herfiehandbag

The "tourists" they intend building these for will be flown in to the nearest airport by the planeload from a country not too far to the North East and bussed straight to the casino. They will stay in the casino's hotels, eat in it's restaurants and enjoy their "entertainment venues". Once they have "had their fun they will be flown out again...

They have been doing it for years. It is their law. The fact that Thailand has legalised cannabis, or perhaps more accurately abandoned any attempt to restrict access to o the stuff, does not change Malaysia's laws or how they enforce them. If you have got cannabis in your system, don't go there, 'cos having it in your system is illegal. If it leads to a widespread boycott they may change their laws, although I rather doubt it!

I don't think you have the option to accept them (drug tests), if you want to enter Malaysia. Entry to Malaysia has always as far as I know involved the possibility of being tested. It is no secret that they do it. Donkeys' years ago I flew Stansted - Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia. Half a dozen of us were asked to pee in a bottle. I was negative, unsurprisingly as I have never touched the stuff.

My daughter looks very western, but is Thai. Her first language is Thai. People see her ( especially with me) and assume she is English. When she speaks their reaction is often very funny.

Or as they are known, agency staff! "What qualifications do they have?" "What qualifications do you want them to have? We have a wide variety of contacts with a number of institutions in West Africa and on the Indian subcontinent..."

Perhaps he is suggesting that many women who work in "lap dancing clubs" in the UK would not be out of place if cast to play one of the "four slappers of the apocalypse"! And let us not even consider buying them a drink - B120 would not come near it!

Personally I slow right down for large puddles. Avoids swerving and seems to please adjacent pedestrians and motorcyclists!

Those are advertisements for agency teachers are they not? It doesn't state what if any qualifications are needed - only a need to take an "agency exam". Therefore I would suggest that they are not for qualified teachers. What is more, with those salaries on offer, and the fact that they are looking for staff in the middle of the first semester, I suspect that they are looking for replacements for staff, who after a couple of months on that money decided " to hell with this for a game of soldiers" and walked out.

"Make a wish" almost certainly - but it is symptomatic of the mess, isn't it? As for your point about qualifications, OK, but with a starting salary of £25,000 a year in the UK you simply are not going to get them here are you? Nor do you need them. The Thai education authorities made a decision to recruit TEFL teachers to fulfil a specific need which they identified in their own education system. They set the requirements I outlined, which would have been enough to ensure adequate TEFL teachers. TEFL are not fully qualified " mainstream" professional teachers, they have a very particular skillset, for a fairly restricted subject. They are not "English teachers" in the sense of teaching English Literature, drama or creative writing, perhaps they are more akin to the "language assistants" who taught some French and German " when I was at school.

I have just retired (a couple of years early for medical reasons) from teaching English here. When I started ten years ago, the required qualifications to work as "Teaching English as a foreign language" (TEFL), were to be from a recognised English speaking country, where English was the primary language, to hold a degree, and to train and pass out from a teacher training establishment specialising in training people to teach English as a foreign language. If you were not from an English speaking country then you had to achieve a high grade in the IELTS ( International English Language Testing System) examination, set and marked by the British Council. It was clear, even then, that these requirements were openly flouted in many many schools. On line TEFL courses, which required no practical ability, resulting in an essentially useless paper qualifications for what is essentially a practical activity. The IELTS requirement being totally ignored, teachers being recruited from all sorts of countries where some sort of English was spoken. They are supplied by agencies, who "handle" all the licensing, work permit and qualifications. They are cheap, and frankly in terms of effectiveness in teaching English, somewhere between an ashtray on a motorcycle and a chocolate teapot; but they are cheap. The school at which I worked has now hired one such agency, to handle all English teaching from Anuban to Matayom 3, whose program title "Make a Wit" doesn't even make sense in English. A friend on the staff there (a Thai who speaks good English) tells me they are dreadful! But they are cheap. As with so many things here, the rules laid down, as outlined in my opening paragraphs, should serve to regulate the employment of EFL teachers and set a basic standard. As with so many things here they are ignored. The result is that many of the teachers are a long way below those basic standards. Back when they were enforced, maybe the standard was higher? That's why teaching English in most Thai schools is a mess.

B5,000 to B7,500 a month? No sorry not so. B15,000 to B17,500 perhaps. When starting out/newly qualified perhaps B12,000 a month. They are certainly not well paid but they are not on less than the national minimum wage!

I have only used them once - and they were pretty poor. However, compared to Biman Bangladesh, Royal Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Aeroflot... I used Emirates a lot, they (and Etihad) were unfailingly excellent. I had a silver card, and was upgraded to business class a couple of times. Eva were good, I even used Air Asia a couple of times when they flew Stansted - Kuala Lumpur!

I used to know a company which collected intelligence on and evaluated risk and analysed potential risk for businesses looking to operate overseas. I did a little bit of low level ( but well paid) consultancy work for them when I left the Army, collecting and collating reports and producing what the army would call an Intsum (intelligence summary). I don't know if BA was one of their clients, but they did undertake studies for some very "big hitters". Their reaction to the flip flopping, on/off signals over the last year or so and the increased interest in "controlling" visitors would almost certainly be "not worth the hassle".

New build, or existing hotels bought at firesale prices, having been brought to their knees by the collapsing of tourism? Remodeling the industry?

That is almost certainly the plan, and has been since the coup.

My cousin is married to a policeman in the UK. I went for a beer with him and some of his mates last time I was back in the UK. They were in stitches when I described what goes on here!

If memory serves, I believe that this chap has in fact worked as a Native (!) English Speaking Teacher.

This child was in Primary One (P1) so 6 years old. Many children of course live with grandparents or other relatives, so Line may not always work. In the school I taught in, older children (P4 up) had a homework book into which notes could be placed. Parents were supposed to initial it every day - often they didn't. Teenagers of course live by Line, so for them it is much more appropriate and effective. For the younger ones it is a problem - I think I would have produced a small printed note - A5 size?, folded it and taped it into the shirt pocket or sleeve of each child, rather than single out one child and staple it to the front of his shirt! I would have done that several days before the event. Certainly embarrassing the child and his parents is a no- no!

Grandad in Manchester sleeps like a baby after a couple of pints of to Boddingtons...

Poor husbandry.

I very much doubt that it has changed in the last two years, when passports were glanced at and you were waved through!

Two points: 1) a fat lot of notice "the blob" will take of that; half of them are still "working from home"! 2) if you declare a crisis, at some stage have to declare the crisis is over - which may be politically fraught!

A human being?

Aha! Rolls Royce is a foreign company. The farangs are responsible...

I am more intrigued that you have continued to patronise (and tip) a barber who managed to slice your shirt 15 years ago! What was he cutting your hair with - a machete? The chap who cuts my plumage charges B40. I always give him B60 and he seems very happy, never drawn blood!