Andrew Dwyer

Yup, E85 didn’t give great results for me and with the 3,00 baht drop of 95 I resorted back to old faithful. On other news , I spotted my first MG ZS EV 2022 today, looks good !!

I was getting 14.5km/L on 95 for a year and a half, seeing my car can run E85 and a poster on here was quoting 11km/L I decided to give it a go. Saw no “ increase in performance “ on E85 as quoted here and couldn’t achieve 11km/L My conclusions. E85 is 85% the cost of 95 but gives only 75% of the fuel efficiency ! Back to 95 for me .

Saw my first ZS EV 2022 in the flesh today in blue, while I was unsure about the front grille, from videos I have seen, it looked pretty good.

On the contrary, the OA visa and retirement extension thereof is the reason the op , and many before him, are converting to an O visa. I will be doing the same in a month .

I booked a flight, about a month ago, BKK - MAN - BKK on Qatar for mid Aug, paid roughly twice as much as i normally would. Could have found cheaper options with long layover or travelling Saudi Air . Having seen the reports about increasing air fares and expected to pay more, what I wasn’t prepared for was the increase in rental car prices ( U.K.) . Almost 5 times my usual quote !! , with a bit of messing around managed to get it down to twice as much. The good old days of cheap travel and rentals are gone, wonder if they will return ??

Yup, my route to the airport ( 80km ) 32, 9 and 7 is 120 km all the way, also passing through 3 different provinces. Going North on the 32 the majority of the 150 km is now 120 max 100 min and passing 4 provinces .

That photo took me back to 1972 !! We have the deluxe two seater version here, Mingkwan and Auto cooling off.

On my daily walk, around the old city Ayutthaya, always pleased to see some hya swimming around. Today must have been a rest day as they all seem to be hanging around gossiping ! Here’s another view , saw 4 in total.

I tried the spray method one time, with a plan to knock it off with a stick afterwards. It was under the eaves of a 2 storey building but was able to reach it with a wonky step ladder on the upstairs balcony. As soon as I started to spray one shot out and stung me on the neck !! Unfortunately I was on my way out of the country for work so had a really miserable 12 hour travel. My then wife had persuaded me to take care of it 2 hours before leaving for the airport. Was just another addition to the list of reasons why we should divorce !!

While taking a look at The Wee Man on imdb this attracted my attention. Fifty Dead Men Walking ( 2008 ) ” Based on Martin McGartland's shocking real life story. Martin is a young lad from west Belfast in the late 1980s who is recruited by the British Police to spy on the IRA. He works his way up the ranks as a volunteer for the IRA whilst feeding information to his British handler and saving lives in the process. “ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1097643/

From what has been stated so far it would appear that some airlines “ suggest “ you wear a mask on the plane, others don’t. But , nearly all, requires you to wear a mask when deplaning at BKK , looks good on the news when they do their propaganda videos.

Cue another Grumpy old men v Defenders of the Realm thread !! Didn’t we have the original thread ,quoted in the OP, about a week ago ??

Yes, it looks good …….. except for the strange pink coloured one I saw today. Apparently the colour is Hazel Wood Beige with a Brown roof !, whereas the dark green or the pastel blue look striking the one above was quite awful, probably missing a few Hello Kitty stickers.

Yup, kinda know what you mean, while Paul’s swearing and shouting at the kids might seem a bit much at times it can be understood by the behaviour of that wimpy young lad . Outnumbered on the other hand, those kids were hilarious ???? Haven’t seen the other two you mentioned but will give them a look.

Currently watching Breeders . (Comedy/drama) It’s about the trials and tribulations of parenthood and Paul ( Martin Freeman ) does well as the uptight and completely lacking in patience, short tempered father of two young children. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8129450/

My point was , that the “2nd year from an OA visa “ ( as it is often called) is not another year of OA visa or an extension of, it is 12 months of permission to stay tucked in between the actual visa and an extension and the only benefit is that during this year ( plus the initial OA year ) no financial requirements are needed to be kept in a Thai bank.

Yup, you said it yourself in your post! Your visa has expired you are on permission to stay which you can extend for another year, rinse and repeat. Has been said many times : You can’t extend your visa .

Not necessarily. If you want to go MG route ( the op doesn’t have to repeat his agenda on MG , we are all tired of that ) then the EP and the EV are a good price with the current government subsidies, but difficult to find at the moment. The others, I agree , are expensive and hopefully that will come down. The inconvenience for me is the current issue, I travel quite a lot and having to plan my travel around availability of charging points would be a hassle. The local Central mall has 2 ( or maybe 3 ) points for charging, not many for a busy mall !!, but other than that i don’t see any other charging points nearby. Kudos to a couple of posters on here that have set up solar systems in house and use for charging their cars, seems like the way to go long term.

People would change the fuel according to the price difference an advantage with the flex set up, although performance was compromised by this. The pumps would even give the percentage of price Álcool/Gasoline to help customers decide which fuel to use , 70 % was the factor IIRC.

I bought an evaporator cooler ( Clarté ) some 5 years ago, paid about 3,500 baht for it but disappointed with it. It seems to work the same, p1ss poor cooling !!, with or without water !! Tbh, a fan is as good if not better. My mil has a air conditioning unit, looks just like my swamp cooler but you don’t add water and it has an exhaust pipe for the hot air. I cut a hole in the gypsum covering a window ( mil wanted it covered after waking up to see a big snake outside the window hissing at her ???? ) and it works a treat , great cooling for a bedroom, of course is not mobile anymore. No idea of price or make and the leccy bill has gone up as a result. My point is ( yes !! there is one ) is that the two units look identical so you need to read the small print to see exactly what you are buying and if Big C has another cooling system in place the swamp coolers will be pumping out already cooled air, which happened when we bought ours from Robinson’s. See these in the bigger stores and they appear to work well but a different story back at the apartment/house with the sun beating on the walls all day.

You should be paying 3 million baht coverage for a new OA visa , 40/400k is the old scheme being phased out, you should not pay both . From Oct 2019 the 400/40k insurance is required for OA visas and retirement extensions thereof. Last year the 400/40k coverage was increased to 3 million baht , starting Oct 2021 for new OA’s and Sept 2022 for retirement extensions. I got an OA in 2016 and retirement extensions since then, i use LMG insurance and under the old scheme would pay 7,700 baht ( highest deductible ) later this year but due to the increase in Sept my mandatory insurance from LMG ( again with the highest deductible ) will rise to 26,800 baht . ( for this reason I will change to an O visa in Aug ) LMG remains the cheapest OA insurance imo, here’s a chart for the new insurance coverage premiums . If you wish to continue with LMG contact this person, good English and very helpful. Kannika Tepbootrdee [email protected]

Watched “ In my Skin “ recently: “ Darkly comic coming-of-age story that follows 16 year old Bethan as she deals with the anxieties and insecurities of teenage life, along with the stark reality of a home life that is far removed from what she projects to her friends. “ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8594528/ Despite there being several lesbians, 1 of which was black, a gay boy, a gay bingo caller, a Down Syndrome child, a woman with bipolar disorder, an alcoholic arsonist and several Welsh people ( ???? ) it didn’t stop me enjoying it. Starts off as a regular school drama but Bethan’s constant attempts at trying to hide her traumatic home life is proving increasingly more difficult. Bethan and her mother gave spectacular performances imho.

Yup, looks that way.

Also known as Four Lives if struggling to find it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7428760/

As Dr Jack says, should be no problem as many have done this recently to relieve themselves from the OA/retirement ext insurance. I will follow this route in August. A throwaway ticket from Thailand to a neighbouring country , with a date before your visa exempt expires, is your best option .