xylophone

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

I thought I saw a movie called "Prisoner's Daughter", starring Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale mentioned on here, but couldn't find it again. However I did download it and watch it and thought it was pretty good, so stayed with it until the end and was pleased that I did. On another note, on the BBC iPlayer I watched the movie, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" because I had never seen the movie, although I did go to a theatre in Auckland to see a live performance, and although I never took to it, it had a cult following whereby the audience (often the same one over and over again) would show up wearing costumes pertinent to the show and I believe it was the same in the UK? Anyway not my style so didn't watch it to the end; it was written by Richard O'Brien and starred Tim Curry, so it was very appropriate that they were appearing in a movie about Transylvanian transsexuals, when they both identified as exactly that a little later on.......transexuals, not Transylvanian!

I might have to get onto that as I worked on several platforms in the North Sea and Norway, both production and construction, the latter being very, very dangerous despite all of the so-called "safety measures".

I clicked on another link and saw a photograph of him and his girlfriend, and looking at his body made me feel sick – – not with envy but wondering why on earth someone would want to do that to their body, and indeed just how did they do it? He looked totally unnatural and paid the price for being so.

Well, I'll give you a clue........they used to serve some pretty reasonable croque monsieur eats and also a cheese and ham croissant, both of which I liked to put pepper upon, as is my wont. But as I said in my previous post, my last few visits I have found the food very poor, and dominated by the sweet, sticky, carbohydrate stuff........and for your information, I do not put pepper on those!! I don't know what the hell you're raving on about in the rest of your post, as I never mentioned expense, or the students and youths who need their wages. So I have nothing to "get over", just voicing my opinion as I believe that's what these threads are for. Get a life.

There's always something new to learn, and I have just seen that Vonoprazan is a fairly new drug to help with reflux, one that I'd never heard of before. I suffered from reflux for a few years until it got to the Barretts oesophagus stage, which my doctor was very worried about, so he did put me on omeprazole 40 mg twice a day and that did the trick, as well as getting some sleep aid with a low strength sleeping tablet for a short while. Mainly though the secret to my success was getting out of the rat race and moving here, because stress was a major concern for me. Nexium was launched as a "successor" to omeprazole and it was very expensive at the time, and there were concerns because whereas omeprazole was the standard treatment, the manufacturers of Nexium basically added another molecule to omeprazole, so it became esomeprazole – – and there were suggestions that this slight change didn't make much difference?? So to the OP, try doubling the omeprazole dose in the morning and/or take the 20 mg twice a day, and as my doctor informed me, I could go up to 40 mg twice a day, which I did. Also, lansoprazole sometimes seemed to work better for some folks than others, so that may be worth a try and it is the main ingredient in Prevacid, which can be easily obtained here. I don't need to take it any more, and I did find a natural "cure" which really seemed to help, namely, "d-limonene" and actually cleared up my Barretts oesophagus according to my NZ doctor when he did a gastroscopy on my last visit. Good luck dealing with this awful affliction, and there is some good information on this thread.

Jeez, that's cheap scuba; I recently paid nearly 2000 baht to have that very same thing done at Bangkok Phuket hospital and it was all over and done with in less than 10 minutes.

I'm sure that I read somewhere, that clothes like this are sprayed with formaldehyde (??) and/or a sort of permethrin to kill lice and bugs.

Whatever the condition of Biden's brain, and folks of that age do suffer from forgetfulness, it would be in far better shape than trumps ever has been, or ever will be for that matter (if he ever had one). I can only hope that the previous POTUS carries on with his diet, so that all of the discussions about who will be nominated or win the next election, will be pointless.

I am not a regular coffee drinker, in fact I might have one cup of coffee per month, if that, however Starbucks where I am was a regular meeting place to catch up with friends over a cup of tea and something to eat. Then of course Covid came along and everything changed, and my usual Starbucks in Patong closed down, and only recently opened again, so I caught up with a couple of friends there and I've got to say that the service and the quality of the food has gone downhill quite markedly – – in fact the majority of the food consists of high sugar carbohydrate crap and not what I need to keep my waistline in trim! As such they have lost a regular customer or three, and don't ask me to comment on the coffee because I rarely drink it and am no expert on the subject. As an afterthought, the senior management need to train the staff, in as much as when a couple of my local Starbucks stores ran out of pepper before Covid, I asked when they would have it back in, and I got blank stares, and then three years later I go into one of the shops I had previously visited and they still didn't have any?? Something stinks in the management of those shops and it's not the food, well not all anyway!

So, being demolished as a bar complex...............and reopening as a bar complex!! Sounds very Thai LL.

All in good fun LL, and on the subject of Tiger, any news on the grapevine of what's going to happen to it??

Your post misses the point I was trying to make in my other post, inasmuch as I have known three of these girls for many years, a couple of them for over 10 years, and one of them is married to a friend of mine, so to be able to catch up with them was a pleasure – – and I always know what I am up for when buying drinks, and it is of no consequence to me as to the cost of such. Fortunately the horribly tattooed and muscular pole dancer wasn't there at the time, and even if she had been, because I didn't know the woman, I wouldn't have bought her a drink! Anyway LL, everyone to their own...........

You make a good point and on more than one occasion I've been waiting at traffic lights on my scooter, complete with helmet and licence, and I have seen a police guy on a motorbike sitting next to a couple of Thais who have pulled up beside him, neither of them wearing crash helmets and he has done nothing – – I say more than one occasion but I could say I've seen this around 10 times or more. I have been tempted to tap the policeman on the shoulder and point to the guys, but thought better of it because who knows what their small minds are thinking and what might happen to me. There is no way whatsoever that the BIB will uphold active law enforcement and patrolling, because they are lazy, poorly trained and unsupervised.

I think that's putting it a bit mildly, and if the other folks who support Biden are of a like mind to me, then the only fear we've got is letting a dumb, egotistical, lying, cheating scum bag (trump) become president again – – and that's a rational fear!

Interesting comment about getting fleeced LL, and it happens all too easily if you're not careful. However last night I went out to eat (more about that later) and after I and my friends had finished they decided to go home so I took a wander up Bangla and much to my surprise it was crowded (again). I should have suspected this because the beach road was full of traffic from end to end, but of course that could have been because of the roadworks in the other Soi. I noticed a lot of folks in Bangla of Arabic and Indian descent, and Kangaroo Bar was full, whereas the last time I was out it was about half empty, and the same went for a couple of the other music bars which were also half empty, but the New York Bar was full and fairly humming, and my old favourite, Red Hot was only about half full and the band didn't appeal one iota, a lot different to the second band that usually comes on. I was considering heading home after eating at Blue Beach with two friends, which I didn't enjoy very much because the music was far too loud and we went there to catch up, but we couldn't hear each other across the table and the band was belting out the music, which made it virtually impossible to hear each other, which spoiled the evening for me. When I go out to eat and I have done so thousands of times in my life, I like to go with friends, have a chat, eat good food and drink good wine, have the occasional discussion and laugh, and then all is well with me and the world. But what I don't like is to have music blaring out which drowns out any hope of conversation and really doesn't have a place, IMO, in a restaurant – – if I wanted to hear music that loud I would go to a rock concert or similar. I enquired as to the days when this particular small band was on again and will make sure that I don't visit my favourite restaurant on those days. Sorted. Now back to my comment about getting fleeced.......I was considering going home after my dinner, but decided to wander over to the new Smiley Bar, mainly because I know a couple of the girls there and have known them for years, so I thought a chat would be in order with perhaps a nightcap drink. I wasn't considering buying them a drink, but as we got chatting away (and their English was good) and we had a few laughs, I bought a couple of rounds of drinks for the four of them and actually enjoyed the almost 1 hour I spent at the bar with them, so I didn't begrudge the drinks and I didn't consider myself being fleeced because I was willing to buy them drinks and they didn't ask for one. After that I trotted off home and had a decent night's sleep for once.