PaDavid

The top 5 are: Phuket, Thailand Pattaya, Thailand Krabi, Thailand Mugla, Turkey Hurghada, Turkey 1. Muğla (No 4) is a province (and provincial city) in Turkey. The city is inland and is fairly unremarkable. It certainly is not high on anyone’s list of places to visit. The province includes many resorts: Bodrum, Fetiyhe, and Marmaris are the larger ones, but there are dozens of other places dotted around the Muğla coastline many of which receive few tourists. . 2. Hurghada (No 5) is in Egypt, not Turkey. It makes you wonder how seriously you can take the report.

In my early days here whenever I had a question I would send Joe a personal message. He never failed to reply and his advice was always most informative. I never met him personally, but I imagine him as a very caring person. RIP my friend

I understand all the arguments about checking the small print on insurance documents, but we were all young once and how many of us can honestly say we never did anything reckless? What I don’t understand is why he was treated in a Bangkok hospital. In a state facility his bill would have been considerably less.

Great point. And, 83% of the deaths were motorcyclists

There are plenty of accidents for sure, but very few fatalities. Of course, there’s a much lower population density so comparisons with city statistics is problematic. Personally, I only ride a non-motorised cycle - shorts & tee shirt (always white), no helmet. My biggest problem is the dogs.

In the sticks no helmet is the norm. In fact, it’s rare to see anyone wearing one. But, of course, there’s far less traffic and journeys are mostly shorter, so probably a much lower death rate.

Add me to the list of those who missed you. Every week I double-check to make sure I haven’t missed your column. I hope your recovery continues. Mental health problems are a <deleted>.

The early replies on this tend to agree with the netizens and think it’s ott. Personally, when I go to hospital I want to be attended by a professional looking nurse, not someone dressed like an escort. So, sorry guys, but I pretty much agree with the ‘new rules.’

Who says nothing ever happens in Loei?

I don’t agree with most of your column, but you did get two things correct. At least from my limited perspective: 1. Most farangs living in the sticks have little money and, thus, need to rely on agencies for their annual visa extensions - which further reduces the amount they have to live on. But, if living in the capital makes everyone as grumpy as you, I’ll happily call myself a bumpkin - thank you very much. 2. I’ve always found Bangkok taxi drivers honest and friendly, though I can’t say the same about most of the other citizens I’ve rubbed shoulders with. But, of course, most of the taxi drivers hail from Isaan.

The point you may have missed is that we’ve paid for our pensions our entire working lives through something called National Insurance. So, in effect, it’s a contributory pension scheme in the same way as if we had paid into a private plan

I know nothing will get done about this, especially now as it would cost too much, especially when the government is trying to make savings to offset the costs incurred through Covid. But, what makes me laugh is this 500,000 expats. The overseas pension desk has no idea how many it actually is. They only know of those who’ve notified them of their move abroad, and, from my correspondence with them, it’s clear they are making little effort to track down the others.

I’m 76 and have been here 7 years. My state pension is now over £2,000 a year less than it should be

I’ve also recently been advised by my district council that in future I’ll only need to re-register my vote every 5 years instead of annually as at present. Possibly another of Sir Roger Gale’s group’s successes. I’ll look the guy up on the parliament website. Maybe write to him too.

I’m sure that most of you reading this will have seen the petition doing the rounds. I, like many others, have signed AND shared it. I can’t really see this doing any good. It may just reach 10,000 signatures, at which point the government is required to respond. But, I’m sure all it will do is trot out the old chestnut regarding social security agreements. The petition has no chance of reaching the 100,000 level at which point it has to be considered for debate in parliament. So, I have decided on another track. I’m still registered to vote in UK, so I’m writing to my MP. This is not the first time I’ve written, but my first attempt was a bit emotive and received the bog standard response. So, I’ve drafted a second attempt which I think is much more objective. Please read and let me know if you have any comments or observations. Once I’ve considered these, I’ll produce the final version for emailing to my MP. Assuming AN allow me, I’ll publish it here, so that those of you who too are registered to vote can lobby your own MP. Incidentally, I haven’t included here Photo 1 which is a map of the world showing countries which are and are not affected by the legislation. But, most of you will have seen this anyway. Dear xxxxxxx The following is basically what you sent me in response to my first email. It is an extract from the gov.uk website. Your State Pension will only increase each year if you live in: countries that have a social security agreement with the UK (but you cannot get increases in Canada or New Zealand) You will not get yearly increases if you live outside these countries. For your information, the top photo below shows in red the countries which do have this supposed social security agreement. The following are the questions/points I would ask you to consider concerning this: What exactly are these social security agreements? Why are Canada and New Zealand (and possibly Australia) excluded when such agreements do exist there? Are such agreements still in place in all EU states now that the UK is no longer a member of the union? A social security agreement implies some sort of benefit for expats living in a country where there is one. Surely then, if you were going to effectively reduce pensions, it would make more sense to do so in the countries where expats enjoy these benefits, not in countries where they don’t! The state pension is effectively a contributory pension paid for from NI contributions. See photo 2 below. If any employer tried to use such a feeble excuse for reducing pension payouts to a group of its pension fund members, there would be an outcry. And, there is no organisation which can challenge the ruling. The pensions’ ombudsman, for example, will not deal with problems concerning the government. This, in my opinion, is a form of age related discrimination. Discrimination against pensioners who choose to spend there final days abroad. Please consider the above, and if you agree there is a case, could I ask that you raise the matter in The House. I would be grateful for a response, if only to tell me how my points/questions are flawed, and why you have decided not to raise the matter. Kind regards David