khunjeff

22 hours ago, Peterphuket said:

And above all: NO comparable quality.
French wines remain superior to what the Thais think they can make.

 

17 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

Just maybe they should learn how to make wine first. Before talking about being a hub again.

2 hours ago, MarkBR said:

Thailand has a fundamental problem in growing grapes, grapes are a Mediterranean climate plant.  This affects the quality.

They need a lot of research in how to breed varieties that will grow well in a subtropical climate., thus hopefully, improving the quality dramatically.  This is necessary if they want a profitable wine industry.

The announcement was about an exhibition of French wines, and his comments were about reducing the price of imported wines. None of this was about Thai-made wines.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

This initiative underlines the city's commitment to fostering a more orderly and hygienic environment.

No, it doesn't - it underlines that certain officials have no understanding of what the city's soul is, but want to show off their own power. 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Under these new regulations, vendors operating in officially recognised areas will need to comply with income assessments and taxation.

Please remind me how "comply[ing] with income assessments and taxation" makes the environment more "orderly and hygienic"? And while it's theoretically true that everyone should pay the taxes that they owe, exactly how much will be collected from vendors making less than 25k per month?

And whenever this subject comes up, some official will start yapping about how they want to make Bangkok "more like Singapore". Leaving aside the question of whether that's even a desirable goal, do they know that Singapore built its hawker centers and THEN moved the vendors off the street, rather than kicking them out today with a vague promise of an indoor selling area to appear (magically) at some indeterminate point in the future?

2 hours ago, wealthychef said:

In my opinion, this US "help with crime" is not about fighting organized crime, this is about spying on China and gaining favor with Thai government to try to pivot it away from a China alliance or friendship.

This kind of "cooperation" (US detects criminals operating in Thailand and asks the Thais to bust them) has been going on for decades, long before animosity with China heated up.

3 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

1955 - Pensions became payable anywhere in the world, but without uprating, without a reciprocal agreement.

I've read this a few times before, but I still don't understand it. I'm not British, so I have no background other than what I've seen in the media.

So, could someone explain this idea to me like I was five years old? Why would a payment which comes entirely from the UK government, and is based on contributions to the UK pension system made while working in the UK, have any "reciprocity" angle at all? Why would any foreign country have to sign off on UK citizens getting increased payments from the UK? What exactly is "reciprocal" here? 

6 hours ago, AhFarangJa said:

Maybe I am mistaken, but was there not a refusal by the airlines to implement this in the ticket as it was only for Foreign Nationals, and therefore a nightmare to police?

You are absolutely correct. The airlines flatly stated that they had no way of adding a fee to tickets if it only applied to certain passengers and not others. 

22 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

Still curious to see one though if somebody could post a pic (redacting their personal details obviously).

No mention of "Non" or "Non-immigrant" at all. 

9 hours ago, webfact said:

The operation...facilitated foreign residency by setting up bogus companies.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

The crackdown led to charges against 98 foreigners, including 68 Russians, accused of operating businesses without proper permits.

So are the companies "bogus", or are they actually being "operated"? Is this about doing business illegally, or about opening shell companies that don't do business at all?

7 minutes ago, Hakuna Matata said:

He should be held accountable for breaking the law, shouldn't he?

Sure. But for working illegally or running an unlicensed business, not for operating a fraudulent scheme (as the first article implies he was doing).

19 hours ago, 0ffshore360 said:

Is that  25,000 gross or net ?

Another article I read specified that it was net of expenses.

4 hours ago, edwinchester said:

"Under the new agreement, Airbus Services will install 12 business class seats on each A320ceo, equipped with backrests reclinable up to 8 inches."

 

Pretty underwhelming level of recline and hardly seems worth the extra cost of business seating on these narrow body short hauls.

I think the issue was that TG was taken to task by the government after passengers filed complaints that they had bought business class tickets on these old Thai Smile planes and were only given economy with a blocked middle seat ("Euro-business").

TG was required to post a warning about this on their booking engine, and finally ended up rebranding those seats as "premium economy" rather than business. Refitting the planes in question will allow them to market a short haul business class product once again.

That's just my guess.

54 minutes ago, JimTripper said:

Proper thing for the server to do is say excuse me could you please move for such and such a reason.

23 hours ago, JimTripper said:

it's never explained why they want me to move because of the language barrier

So maybe they told you and you didn't understand what they were saying?

45 minutes ago, ChrisKC said:

Are you sure it is "often"?

 

I have lived here for more than 20 years all over Thailand and never experienced being asked to move to another table.

Ditto. This is a non-existent issue.

Let me see if I have this straight. 

A man starts an underground swingers' club, and is perfectly fine with members having sex with his wife, as long as he's allowed to watch. But now one of these hand-picked members starts getting a bit too friendly with the wife, and sometimes the founder is just too busy to watch their couplings (who has time? Am I right?). 

So now that the vibe of the swinging club has been totally messed up, he takes the only logical next step: he complains to the member's boss. Yes, complains that the member wasn't, well, using his member in a nice way. Because that's what you do when you run an underground sex club 🤔

I thought the first rule of Swing Club is that you don't talk about Swing Club?

7 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"...until the statutes of limitations run out..."

There's only one charge, so there's only one statute of limitations to expire.

Only one charge remaining - the statute of limitations on the other charges has already been allowed to run its course.

I think they meant "anti-anti-corruption".

I guess it's now time for the usual 50 or so "cash is king" posts that appear like clockwork each time this issue comes up...

And I must say, it continues to astonish me that the mythical "five minutes to pay by scanning" slowpokes only stand in queues ahead of people who detest mobile payments, and are otherwise never seen in nature. 🤔

1 hour ago, thaipo7 said:

A couple counties in NY and Los Angeles is suppose to dictate how the rest of America goes?

Counties don't vote for anything. People do, and there happen to be a lot of them in the places you mentioned.

Now he has a new outfit to add to his cosplay cabinet.

1 hour ago, lou norman said:

the spot y'all talking about is not Thermaes. It's (or at least used to be) the Constellation, a coffee shop. Thermaes is the massage parlor above. I haven't been there since the 90's. The entrance used to be through the toilets in back. Best after-hours pickup spot in the town.

 

Technically correct, but absolutely everyone referred to the coffee shop as "Thermae" as well. In any case, that original building was torn down decades ago.