herfiehandbag

I am on DaDa for a couple of hours two evenings a week and Saturday mornings. About USD100 a week - nice but not critical. It is all stopped now, with the sudden total ban on any lessons during the Chinese school holidays. That said DaDa have asked me to open up a couple of extra slots from 2 September. My understanding is that classes will begin again in September - although not sure about weekends, or in quite what form they will be once the dust has settled and the new regulations are more clear. For me it is a side gig, and if it ends it is not too critical - although I know that for some it is their main (only) income. As an aside, what are the bets that the chap holding forth about people coming here without enough money, and working online without permits; either couldn't hack it or was turned down for online teaching because he was neither a Native English Speaker nor qualified? It seems a strange topic to alight on if you have no interest in it ...

What my mum used to call "fussy eaters".

You may call me a thick retired infantryman ( better men than you have Gungha Din) but how can "recent graduates" have been so remarkably dense to have embarked on such a trip under the prevailing conditions?

I will try, next time Earth's orbit and his coincide!

The current government represents the epitome of corrupt practices. They stole an entire country, and have perverted virtually all it's institutions for their personal gain, and that of the small cliqué which they serve. The police and military may be competing institutions, but they rely on them both to sustain them in power. The police to keep the people under control on a day to day basis, using what is effectively a form of licenced banditry which supercedes the law - unless the law can be perverted to help; and the military as the big stick, kept in reserve yet visible and ready. The price for that is allowing this sort of rampant corruption.

I don't think they care. They will use the rotten to the core system, with it's manifestly ludicrously unjust laws such as those pertaining to "defamation", a system which has been entirely manipulated by a deeply corrupted ruling class, to make it go away. Their horizons only extend beyond the country in as much as the rest of the world provides a place to stache their obscene looted wealth. Public opinion here does not equate to money, so they ignore it. Opinion in the outside world does not equate to money, so they ignore it. Thailand has, in theory, all the institutions and agencies of a developed, democratic state which can serve it's people fairly. In practice the poison of corruption and desire for power, not for any form of public service, but to facilitate self promotion and access to ever more corrupt practices, has infected and perverted just about every organ of the state. They know it, they know their population know it, they know the outside world know it, they don't care.

Biman Bangladesh was still like that well into the 2000s! Curries were ace though! By the way - what is " bung fodder"?

He (the PM) is a general. He was put in place and is kept in place by generals - in various coloured uniforms. He is not going to do anything is he?

Confusion reigns! At the end of last month I had most of my right foot cut off in a successful (if drastic) measure to clear up a very nasty septic wound which was starting to spread. Another 24 hours they say and it may have been fatal! Lying in my hospital bed a few days later my phone rang. Can you come to Central Plaza on the 2nd of August to be vaccinated. I explained where I was ( an inpatient in the hospital) and asked why they didn't just pop upstairs and do me. This they could not do. So I struggled in (Wiang Chiang Rung to Chiang Rai using a zimmer frame to hop, well not all the way obviously, a friend drove me in her car)! I duly received a dose of Sinovac, and was told to come back for a dose of AZ on the 5th of September. Tuesday last they phoned - please come to Chiang Rai Prachanukrah Hospital on Thursday (today) to receive your second dose (Pfizer!) Unfortunately my promised lift never materialised so I missed the appointment. I rang the hospital before time - to be told that there are no second chances. I asked could I be vaccinated at Wiang Chiang Rung hospital, where I go everyday to have my dressing changed (they are excellent). No, because you are a foreigner you can only be vaccinated in Chiang Rai. So I now go to the back of the queue - several months it seems, by which time my single dose of Sinovac will give about as much protection as a packet of Haribo Gummi Bears! Hey ho , Pfizer, a nice idea. I wander who got my dose? I could understand it if I had been too bone idle to bother to turn up, but my almost total immobility is because they had chopped half my bloody foot off in the first place, and with my immune system pretty weakened by the septicemia and going to hospital every day I am, I should imagine, about as vulnerable as it gets.

Don't worry, any cash will have been "appropriately secured"!

Yes, they could call it the National Anti Corruption Commission.

They just can't help themselves can they?

You must realise that they are coping with a fast moving situation - that is why the announcements follow each other so confusingly. In fact, it well may be that they are spinning/moving so fast that they have reached terminal velocity! NB. On rereading this post I can't help feeling that it may be confusing, and difficult to relate to reality - a bit like the government announcements on the subject in fact!

Given that it has taken over a year to come up with a plan to vaccinate the vulnerable I shall not hold my breath waiting for a "rapid response team"!

To be tackled, no doubt, in time...

Yesl, Right ho, of course they will.

And there are an awful lot of daily workers.

They are desperately looking for a way to avoid having to do that. They don't have the vaccines, and despite all the announcements, mulling, proposals, intentions and agreements, they simply have no chance of getting enough. To get them they will have to spend money, lots of money. If they have the money they would have to divert it from the large number of spending projects ( all with influential stakeholders/pockets) to which it has been promised. As for the much vaunted foreign currency reserves, they almost certainly cannot get permission to touch them. Back in the late middle ages, in a siege, a "petard" was the name given to a large barrel of gunpowder used to blow open the gates. The person placing the petard was very often blown up along with it - hence the expression " hoist with your own petard"! This bunch are "hoist with their own petard", only this time it does not contain gunpowder but an equally destructive mixture of greed, ego and graft.

It seems to me that the Sandbox concept will only work with tourists who are used to being/expect to be regulated, extensively documented, moved around in supervised groups and have no expectation or interest of any sort of individual action. Groups who have, dare I say it, little interest or experience of the freedoms in terms of "nightlife", eating and drinking enjoyed by "western" tourists. I wonder where such tourists will be found in large numbers?

I suspect that this is part of a very specific "re-orientation" of the tourist business. In fact probably better described as a " new" tourist industry, aimed exclusively at the Chinese market. Thailand will become a Chinese holiday centre. The business to be controlled by the "usual suspects" who previously had little or no interest in tourism.

Quite astonishing, the breadth of talent of these high ranking military officers - not only rising to the very top in their demanding profession but also able to serve their nation again (appointed doubtless on merit) as an arbiter on matters cultural!

I receive an annual pension statement from the UK (army pension). It is sent by ordinary mail. The last one I received had been opened, and written on the back of the envelope, in Thai script, was the amount I receive every month, plus the annual total! What amused me was that when I contacted the Army pension people, and suggested that in future they send it to me as an attachment to an email, they wrote back (not by email) to say that email was not secure! That letter had been opened as well!

"MoFA: Hails "Sandbox" success - all systems go for 7+7 and all agencies onboard over CoE". All pigs fed and ready to fly Cap'n!

No

I wonder if they will ever serve any time in prison - perhaps a token visit?