n00dle

Now there is some nostalgia. I haven't set foot in Thermae in 15-20 years, likely more. What great fun it was, then not. When Thaksin and Purachi began their anti-drug anti-nightlife campaign the fun just sort of ran out. Can't even begin to remember the number of times I decided to forgo bringing a date home in favour of a bag o' Thermeae chicken. Pretty frequently ended up with a UK, Aus or Canadian English teacher as she was out with the lads from school. Thermae is a fine example of a time I recall as simply more fun. lower Sukhumvit between 99-2010 was a serious blast, it is a very different place now, I wouldn't recognize it if I hadn't lived through the changes. I realize the fact I was in my early 30's contributed to the fun, but everything was far less mercenary. Bars would ply us with free booze just to keep us around, and there were no shortage of places to go where you were welcome and didn't get ripped off.

Great story, both generosity and compassion. You must admire your "friend" very much.

Makes perfect sense, but only if they use them to put out every active fire in the region

if guilty, there is nothing to suggest Buddy was in his right mind. jimmy saville furtled patients in public hospitals. right mind? i think not. its a crime of opportunism.

they are not.

Maximising opportunity, hiding in plain sight he would have encountered far more scrutiny if he was shepherding children off campus, and he would have lost the trappings of trust and authority by changing venues. I reckon he would be stupid to try it on somewhere else.

Ah, Asean Now, gathering place for like-minded men of culture

I worked in a Thai university in the late 90's and was accused by a single female evening student (24) of sleeping with and dumping her after she followed me home after class one night. Luckily the admin (Dean of Humanities) knew the girl as an ex-student and she had a history of similar actions and accusations so it ended there. I moved into the private sector within a year.

I don't know anyone who lives here who wears a Chang vest beyond the odd tourist passing through

even as recently as 2009, the "scene" was far less mercenary than it is today.

Celibacy is not for me, but pooching around the bar scene waving thousand baht notes for a drunken tumble with someone I consider "product" is not the way forward. the amount of alcohol I would need to consume to make that seem like a good idea would leave me crippled for days. hardly worth it.

if only your strident occupation of the moral high ground were limited solely to Trump

Why assume I'm like you? After 30 years in Thailand and a fair few more years before I hit 60, I can assure you I am not nor will I be in the market for "product" in any hurry. I had my fun under much more enjoyable circumstances and moved on, Ta.

The nightlife scene is fine and in any cases more vibrant than ever. Sex tourism, the P4P and gogo and beer bar scene have seen better days. Increasingly the only custom they receive is folks like the op, 60 years old and clinging to a dream of bygone days. Count the folks sub-30 in any beer or gogo bar these days. There are very few places you can go that do lady drinks where you won't get hosed, racking up bills of thousands in the feeding frenzy buying non-alcoholic lady drinks while drinking 3 or 4 beers at a seemingly reasonable 100-150 baht a pop. It really is a mug's game, the whole scene was dying pre-COVID, post-COVID the bars and the women gave up all pretense

See, there it is again, this assumption that you are the standard and anyone who disagrees with you (which on this topic I actually don't) is somehow lacking. This is not about common decency, I believe Trump is an amoral heel. My comments are specifically directed at the way you choose to crow your own superiority. I believe that one can achieve what you call "common decency" without being either self-righteous or patronizing.

Schadenfreude is not the word I was looking for. I was thinking more along the lines of selbstgefällig. edit to add, your post here is about as clear an example of virtue signaling as there could possibly be, and i actually agree with the idea that Trump needs to be held accountable for many, many transgressions.

While I agree anything that puts the brakes on trump-related madness is a good thing, I suspect you would enjoy absolutely anything you can season with virtue signalling and smugness.

I have know so many dodgy fookers named Damien over the years. Its almost funny.

What makes you think they are lying to immigration? You have already suggested they are legally taxed on the bulk of the income. Dual contracts are very commonplace in the expat community. What do you imagine the heinous crime here is? Then of course there is the fact that immigration has absolutely nothing to do with taxation.

I missed that part. The only reason I can think of is to keep funds offshore. NGO folks tend to repatriate or change countries often keeping money in their country of origin saves issues of moving funds out of Thailand when they move on in a couple of years.

Is it a lie or is it omission? tax liability. think about it. if you are taxed only on income in Thailand or income you bring into Thailand, limiting that exposure makes a certain amount of sense. I have know of many expats that have dual salary agreements, say paid to hong kong and a smaller portion paid in Thailand to cover living expenses.

do you make stuff like this up just so you have something to say? Bail is a privilege people pay for. This has nothing to do with murder or fraud -- it's not the type crime that would justify her bail, it is whether or not she can afford the cost of the bond.

they have a little more than that to answer for.

no. too creepy.

deleted, double post