xylophone

A friend of mine has just returned to Patong, so I will be out on Friday and also Saturday because I'm attending winetasting function at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel, although hopefully I don't get carried away with the winetasting – – as is my wont! So there will be some more feedback, and even today I learnt a little bit more about Patong when I was shopping in Jungceylon. I was talking to a girl I knew from way back, because she was now "manning" one of the property booths, and she is a very personable Thai lady with pretty good spoken English, so hopefully she will do well. As we were talking along came the manager, whom I have also known for a few years, and I commented on the fact that a friend of mine had rented here very cheaply and he agreed that the rents were coming down, not only in hotels, but also for apartments and condos in Patong. I also asked if the Russians were still busy buying up in Laguna, and he said that it had died down quite markedly, and one of the reasons was their inability to be able to get money out of Russia, because apparently the Russian government was making it extremely difficult because they didn't want large amounts of money leaving the country at this particular time, either through transfers, companies or credit cards, so it seems like they are serious. All up, it makes it more affordable for the everyday tourist. However, whilst some of the Russians leaving is a bonus, I was very much reminded of the danger posed by the jaywalking Chinese, a couple of whom decided, along with their children, to step out in front of me without looking at all and when I screeched to a halt and tooted at them they turned and smiled.......firking idiots, and this is not the first time I've had this happen (many times in fact) so I wonder which is the lesser of two evils (or as Russell Crowe said in the movie "Master and Commander", the lesser of two weevils)?

It's not all bad news because a friend of mine has just rented a room in a small hotel in Patong at a cost of 300 baht per night, which is the cheapest I've ever heard of here. Also on Facebook there appear to be some apartments and condos for rent around the 12 to 15,000 baht per month region, so all is not lost!

I never said you were........but you've given the game away!!!!

Well trump has a strong lineage to live up to, and is so far doing it well......!!

All in the name of god, of course...........a cult for pedophiles and perverts, no more, no less.

To coin an old phrase, "they walk among us".

Of course I could, but I thought I would keep it simple for trump supporters, in language they could understand.

I downloaded John Wick 4, but couldn't follow it as I hadn't really closely followed the previous ones, and furthermore it became a stupid movie with lots of gunfire and swords, not to mention bows and arrows, with scores of people being killed, and again landed in the realms of the "stupid movies" IMO, so turned it off after about 15 minutes. I then started to watch a movie I had recently downloaded called, "Margin Call" and that was more to my liking, even though it wasn't a patch on one of my favourites, "The Big Short", but it did pass the evening away. Just a few days ago I decided to download the original "Mad Max" movie because I hadn't seen it, only the sequels, and I thought I was in for a treat, but it was a low-budget, badly acted pointless movie, IMO.

If you want to go down that route, then just about anyone from the Dems could say that they feel threatened when they hear MTG ranting and raving as indeed she does. And I don't believe I saw Bowman ranting and raving, or indeed doing anything like it! Touché.

Ah, but I don't think that is in their job description!!

True enough, but with his timing and tackling technique he was always going to be susceptible to injuries.

I have just watch this and what started out to be relatively believable, then turned into something which was totally unbelievable and Tarantino-esque in nature, with a bit of Rambo and some other totally unbelievable movies thrown in, which IMO spoiled the movie, or at least what it could have been.

My sincere thanks to both @HighPriority and @Patong2for the kind words/feedback and I particularly liked this "You make interesting observations and have a gift with language xylophone" – – trying to pat myself on the back. And I also remember praise from Patong2 a while back which was heartening. Maybe I'll try and broaden my scope a little and not base my posts around my nights out on Bangla, so I will give that some thought, as I do enjoy the threads I have to say. To answer a couple of questions from @Patong2.....I have no idea what is happening to Chang Residence, because as you probably saw, the ceiling in the "recreation/bar" area has completely collapsed and it looks like a bomb has hit it, when in fact it is probably because the roof has leaked so much, letting water in and the whole ceiling throughout has been devastated. I haven't seen any movement or lights on in the actual hotel part of the buildings, and I can only surmise that the owners have been going through some financial difficulties. Your point about La Drinkeria is well-made and although I thought it was quite neat and tidy/well laid out, I always suspected that they would struggle for custom, being where they were, and that turned out to be the case. So pleased that you liked the Greek restaurant Santorini and I must get back in there in the next few days. I sincerely hope that your "problems walking" are not too serious, however if you have to drive, then I can recommend the small restaurant called "Sea Salt" which is part of the "Diamond Cliff" hotel resort and you can be assured of a good welcome and great food. A while back I did mention a new Italian restaurant just next to where "Salute" was, just off Bangla, and it's called, "Anema e Core" and I've eaten there, and it is very good and not expensive and very much on a par with Salute. If you have a problem walking, then it is possible to drive into the Patong Beach resort hotel from the main road, park the car and amble on down to where the Soi containing that restaurant actually joins, so it's quite a short walk if you can make it. Ah, and you bring back good memories of the likes of Soi Crocodile and Two Black Sheep, which I nearly bought a share of at one time, but luckily sanity prevailed! And your mention of the Irish Times in Jungceylon, actually reminded me that there is a small band, led by the lead guitarist from a band way back in Soi Freedom, at Molly Malones, which is supposedly good and also invites people up to sing, so it might be right up my alley as the saying goes! So, once again thanks to both @HighPriority and @Patong2 for their kind words and support.

I too owned many British made cars and as was the norm in those days, they would suffer from many mechanical complaints, but we would always get them fixed. And I disagree with your comment about the Japanese car industry and mainly Toyota killing the British motor industry, because the British motor industry actually killed itself by not changing. The Japanese were producing quality cars which easily competed, and beat, those built in the UK, and the reason being was a man called Dr Edwards Deming. He was an American sent to Japan after the Second World War to oversee the "reconstruction" of it and he homed in on the car industry and built on something which the Japanese already had started, called "quality circles", whereby, for example, a group of people who would install the engines would meet on a regular basis and discuss the problems they were having, and present solutions to upper management who were prepared to implement them. They did this on every aspect of the car manufacture and assembly and therefore produced very reliable cars, something which the British motor industry was not particularly famous for. The reason for this was that managers and those in charge of them were the people that made their decisions, and their decisions could not be questioned, so nothing was done about poor quality. And here is a little anecdote about quality: – Rank Xerox UK sold photocopiers, and had them imported from Japan, but then decided that they would produce their own and a factory was set up in Wales to do just this, and I got a chance to visit and inspect it. So I was intrigued why it was closed down after a few years and there was a reason – – the main production and assembly line was still producing "dud" photocopiers at the end of the assembly line when they were being tested. So another assembly line was made and these machines were put back on to that particular assembly line and would go through the motions again, and if at the end of it the machine wasn't functioning properly, back it went. The Quality Circles doctrin had not been taken on board............. So the idea of quality circles a la British industry really hadn't taken hold then. So the machines were once again imported from Japan. The British motor car industry was rife with union problems, management problems and the inability to recognise where they had made mistakes, and indeed to even rectify them.

The only "extreme world view" that is evident here is the fact that MTG is a complete and utter nut job and you only have to listen to her to understand this, but then again Magas with their own view on the world fit nicely into hers.

I like your reply, and it may well be a fruitless task trying to discuss things with this poster, because when I suggested in another post that Magas believe in and are driven by trump's lies, his response was.......... "What lies?". I rest my case.

Not sure that I have ever seen minocycline here although minocin seemed to be available a while ago, but was mainly used for acne treatment. I found this when looking on the Internet, but you appear to have tried some of these, so this might not be of interest to you: – What is the fastest way to cure mycoplasma? Antibiotics such as erythromycin, clarithromycin or azithromycin are effective treatment. However, because mycoplasma infection usually resolves on its own, antibiotic treatment of mild symptoms is not always necessary. If all else fails you could order them online from an Indian pharmacy, which I have done just recently and here is the link, they do sell minocycline (as Cynomycin), and you won't need a prescription (or at least I never have when ordering from them) but you will need to research what dosage you will need to treat your condition. https://www.shreemedical.com/search.php

Following on from my previous posts, I found this on another thread which I had posted a while ago and it encapsulates what has been said here.......... On the subject of restaurants, and one which I have mentioned before, because it closed, the Italian restaurant which was known as, "The Loft Italian Restaurant" (on Nanai) has seen some building activity in the place, and a bar/restaurant would be a good bet – – time will tell. This is just another small business in the myriad of small businesses in Patong, which has seen its fortunes rise and fall with the tourists and the seasons, and looking back on this particular aspect of Patong, it has been an ongoing occurrence over many years – – one business closes and another one takes its place, and so on. All too often, the business that replaces the failed business, follows the same pattern of lack of planning and lack of business nous, so is doomed to follow the path of the previous one. Someone is making money out of it, and it's not the folks opening the new small businesses! A few of the smaller bars on Nanai are showing signs of a decrease in patronage, even though one in particular has had two or three hopefuls in "wifebeater T-shirts" waiting for it to open at around 11.00 AM in the morning. This is not a one-off though, and I often wonder why people will travel thousands of kilometres from their home to come to a place where they sit on a bar stool all day??

It's been almost a month since my last post on this thread, and it may well be my last, mainly because my posts are becoming very repetitive, which is not surprising given that Patong is up and running again with the usual Bangla shenanigans and bars closing and opening and closing and opening, the same as many small shops/businesses here – – you get the picture. Now that Jungceylon is becoming fully operational, despite the fact that the food and service at Starbucks is abysmal, and the stock of wine at Wine Connection is vastly reduced from that previously, there is not much else to write about! I have visited the food section at Central Patong a few times of late and have partaken of the ready cooked meals to take away and found them to be very good, so that will be another hunting ground, and will save me cooking my own dinner. Unfortunately "La Drinkeria" which was a very hopeful attempt at a nice restaurant/bar, closed a while ago and looks like it's being gutted now, but it would always struggle because there is no foot traffic and not much in the way of parking spaces. OTOP is still suffering from far too many bars and far too few customers, and that also applies to massage parlours/shops, and what hasn't changed much is the amount of beer-bellied, wifebeater T-shirt farangs marauding around the place, and just last night I witnessed a sweaty, old, ugly, fat Aussie trying to chat up (more like molest) a couple of Thai girls in a restaurant I was dining at – – he was an absolute animal in the way he was pawing those poor girls. So Patong carries on like it used to, just being Patong, so I'm not sure that the title of "Patong – the Wake" is relevant anymore, so the thread will see even less of my comments, especially in light of the fact that last night when I was out, I didn't enjoy it like I used to, and trundling home at about 1 pm in the morning with a bladder full of alcohol which I can't get rid of (medical problem) is no fun anymore. Whereas at one time I was out in Bangla almost every night in younger years, just recently that dropped to about twice a week, and as of the past month, just about once per month, which I think will suit me now.

I hope this is true, especially for a recently ousted US President!!

I think you've confused the difference between being a Patriot and a Dumbo who believes the myriad of lies which have been propagated by trump.

"the allure of owning your own business sometimes cloud the cool heads and judgments". If indeed there was ever a "cool head and judgement" in the first place and I can give you a couple of prime examples.......... An ex-girlfriend of mine, who was university educated with a minor degree in accounting, was working at a small hotel here, until it was demolished for redevelopment by the landowner. We split up and as part of the deal I bought her a small laundry business which was going well but she couldn't manage, especially in the art of delegation, so she was doing all of the work and looked quite unwell through overwork. As far as management goes, she had no management or delegation skills and sold the place. She later told me that she was going to open up a little restaurant/food shop near the "tourist elephant camp" even though very few farangs actually came through the place, but that didn't deter her and after paying good money to set up the equipment etc, it made no money at all, so she walked away from it, going to France to work for three years to save some money. She is now back in Bang Rakam and told me she was going to open a little shop, so I asked her what the foot traffic was like (or indeed any traffic) and she didn't have a clue. However she opened it up with the money she had saved and now it is doing absolutely nothing. It is lucky for her that I have vowed to take care of her daughter from the time we split up until now when she is a 22 year old completing her last year of a teaching qualification at university. So in summary there is an intelligent (supposedly) and fairly well-educated Thai woman who hasn't got a clue about business but who was adamant she wanted to own her own business and failed at it three times. I have two other stories like this, but this one has already gone on too long, however it is not only the Thais who get taken in by the "want to be a business owner/boss" as it happened to 2 farang friends of mine who opened a bar which became very popular, and they were offered 12 million baht for it some 10 years ago but said it was worth a lot more – – that is until business started falling off and then the landlord decided to close it and make something different out of it, so they walked away with basically nothing. The dream was gone.

Good to hear from you again, Merijn.????

Where on earth would they let such a nut job as MTG hold such a position in government. BUT, having said that it really goes to show that the GOP is a party of MAGA loonies and are desperately searching for something to cling onto in order to besmirch the Democrats and Biden – – sad for a country which was once held in high esteem.

I bought some Tart Cherry capsules when I thought I had gout, but not really sure if it was or not, as have had quite a few inflammatory episodes after decades of playing football and tennis. HOWEVER whatever is in the Tart Cherry capsules, they worked.