Pottinger

Would be helpful to know what or who Skål International Bangkok is, and exactly what it/they did.

Temper your expectations: https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/11/clinical-trial-success-rates-phase-and-therapeutic-area-14845

Labourer: กรรมกร - gammagorn (all mid-tone)

Tradesman (Painter specifically): ช่างทาสี - chang tha see (falling-mid-rising)

Craftsman: ช่างฝีมือ - chang fee meu (falling-rising-mid)   

Professional: มืออาชีพ - meu acheep (mid-falling)

7 minutes ago, Hamus Yaigh said:

I do hope the vomit inducing term 'new normal' disappears fast. It will put me off everything with it in the name, much like 'boutique' did in the 90's.

Couldn't agree more, the phrase became a cliché almost as soon as it was coined.

'Craft beer' also has me looking for a pail. So too 'wild swimming' and 'wild camping'.

As for trains, give me the old open-air boneshakers of Thailand over those 250 km/hr aircon cylinders in China and elsewhere; they may be efficient but the fun factor is entirely missing for me.

Guess I'm just an old fudly-Dudley.

You may also find this informative: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/17/battle-over-dyslexia-warwickshire-staffordshire

TV Covid-19 experts all over this one. Who'd have thought there were so many in one website?

1 hour ago, JeffersLos said:

Not one native speaker, then. 

You've never heard of Yeats, Joyce, Wilde or Beckett then?

As well as being from a relatively CV19-free country, the Chinese are clearly a target for early entry into Thailand due to their purported burgeoning ownership of condos in Bangkok and elsewhere. However, the Chinese government is actively discouraging its citizens from travel abroad, and one wonders, after the initial few hundred, just how many of them will be prepared to put up with the onerous two week quarantines, both on entry to Thailand, and on return to China.

Many more formal words, such as ทราบ instead of รู้, กรุณา and (ได้) โปรด for please. Apart from many examples such as these, the addition of particles is generally used to indicate respect and hence formality. For example the นะ you hear frequently on the TV before ค่ะ or ครับ.

There's still a good deal of disagreement worldwide on this topic. A doctor would almost certainly recommend you start taking statins, others might say such a cure is worse than the problem. It's a fact that lipids are necessary to your health and that the body itself manufactures them, clearly to excess in some cases. Modern medicine tends to take a one-size-fits-all approach to 'elevated levels', which themselves are sometimes revised as research progresses. Reading 'information' on the Internet only serves to confuse with conflicting opinion, but most researchers would agree that the causes of raised levels are complex, involving perhaps environment, lifestyle, diet and hereditary factors, among others, and that modifying said factors will, over time, help to bring your three types of lipid more into healthy balance.

How about giving retirees access to Thailand, Khun Prayud?

They've been performing this farce regularly for more than thirty years, even on occasion using a steamroller to crush the counterfeit goods, for extra special effect. Has it made the slightest jot of difference? I leave it to renowned TV commentators to pronounce their verdict.

4 minutes ago, Thingamabob said:

The fact is that to a live in a country other than your own you need to have adequate funds, to follow the law, to be well mannered and reasonably turned out. Best not to stick around if you are unable or unwilling to meet these criteria.

What haughty nonsense. Of course these qualities may be desired by dreamy TAT marketeers and utopian farangs, but the reality is there are any number of impecunious, foul-mouthed, up-to-no-good foreigners in soiled wife-beaters, making their homes around the Kingdom. 

Thanks for posting the requirements. This will appeal to some hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people who for one reason or another have not fallen into the existing categories of those allowed into Thailand. From other FB and WhatsUp threads there appears to be a demand, though the eventual steep price, when it becomes clear, may deter some; for my own part, it's not worth the cost and effort that this channel appears to offer, so I shall continue to bide my time abroad. 

Good luck with the Chinese market:

"As COVID-19 cases continue to surge globally, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for Chinese people to avoid unnecessary outbound travel during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays in newly-issued guidelines.
China is requiring all outbound travellers to undergo a 14-day isolation upon their arrival. Cross-border travelers may therefore be required to spend a total of 28 days in quarantine, if their destination also requires a 14-day isolation period, which will seriously impact their travel experience, the center said. 

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1201719.shtml

It will be interesting to see the total costings when this project is up and running. The ASQ hotels we already know will cost from 30k up to 150k Baht for the privilege of being in isolation for fifteen days. The tests, visa and FtF documentation pre-flight, perhaps 10-15k Baht. The deal-breaker, I suspect, will be the cost of the compulsory charter flight; I don't expect that these will cost less than 40-50k return from Europe or the US, perhaps a lot more; Australia, because it's to all intents and purposes closed for the foreseeable future, and NZ, because there simply won't be enough punters, are non-starters; that essentially leaves Japan, which because of their work ethic may only supply a few hundred, and China, whose government is actively discouraging overseas travel.

I don't see this working at all.