mfd101

Has to begin at the bottom (infants/kindergarten & reading), then primary & secondary education with trained teachers & possibility of failure, then technical college & university ... Around 50 years of consistent hard work and social change should do it.

Your past lies in front of you smelly, oozing blood. Your future hides behind you waiting to pounce.

I'm with Sartre on this (v. above). The point is that life has no meaning - no inherent meaning. It is just a cosmic accident, and the notion of searching & finding is the wrong metaphor. Oh! (mops brow) I'm searching for the meaning of my life! I've looked everywhere! I was told to turn left at the eucalyptus down the road and look under the third rock beside the fire hydrant. But there were only earwigs and other creepies (sobs). The sensible metaphor to use is one of building or constructing, and that takes place inside your own head. You are responsible for building the meanings of your own life. Noone else can do it for you.

Here in south Surin the standard practice is as Burma Bill suggests above: Order up the septic tank emptying truck. Sucks it out. All done in 10 minutes. Depending on circumstances - size of tank & size of family - that might need doing every 6 or 9 months. But here in our main house with just 2 of us & a system that drains off the grey water to the khlong, we haven't had to use the visiting pump process even once since we moved in here 6.5 years ago.

Each Russian arrival & stayover is (potentially) one less recruit for the Russian forces killing & raping Ukrainians.

If you look at it from a 'Western' point of view, then there is much to criticize in Thailand's weak-kneed on the one hand this/on the other hand that approach to just about everything. On the other hand, when you're as weak & incompetent as Thai governments and society have long been, what choice do they really have? Best to just keep everyone happy as we creep thru the undergrowth.

EVERY day? Good grief, you must be very dirty people. I vacuum out our 2-storey place once a year, in the couple of cooler weeks in Dec/Jan. (As for my b/f doing the job, he wouldn't think of it. That's women's work.)

The pizza has close to zero nutritional value so your body keeps crying out for more. The only thing that more and more pizza will bring is shorter life expectancy.

Yes, and self-confidence and agency. None of which is particularly common amongst poor people. Poverty breeds passivity. I see that every day here amongst the Khmer peasants.

None. Proper diet and regular exercise, the chances are not high of getting cancer or heart attack or stroke or diabetes I or II or III. But you do have to die of something ...

But our strategic circumstances have changed. The threats are all superficial now.

No Western country with a government that knows its business would give Thais visa-free entry. Just asking for trouble. (How do you get rid of them later?)

Just on the subject of tummy upsets: When we lived in BKK (Asoke) I used to get upsets regularly until the day I made a connection between the roadside stalls, the stinky sewers only a metre below, and seeing one of the stall owners washing his dishes under a wayside tap and thinking: So where did that water come from? Never had a problem since then.

Haven't worn a tie since the day I retired from the Australian Public Service in 2004. Barefoot most of the day here in Surin in and around the house, sandals for visits to shops, sneakers for special occasions (rain or Immigration or visit to BKK).

Doesn't exactly point to a sophisticated understanding of international relations ... Why stir the hornets' nest with such a silly (no doubt pro forma) invitation when you don't actually have to?

Mobile.

With AIS you just dial 00500 + country no. [61 for Oz] + phone no. Can't remember the price (I've never checked) but I think the same as local call (or maybe a bit more but unrelated to duration of call).

Yes, and those now in their 70s & 80s were the same 50 years ago.

And now they're in their 70s and 80s ...

My boyfriend would take care of it (him) - 40 years younger than me, fast on his feet, strong as an ox and learned to fight as a conscript here. A couple of years ago someone drew a knife on him at the exit from a gay disco in BKK at 0200. Before you could say Bob's yer Uncle the other guy was on his back on the pavement having the s... kicked out of him.

Beer sales will be going thru the roof by now.

Yawn, tourism is the major industry of Third and Second World countries destined always to be Third or Second World. And here was I thinking Thailand was reaching for the moon!

In the Northern Territory (30% indigenous population), the outcome of the 2 electorates was: 56% & 65% No.

The fault lies mostly with Albanese, who made the most elementary mistakes in the whole process. "I'm not a details man." Mmmm, well if you needed proof that even PMs have to be (selectively) across the details ...