xylophone

Thanks for your post @recom273, and I will do a bit of research on that, but I have to say that all of the research I've been doing and the many, many reviews on VPNs (some definitely paid for/sponsored) I have seen, has just about driven me round the bend! I do remember something called Smart DNS Proxy, which I used a few years back, but somehow VPNs have overtaken it. BUT having looked into it again it appears to be all that I want now because I only want to unlock BBC iPlayer and STAN Sport in Australia (to watch the rugby) and that's all I need! Doing a bit more research into that, it appears that it doesn't alter the bandwidth, which some VPNs can do, and indeed a couple I have tried have resulted in messages which say that I "don't have bandwidth to support the program", when my Internet connection here with 3BB is very good, so perhaps the bandwidth is affected on some of them, however not with Smart DNS Proxy. Also thank you for your info regarding Firefox and I will also look into that, so many thanks again for your feedback/information. I will let you know how things go.

Thanks once again for your feedback and information, and in the meantime I remembered that a few years ago I had something called Smart DNS and I can't quite remember how it worked, so I will get onto their website and see what it says. I also believe they do something called Smart VPN, which I will look into because I'm not quite sure if it will fit the bill for me, however you have given me some leads which I will follow up on – – and on that note, how do you find Torguard? And would it be worth me getting in touch with them to see if I could purchase a static IP address??

Many thanks for your reply @gargamonand I really do appreciate you getting back to me on this. I didn't know if anybody would post on it, so I did a bit of research myself and it appears that what you have said is spot on; that sites like the BBC iPlayer will block IP addresses and over many years, I suppose that's what's happened to me. One solution that was suggested via my research was that what might work is to unplug the router for a few minutes and then plug it back in again, so I'll keep that as a standby. In the meantime I will look into how to obtain a fixed IP, so I may have to go to 3BB and beg for one, although I don't mind paying for it if it gives me hasslefree viewing. Once again, many thanks for taking the time to reply.

Me neither, nor my birth mother, although I did look her up when I was around 40, but she disowned me again a bit later on over something very petty on the phone. I was conceived via a randy taxi driver getting his leg over an equally randy 19-year-old and what research I could do on my birth father (this randy taxi driver) I found out that he was a pretty good musician, loved red wine and also the women, so we have some things in common! Just a few months ago I was able to get a photograph of him, and I can't see any of my facial features his photograph – – maybe the wrong taxi driver!!!!!!

I've come back onto this thread because I need some help from folks who know more than I do (which is not difficult) about VPNs. I have posted on the computer thread but have got no response, so I thought I'd give this one a try, so here goes......... I did have Nord VPN for about a year, mostly using it for the BBC iPlayer, however over the past few months it has been "acting up", in as much as I can get through to the BBC website, but when I tried to watch a few things, I get the message, "this content is not available in your region" or words to that effect, and despite the fact I play around with the region location on the app, it still doesn't work, and maybe it will work one time out of five, and then only for a short period of time. I did change to Express VPN, however that added to the problems in as much as the program I was watching would buffer and freeze, and the notation, "you do not have enough bandwidth to view this program" would appear, strange because I've never had that happen before, and I'm still with the same Internet provider (3BB)? I have asked for a refund from Express VPN and they have agreed to provide me with one, however with Nord I've got about a year to run, so I can leave that in the background for other things, because I can't get a rebate now. Last night I tried CyberGhost in order to watch the programme, "The Sixth Commandment" and that worked okay, so I'll give that a trial run. Having said all of that, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might overcome the problems I've been getting, and yes I have cleared the DNS cache and am not running any other large programs simultaneously, and I've cleaned just about everything I can on my computer – – so why am I getting these problems when they never happened in the past?? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Doubtful for me too, but then again this is Patong and nothing surprises me any more, and to follow along on that line, a couple of recent events come to mind. It has been noted that bars and small businesses have been opening and closing with regular monotony, and one would think that the price of these places would reflect a "difficult climate/business environment", but not so: – A girl I know of has opened a small motorbike rental shop in Nanai, and previous to this it had several incarnations, none of them successful, because of its positioning mostly. However this lady is paying 30,000 baht per month rental for a shop which can't accommodate more than two or three motorbikes on the raised exterior/frontage of the place, and even if she could put them inside the shop, which doesn't lend its frontage to this, they wouldn't be on display! Furthermore, a very small massage shop, close to my Soi, in a small row of similar sized shops, one of which has recently closed due to lack of business, is up for sale at the eye watering price of 400,000 baht!! This when it would have had no more than a handful of customers (if that) over the past few months! There is absolutely no way that this place could turn a profit, however the lady owner who is overseas at the moment, seems to think that she will get 400,000 baht for this small, cramped, out of the way, non-performing business........but then again TIT, and probably more significant, this is Patong, where anything can happen. Lala land and some.

The topic heading is, "everyone knows Biden is a figurehead president", using the old playground taunt similar to, "everybody hates you". Pretty pathetic when you think about it. As for the statement here that "Trump supporters are all mentally ill", I will add to that statement that it should include the GOP in general, and a perfect example would be MTG and her "Jewish space lasers" remark. Furthermore, a great percentage of them believe the last election was stolen, despite overwhelming and irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and the great majority of poorly educated/feebleminded Americans who support trump also believe that. They know that he lies, and lies frequently, but they still support him. They know he has a penchant for grabbing puxxy, but they still support him. They know that he has a myriad of failed businesses, but they still believe he is a successful businessman. They have seen that he was unable to deliver on the promises he made when he was POTUS, but they still support him. The list could go on, but it doesn't take much to understand that there is something very wrong with people who support this loser. And here is something to consider: – Rational arguments don't work on trump supporters. If they did there would be no trump supporters! Give me Biden over trump any day of the week because great leaders ensure that they are surrounded by good and educated people so that together they make a strong team. And that's what Biden has done.

"Gone is the Subway Sandwich shop"....... Yes, that is a shame because I liked the Subway sandwiches and very often I would get one and eat it in Starbucks (far better than the rubbish they served there IMO) when I was catching up with friends, although I would buy a Starbucks tea, which was okay. Would be great to see Subway back here again.

I thought I would watch "an oldie but a goodie" last night, so I downloaded, "Independence Day" and enjoyed it, and it's surprising how much I enjoyed it, given that I had seen it a few years back. On top of that, I thought the CGI aspect was still very good, considering the advances that have been made since this movie came out.

I watched a movie that only had a 5.6 rating on IMDb, although I thought I'd give it a try, and was pleased that I did, because although it wasn't a magnificent film it was, IMO, better than the 5.6 rating it had been given. The film was called, "God is a Bullet" and was supposedly inspired by true events, although the ending became a bit of a gorefest, but overall it was very watchable.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon!!! Although I was able to watch NZ rugby yesterday via the Stan Sport channel in Australia by using the Express VPN, it failed quite miserably later on in the evening when I tried to watch a movie on BBC iPlayer. It connected to the iPlayer okay, but when I tried to watch a movie, not only was the picture a bit poor and grainy, it just kept cutting out and a message appeared on screen, "you do not have enough bandwidth to view this, please try again later".... So I did try, many times and the same thing kept happening. I still had my Nord VPN installed, so I fired that up and not only did it get through to BBC iPlayer, but I was able to watch what I wanted to, with a clear picture and no messages!! In the past Nord VPN has been okay for Stan Sport and BBC iPlayer, and although it's a bit slow at times, I think I'll have to go back to it. I've also contacted Express VPN and asked for a rebate. This because my main use for the VPN is looking at BBC iPlayer with the occasional All Black rugby games. One thing that the installation of Express VPN has done is to mess up my computer settings a bit, with various strange things happening, which I'm trying to fix at the moment. In addition, my PC is slow at loading pages, no matter what I do, and even if I clear the cache on Chrome, it doesn't improve it. Has anyone got any suggestions for me please??

I have just uninstalled NORD because it was slowing up my computer and occasionally on BBC iPlayer it would just cut out? I gave Express VPN a try and it was great – – very fast, whereas with Nord, for example, if I wanted to set my location as London, I would have to wait a few minutes for it to actually do that, and then sometimes it wouldn't? I still have some months left on my Nord subscription, if I get in trouble with Express VPN, but from what I've seen today whilst watching the All Blacks rugby, it's great and I'm very happy.

His speech at the recent NATO summit was absolutely excellent and has been lauded by all clear thinking people – – no need to say any more.

I watched a little gem last night from a couple of years back, called, "Last Night in Soho" and it starred the delightful Anna Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie as well as a couple of oldies, namely Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg and it was a good movie with a very unexpected ending.

I was........but weren't they also known as the TR3 & TR5????

As were the old Triumph TR3s and TR5s because of their shape. I had one of each but was not over-enamoured with either of them!

My Surgeon/Dr in NZ gave me some advice when I was having some prostate problems.......seek out the Surgeon/Dr who has performed the most procedures that you are considering getting, because there is no substitute for experience and practice. And he is one of the few doctors/medical practitioners in this world for whom I have the utmost respect. For what it's worth............

I found a movie of which I knew nothing about, called, "The Happy Prince" and it was about the final years of Oscar Wilde's life and starred Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Emily Watson amongst others, and it was good, and although Rupert Everett carried the role very well, he also directed it, but the time and era changes in the film became a little confusing – – but well worth a watch IMO. As a rider to that, it was a little more gritty than the film, "Wilde" which starred Stephen Fry, as it only concentrated on the last few years of Wilde's life.

Thank you for that information on the Urolift procedure because I have a friend who is investigating these procedures, but he was in Canada at the time and couldn't find it there, and there doesn't appear to be anyone in Thailand who does it?? I believe he has settled for the iTind procedure in BNH, however the advertised price of 70,000 baht has increased significantly to over 200,000 baht, so perhaps the lower price was an introductory offer? He is scheduled for the procedure in early August, so I will post the procedure routine and outcome for anyone else who might be considering it.

I'm not an American citizen so I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican, but I do favour the Democrats because the other bunch seem to have a lot of nut jobs in their midst. And I include the recently ousted POTUS in amongst my definition above. However although I believe that Biden is doing a very good job in the US, I do believe it's time for him to realise that is probably too old for the job, and the sight of him traipsing round the Royal Guard with King Charles, looking a bit like an old man who was lost, did him no favours in my opinion. In addition, I've always been in favour of "prompt cards" for people who are presenting to the media or other audiences, as I have used them myself when doing exactly that, but to see that Joe had those in his hands when talking to King Charles, ostensibly as a prompt to know where he was and what to say/ask, was disheartening to say the least. I don't know what kind of POTUS Kamala Harris would make, but the Democrats should be willing to give her a chance, after all that's what she's there for.

I downloaded and watched a movie which didn't have a very high IMDb rating, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. It was called, "Brooklyn 45" and although the movie was set in one room, there were aspects of it which I found intriguing, so I stayed with it until the end. There were some critics who described it as a "horror" type movie, but there was only one gruesome scene and it, and I found the ending a little puzzling, but then was able to look it up online and satisfy my curiosity.

You sound a lot like me although I have been cooking for myself for many decades, before my mother's home cooking killed me (almost serious). Like you, I do like Italian cuisine and often cook Italian dishes and sometimes play around with the recipes to suit my taste. Tonight I will be making a home-made pizza, a small one so that I can watch the waistline, and last night I cooked a Paella which I was a bit concerned about because I hadn't cooked one for 20 odd years, but it turned out fine. Every so often I will cook a beef bourguignon with plenty of red wine and a nice rich source in which to slow cook the beef. I do cook the occasional Thai dish and a Panang curry is tasty and easy to make, similarly with Laab Moo, Pad Krapow and Pad Thai. I used to cook quite a few Indian curries, but it's so easy to pick one up from a takeaway, that's what I do these days as they taste more "Indian" than mine do!

Oops.......sorry about that!!

Well the money was good and it was on the Elf petroleum platform in the Frigg field, offshore Norway and this was in 1976/77. I did get "nuked" because the supposed "intercom" system on the platform which was being built, worked, but only intermittently and I stayed in my little work portacabin looking at some wiring diagrams and wondered why no one else had been around, when a couple of guys came through the door and asked me what I was doing there – – reason being that there was some radioactive testing of the pipe work going on where I was and we were not supposed to be anywhere near it, but I was! Nothing seems to have happened because of it though! I wondered if they had done this because about a week earlier there was one huge explosion on the platform because some pipework exploded when they were doing a pressure test on it! The accommodation was unbelievably bad with four of us in our own bunks in one quarter of a small portacabin, and it was bloody cold, but fortunately we had chosen the metal portacabin which was on a section of the deck under which the exhaust pipe from the standby generator (which actually ran all the time) was fixed, so the floor of our portacabin got quite warm taking the chill of the air. I didn't mind the times in the Sahara desert, Nigeria and the couple of months spent on the Forties Alpha and Bravo platforms, but the Elf petroleum one was a nightmare. Sorry to go off topic, so I hope the mods will forgive me for that.

I see that someone has put a laughing emoji on this post of mine, just as they did with one which described my sometimes dangerous escapades in the Sahara desert, none of which were laughing matters, so whoever you are, get a life