Neng

Hang on a mo....

"... just minutes before the deadly tide rushed in and turned the resort into rubble."

Now this from the JWM press release of 28/12/04...

"Damage at the resort was confined to the beach, gardens and pool area. The beachfront restaurant and a number of ground level beachfront suites also sustained minor damage and are expected to reopen in about 5 days. Following clean-up, the pool will reopen tomorrow. Other restaurants and facilities at the resort are open and operating."

I haven't been up to check for myself yet, but I trust Lee Sutton not to be telling porkie pies.

Oh well, if you can't trust the BBC these days, what can you expect from the Sun?

- SJH

RE: The State of Phuket Report

Dear All,

Thanks for your positive feedback on this. As I mentioned we will continue to update when possible on this forum. Please forward to whoever you think might be interested - particularly the news agencies.

If anyone needs to contact me direct they can email me at [email protected]

Updates will also go onto our website - www.phuketmagazine.com

Good luck to you all...Simon

2000 police officers. 91 arrests. 182 locations. That's a ratio of over 20 officers per arrest. Not a terribly efficient operation. But, what is worse, is the ratio of half an arrest per location visited! I can only assume that the boys in brown are all so pure and innocent that they didn't really know where to look (Patpong, Nana, Cowboy, for instance) and blew a whole bunch of time at Tsutaya video shops by mistake.

Does anyone really believe the present government is any different to previous ones?

One big difference - previous pols used large quantities of their own cash to buy votes. Taksin conned his way in with promises of a million baht per village... paid from the public purse. It was only later that they learned of the vigorously stringent qualifications for the pay-off. Has anyone ever worked out how many villages actually received the full mill? Might make for some interesting math.

As someone who once tutored foreign students through their management degree courses and eventually wrote final theses for four of them (three As and a distinction - better than my own pass) to pay my way through college, I can categorically confirm that many foreign students acheive degrees this way at UK colleges. My appointment to the tutoring (and tacit support for the under-the-table thesis writing) came from the head of the Business Management department, who was "under pressure" from his superiors NOT to fail foreign students using whatever means necessary.

Whether Mr T took this route to success remains to be seen, but I seem to recall that one of the main reasons T joined the police force was to get himself a good foreign education (the billions came later). Not sure if the police finance would cover paying a starving under-grad to write his thesis, but they work for peanuts so who knows.

Anyway, before I'm chastised by the moderator for being off subject, I think it's going a bit far to try to draw parallels with Nixon and Watergate. Closer to a correlation would be Blair and the Mad Cow outbreak that virtually crippled the UK a couple of years back... and Blair's still there despite a significant amount of other nonsense.

Alas the birds are not likely to bring down this turkey, whose - rather hackneyed - comeback to the problem is to throw imaginary money at it. Just heard he's "earmarked" 80 million baht for a relief fund - a million baht each for those who die. Cold comfort, I hear you moan, but clever PR (worked for SARS)... unless more than 80 people die of course (unlikely, considering death tolls during previous outbreaks) But I feel most sorry for the poor lad who died yesterday, not only because he lost his life, but because he did so before Taksin launched the fund, so therefore will not receive the pay-off. Now that's Taksin-omics for you.

Just extended a tourist visa at Phuket immigration. Phew, that's a hefty increase. I only really needed a couple of extra days, so 1,900 baht kinda pissed me off. Should have just overstayed, I guess, but not worth the possible hassle.

Anyway, when I was filling out the form the immigration officer offered me another alternative - 15 days for 2,100 baht! That seemed very reasonable so I went for it and am staying the full fifteen instead of just buggering off when I originally planned.

Economics? At 500 baht I would have gone after a couple of days and happily written off the rest of the extension. At 1,900/2,100 baht I am taking full advantage of the extension and am spending more money in Thailand.

I know not everybody has my freedom of moving when they feel like it, but in my book 1,900 baht certainly makes me appreciate the extra time a whole lot more.

Have Fun,

S

Dear all,

As I read from page1,2 then skip to page 7, the topic has completely change. What are we talking about here? The new Thai generation attitude or Visa or fighting over something?

All I wanna say is don't worry about what are they thinking, one of the reason why some of Thai you may found they're quite negative with foreigner, it's not only because of press or media lead them. But this country has been rule by foreigner for century. Why I'm saying that? If you look back in the history you will see it.

Thailand mega companies all own by Chinese for over 2-3 generation, banking, financing even scandal massage house in BKK. For your more clear picture the current PM also Chinese.

So, don't worry about negative to foreigner from any Thai. They always hate whatever they can't touch anyway.

Cheers,

Dear Martin,

Thank you for email. Unfortunately I have not received the ThaiVisa.com phone card or pin number. Please could you send it again.

Thanks,

Neng