mfd101

1 hour ago, fred110 said:

You're kidding about the gloves right? You can't get fingerprints thru gloves.

Ever heard of irony?

 I wonder if 'universal' means, you know, universal. Guess I'll find out when or if my turn comes.

If you live in the provinces it's quite easy to keep other animals at a distance.

Loving to work 20 hours in every 24 7 days a week would be a dispositional requirement, I should think.

Excellent opportunity for elderly falangs to lose weight.

For me, as a homosexual, the young man looks - as far as one can tell from the photo - quite handsome. Makes me wonder why he would want to dress up as a ridiculous pseudo-woman. He could make much more money by just being himself!

He could perhaps even be happy by just being himself ... but perhaps he thought he was, and looking ridiculous as he tottered along with a wig and high heels was his God-given destiny. Poor fool.

2 minutes ago, ozfarang said:

I used TransferWise last Friday.

 

Comm Bank using debit card to Bangkok Bank, 5 minutes. Third transfer in a month all the same.

 

Good for small transfers and a very good x-rate.

 

 

Right, so using a debit card makes the difference. I shall follow up with NAB (not that, as explained, I'm particularly fussed about it).

TW transfers from Oz are certainly not 2-minute jobs, or even 2-hours. I use them once a month and it invariably takes 1.5 days to arrive here in my BKK Bank account in Prasat, and 2 extra days if the weekend gets in the way.

I think (if I understand it correctly - and maybe I don't) it's because the Oz banking system doesn't do an immediate transfer & clearance: everything waits till after midnight to tick over in the computer. So I initiate TW transfer at 0700 ICT [1000 or 1100 eastern Oz] on Day 1, with transfer of monies from my bank to TW immediately after. TW informs me about 1700 ICT [2200-or2300 Oz] that they have received the monies but that transfer to BKK Bank will take place on Day 2. Around 0800 ICT on Day 2 I get a TW message that says the money's on its way to BKK Bank. Money arrives in my account any time from 1400 to 1600 ICT.

No complaints. Very reliable. And always shows as FTT in my bank book.

As a complete novice in these matters, I just wonder how likely it is for a healthy 35-year-old to have a 'pneumonia' that isn't in current circumstances Corona-related!?

It does seem a bit unlikely ... perhaps relating to Thailand's continuing excellent record on keeping CV cases low?

I must confess to slowly relaxing about it all.

Living here at the end of the world woops I mean here in south Surin it's hard to maintain high levels of vigilance at all times. Noone wears masks, we brunch at PTT each morning, my b/f has already moved from washing his hands once a day to doing so at least 3 times a day, our 16-year-old niece continues to go to the local High School, the animals on the farm 40km away (including the local representatives of H. sapiens) seem as hardy as ever, Lotus still stocked up with daily requirements, haven't inquired about either face masks or hand sanitizer ...

And my library, where I spend my days, seems as pure and lovely as ever.

Increasingly the experts (one in Oz yesterday, for instance) say that CV is going to be with us permanently and we're "ALL" going to get it.

Just like all the previous seasonal flus (which I don't think I've ever had in all my 70 years).

If they're right, then it's a case of Get used to it! Carry on with your life. Don't panic.

Once there's a vaccination, there'll certainly be a huge rush on that. Chloroquine is apparently looking helpful at the moment ... so anyone neurotic about malaria here is probably looking good.

6 hours ago, Flugg said:

The boys from Immigration came in the right moment

Yeah, they came together to save time.

I ordered something from Switzerland recently. Tracking showed that first it departed from Hong Kong for, wait for it, Germany. Thence to Bangkok, and finally to me in Surin.

Took 3 weeks to make this world-travelling journey and turned out to be useless anyway.

2 obvious measures needed, both hard to do. Here's your competence test, Thai Government!

(1) Closing the border 'completely' to everyone, as Cambodia moves to become a centre for spreading the disease. Not to mention probably Laos too.

(2) The small daily increases of 'confirmed' infection - 2 or 3 a day - suggest that increasing the Thai capacity for testing & confirming could do with a major boost. (No! No! We only find 2 each day. Only 2 out there!)

Quote from todays' 'Australian' newspaper: "In Iran, the deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi tested positive for coronavirus, hours after he appeared on television wiping away sweat and coughing, to insist that the Iranian government had the outbreak under control."

And the official government spokesman who was standing beside him as he coughed & spluttered was later appearing beside other government Ministers on other matters ...

Clearly Iran at least has matters 100% under control.

Mail from Oz (official letters from technology-challenged organizations such as banks) take anything from 3 weeks to 3 months to arrive here in south Surin ... but they do seem to arrive eventually (except for the ones I don't know about).

Every country in the world ends up disliking, despising, detesting the tourists who flood in and ruin what there was to see that was worth seeing ... and the more tourists keep coming, the worse the locals' feelings towards them.

Hypocrisy? yes. Contradictory? yes. Universal human traits.

And the more expats there are residing in a country, the more difficult it is for the locals to distinguish between expats & tourists ...