospital and it only took about five minutes under the CAT scan, a short wait to see the heart specialist and that was it. My score was 40, which for my age (76) is pretty good, and the doctor wasn't worried at all, and therefore nor was I. So I will get on with living my life and keep including the red wine with my dinner every day. 2). Unfortunately I have just received news that my friend who was airlifted back to his country is still in hospital and not doing well at all. In fact it appears that the specialist and doctor at the hospital he is in have decided to cease treatment, as well as stop providing food and water (not that he could eat or swallow whole food anyway), thereby following the "nil by mouth" path that will signal the end for him I believe. So sad, but having said that, he was 89 years old and he had lived a varied and globetrotting life, which he loved. Farewell old friend and when your passing occurs, my thoughts will go with you.

"Mr Trump's victory was a broad one as well. He won the young and old, men and women. He also won over the evangelical and hard-right conservative voters he had difficulty winning in 2016". So they vote for the orange clown after all this....unbelievable:- He is a proven multiple liar, a narcissist, has cheated on his wives and once while one of them was in hospital giving birth, had sex with strippers and hookers and paid for the privilege, has defrauded banks and the everyday working American man, has been found guilty of stealing from a charity and sexually assaulting a woman in a department store............and the list goes on! I guess the evangelical far right really don't give a toss about their religion. Religious beliefs, good grief! What a farce. And this has to be "redneck speak".................“I truly believe that God has placed each and every one of us here at this moment, for this moment to save this country,” Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake told Trump supporters in Fort Dodge"

I also watched "Napoleon" the other night and I thought it was very good, although it did skip certain sections of Napoleon's life, for example what happened to his second "child" wife and a few other aspects of his life/reign. All the same, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone else who fancies watching it. Of course it is directed by Ridley Scott, so that should make a few avid movie watchers take note.

I had downloaded a movie called, "Leave The world Behind" a while back and finally decided to watch it. Although there were some minor twists and turns in it, just enough to keep me interested, the ending was, IMO, pathetic! Have still not understood the ending and even going online to one of those websites which explains the endings of various movies, I got no satisfaction.

This is like explaining colors to a blind man. I'm afraid you are wasting your time here, because remember that Trump likes his supporters to be of a particular level as regards intelligence, so you're probably dealing with someone of that ilk. Furthermore there is an old saying which goes something like, "never argue with idiots because they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". Having said that, I do admire your persistence in trying to "educate" trump supporters, but as you have seen, it is an exercise in futility.

Wouldn't that be wonderful.......getting his just desserts!

And that takes a lot of hard work – – yeah right! He would have to be a completely dumb and utter loser to do that – – oh, wait a minute, he is!

He was hoping to pick a winner!!

It's well known that he is a compulsive liar, and I saw another headline which I can't locate at the moment regarding Trump having to pay the New York Times legal fees of $400,000 in a case their reporters published in 2018 about his wealth and tax practices, which were "shady" to say the least. The Times’ story said that Donald Trump and his father avoided gift and inheritance taxes by methods including setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities. And Trump and the GOP supporters have the nerve to label Biden and his family, "the Biden crime family", but the difference is that Biden hasn't been convicted of anything yet! I'm hoping that the orange clown will be fined a lot more for his lies and dishonest dealings.

Sorry Stoner.......still none the wiser!!

Thank you for your kind words, and I have to say that I'm getting a bit like you these days with regards to nights out in Patong; from almost every night of the week when I first arrived here more than 17 years ago, to now perhaps once a week, and then mainly to catch up with a friend or two and have a bite to eat, with a couple of bars visited after that, and my days of singing at Red Hot are just about over because the band has changed quite markedly and I don't seem to have the same rapport with the new members. If it comes to going out to Bangla versus a night in watching a good movie after eating something I've cooked, accompanied with a nice red wine, I choose the second option almost every time now! Never being a Weed smoker, apart from couple of tries in my teens, I've no idea what that comment means???

As some others have said, once you've got a termite problem, you are pretty well stuffed (mostly) and even if your house is not a wooden one! A friend of mine in Australia, on the Gold Coast, had a very lovely large house built on top of the land he had purchased and he and his wife and children lived there quite happily for a while, many years in fact, until he noticed that his automatic garage door (metal) was ceasing to close properly, and on close inspection he noticed that one of the wooden supports for it showed signs of infestation. So he got the local pest control around who did a search on the house and found out something quite alarming – – not only had termites infested the wooden supports in the garage, they had managed to find their way inside a couple of wardrobes, and also in the dining room, eating away the wooden sills by the windows. He was amazed at this because the house was built on a concrete floor, but the pest controller explained what had happened. There had been a crack in the concrete floor after it was laid and not only that, the foundations (that concrete) had been built on an area that was cleared and which had very large tree roots still embedded in it. He reasoned that there had been a nest in that cleared area and the termites had found their way through the cracks in the concrete, and in some cases around the outside of the house. The pest control guy carried out a lot of work on the inside of the house and on the outside, as well as laying a network of pipes along the outside of the house (underground and covered and only accessible for inspection) into which the poisoning solution was introduced and often topped up. A building inspection some years later found the home to be free of termites, so my friend was able to sell it successfully, but he did disclose (I think he had to by law) that the house had been treated for termites. They are absolute buggers to get rid of, so I wish you all the very best in your endeavours.

Not exactly what the OP was requiring, and I also looked at an under the sink water purifier, but there isn't enough room in my small apartment to facilitate installation. So I settled for a little unit which sits next to the sink and connects up to the tap, and from which one can get filtered water or the normal water supply. I have been very happy with it so far and haven't died, and it has removed some of the smell I often got with town water, and another bonus is that it doesn't need any electrical supply, but the filter should be changed about every 10 to 12 months. I bought it from Power Buy and have been very happy with it so far, so here is a link for your perusal if you should wish to do so. https://mazuma.co.th/en/product/toray-water-purifier-sw9-8000e/

BBQed gecko for dinner!!

I went out to Bangla for the first time in over two weeks to catch up with a friend and have something to eat and thought we could meet and eat at Blue Beach Café and Restaurant, one of my usual haunts, mainly because I know many of the girls that work there and not only are they extremely good at their job, one can have a reasonable conversation with them, provided they are not rushed off their feet – – which they were last night because the place became almost full gone 9 PM! On the way to Blue Beach the traffic was busy and backed up a way, but nowhere near what it had been just a few weeks back, which was pleasing. Bangla itself was probably a little less busy than it has been in past years for this time of the year, but there was the usual mix of races/peoples, and as I have said before, attendance at bars was a little sporadic, some good, some not, with the perennial non-performer, Soi Freedom, being just about dead past the first few bars, and I feel sorry for the girls (and boys) in those bars. Having said this we did stop and have a drink with the manager at Smiley Bar, although the grinding/throbbing ear-shattering music?? drove us away. So we found a little bar just inside the entrance to Soi Sea Dragon, which had a small air-conditioned room in which one could sit and drink if one wanted (no dancing girls included) however we chose to sit outside and it was a good move because the Soi music was not too loud and it was a good viewing point to watch the world go by, and as a bonus we knew one of the girls who was working in Sea Dragon from some 10 years back. Around and about: – opposite a little massage shop in Soi Banzaan, the previous bar and guesthouse with about 4 to 6 rooms and it has been bought by Russians, and I think I mentioned this before, but now they have the clientele and they are mainly youngish men, and I've seen them parking their bikes outside and opposite, so I would imagine the owners are quite pleased to have the custom. On a similar vein the Greek restaurant just inside of Soi Nanai six has been sold to Russians, however I'm not sure how the dish of beetroot soup will fit into the Greek menu!? It had been going okay earlier on, but had been quiet for a while, so I guess the owner thought it was time to sell up, and found some willing buyers in the Russians, who do seem to be buying up small businesses, and if the posts on the forum here are correct then they are also buying up expensive properties, but there again I doubt that all Russians coming here are millionaires/billionaires and quite how those who buy the smaller businesses like the one above, are hoping to make it through the low season will be interesting to see. The lady manager of a massage shop that I know was bemoaning the fact that there were too many massage shops in Nanai/Patong, meaning less business for her shop, and I recall going past a shop in Rat-U-Thid Road which would have had around 15 girls, perhaps more (couldn't count them all as I drove past on my motorbike) standing outside touting for business. The situation as regards punters in bars in Nanai hasn't changed much since my last couple of posts, with a few deadbeats waiting outside the bars for them to open at 10:30 AM in the morning and in the bars experiencing just one or two punters in the early evening, when they should be doing much better trade. A friend I know who owns a large bar with a restaurant facility here, whom I bumped into about a week ago, was disappointed with the lack of customers, or should I say "fall off" as regards customer numbers, and he blamed the advent of far too many Weed shops opening up here, and I think he meant that folks were quite keen to go along to the weed shops, have a drink and a smoke and sit there in their own little world rather than go to a bar – – not sure that I can follow the rationale, but he seems to think that is the case. Having said that there are far too many Weed shops opening up and I wonder what's going to happen now that the government is considering making this particular pastime illegal?? If they do, it will be one helluva shock and surprise to the folks who have set up businesses around this pastime, not to mention the monetary impact for them. One last thing, sitting with a couple of friends last night and we were reminiscing about when we first came here and for me it was in 2004, before the tsunami, and I remember meeting a few guys from the UK and Oz, and having a great time cavorting around the place, and they, like me, believed what others had said, in as much as, "this place is paradise/we are living the dream/fantasyland" and so on. We thought it true! Now many years on and sitting outside of the bar last night we were commenting on how "the thrill had gone" and now it was just another place to visit before getting back to the real world – – however there is something which we agreed on, that when we got back to Blighty or NZ/Oz and stayed there for a few weeks (the real world), we couldn't wait to get back to Patong! PS. Forgot to mention that at the far south end of Nanai there is a new restaurant, which replaced the previous restaurant/bar, which replaced the previous bar/massage shop, and it is called Le Bistrot and I do believe it was formerly in one of the roads leading down to the beach just past the strange little roundabout, which nobody knows how to use. I do believe it had a good reputation back then.

Fortunately, IMO, if the ruling of the the International Court of Justice supports genocide and rules against them, Israel can tell them to poke it where the sun doesn't shine and carry on regardless – – Hamas needs to be eliminated, in whatever way is possible.

IMO it would be foolish for Israel to stop now, but there is another consideration here – – for years Hamas has been building shelters, tunnels and storage facilities for explosives and weapons in Gaza, and I would bet good money on the fact that many Palestinians were complicit in this. If this is so, where does it leave Israel; actually on a hiding to nothing if they do not continue to try and wipe out Hamas. Referring to the above, the problem is still that many Palestinians are complicit/supporters of Hamas and that will never change unfortunately, and as Hamas has clearly stated its objectives..... -The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia), -The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective, -The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and -The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories. Then that leaves Israel with very few options and I still cannot understand why Blinken is still proposing a two state solution, mainly because Hamas and many Palestinians do not want Israel is anywhere near them, so the hostilities will continue, even with a supposed "two state solution". The sad thing about it is that until Hamas is completely destroyed, and even then remnants will remain amongst the Palestinians, ready to go again, the situation will not be resolved.....so where to now. In light of this, it's not surprising that some far right Israeli ministers are quietly "seemingly condoning genocide". As I have posted earlier, one solution would be the complete and utter destruction of Gaza and of Hamas, and possibly moving the Palestinians out so that Hamas can no longer infiltrate and work to destroy Israel. In a nutshell, what other option does Israel have?

I forgot to mention that whilst perusing the offers available on BBC iPlayer, I came across a movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which was made around 3 years ago, called, "The Courier" and I'm not altogether sure that I had seen it before because some aspects of it rang true, however I watched it (again?) and found it to be very enjoyable as it centred around the stand-off between Russia and the USA with regards to the Cuban missile crisis. Based on a true story.

I searched for it and found it on 1337x but the ones featured there were the HD TS versions which are usually poor quality, and the only other ones were the 265 versions which are usually far too big for me to download, and anyway my TV doesn't accept them?? What to do – – possibly wait until I can see a good 264 version, and/or search on another platform?

Thank you for your comments, much appreciated and just a point on the paragraph of yours which I've highlighted, which I totally agree with, is the mindset of some investors/general public with regards to investing. I would have fielded many phone calls from "irate" customers, who were not satisfied with the advice my investment advisers had given them, when the returns on our funds were not performing as well as other funds. Trying to explain about index trackers and the fact that the actively managed funds could outperform ours, but in the long run, index trackers were a good steady bet, gave them a market return and were low in fees, sometimes fell on deaf ears. Their fears were somewhat allayed when we were able to show the 10 year plus returns on our passive funds versus an active equivalent – – however some were always chasing the best returns/funds and the churn wasn't always in their favour.

It would seem as though EFTs could be the answer for you Mike, and as you say are easily traded if markets start to fall, so are a very flexible option. Be careful that you don't fall into the BRICS conundrum, whereby investing in those countries/funds was all the rage before the financial crash, and great things were expected of the returns that could be obtained from investing in these countries/funds, but that was not to be, and a couple of the BRICS funds were closed after the crash. However I have not followed them since and at the moment I know next to stuff all about them because I quit my job as Chief Manager of Investments in 2005 and really haven't kept track of anything to do with investing apart from looking at my own particular very narrow requirements. However you seem to know your stuff, so all the very best to you.

Seems like you've got a good mix there Noob, and I especially like the +20 years expenditure in cash tucked away somewhere, something I am now switching to. I and another Investment Advisor started the Managed Funds division for a major NZ bank, and we used index trackers for all of the funds, because of the low fee structure and market returns. We then designed a brochure called "The ??? Investment Guide" (name of the bank withheld) in which we were able to step would-be investors through a process which eventually determined what sort of investor they were (i.e. their risk profile, age and time horizon, amongst other things) and therefore which type of fund they should invest in. The Investment Guide was vetted by external investment advisory companies, lawyers and the banking ombudsman, before being launched into the market. We started the fund with a $100,000 seed capital and I eventually became its Chief Manager, before leaving in 2005, with the Managed Funds standing at just under $2 billion. It seems like there are many guys on here who are stock pickers and good luck to them, however for people like me (76 years of age) who are not earning an income any more, capital preservation is of prime concern, because if my shares tanked, I'd have nothing to fall back on, whereas I see you are building up your reserves – – wise move Noob. PS. In 2003 we attended a presentation put together by a team of "experts" from a particular US bank and the presentation consisted of the benefits of something called a CDO (Collateralised Debt Obligation) which they were trying to persuade us to add to our product armoury, and the presentation was extremely slick I have to say. I remember saying to my other manager friend that I couldn't quite see how this could all work if a certain percentage of the lower rated bonds failed, and his reply was that he couldn't see how it would work either, and this guy was an absolute whizzkid in finance and mathematics, so we decided not to go with this option. For those more interested in CDOs, check out the brilliant movie, "The Big Short" – – mind blowing, but substantially true.

You do realise that Rezum treats an enlarged prostate......so is that causing your problem??

Being woken up at 3 am and more often on a daily basis is THAT BAD as far as I am concerned and I am certainly not going to take drugs to counter the wailings of 2 wild cats.......paracetamol it will be as it is toxic to those wild, wailing and indiscriminate killers.

All windows closed and aircon on.......the next move is cat food mixed with paracetamol.