stratocaster

When I used to do visa runs to Laos my hobby was letting the Russian estate agents in the van try to sell me property. One of the best spiels was how I can buy with a 90 year lease which was transferable to a family member who would get a new 90 year lease. Another one was that lots of Moo Bhans are registered as condos so 49% of the houses can be purchased in the foreigners quota.

The European Court of Justice on Thursday confirmed definitively that UK citizens lost their EU rights as a result of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Court was ruling on three legal challenges on appeal after they were first rejected by the General Court of Justice. The three cases had been brought forward by UK nationals residing in the UK and EU member states who demanded that the court annul or partly annul the January 2020 decision by the Council of the EU to approve the Withdrawal Agreement. They claimed that the treaty and the Council's backing of it had deprived them of the rights they had exercised and acquired as EU citizens. But, like the General Court before it, the Court of Justice ruled that the loss of EU rights is an "automatic consequence of the sole sovereign decision taken by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, and not of the withdrawal agreement or the Council's decision."

There was a quote on the TV that it was build with the same care as a kit car in a shed. This is a slur on people like me who built cars in our sheds to a standard far higher than the Titan.I had a hobby business in Thailand making carbon fibre parts for cars, so know a little about the material. The shell was constructed by winding a 2 inch wide strip of CF on to a tube with the interior diameter of the sub to a depth of 5 inches. The binder was applied with no precision, in fact a person can be seen squeegeeing the excess binder off which is squeezing out of the weave. It was laid up in a space with the large doors open, so no dust free or temperature control. No vacuum bag or autoclave system used. The most frightening thing to see is inserting the rings to connect the end caps to the shell using a two pack epoxy adhesive. This is mixed by hand with a lollipop stick. It is applied with a putty knife by hand with a guy up a ladder. You can see on the video where the epoxy is applied too thin in some areas and too thick on others.

Ford RS2000 launch price in 1973 1586 pounds. Auction price last month 60,000 pounds. A bog standard Escort mk1 made 10,500 pounds.

The Morris Marina was a total bitsa car. Not only was the front suspension from a Morris Minor but the remaining running gear was from the Triumph Dolomite. Some interior trim parts were from the MGB. Originally it was to use a small capacity 6 cylinder engine. Early cars suffered from chronic power-on understeer resulting in many nose in the hedge accidents. As the 6 cylinder engine was to be lighter this would have cured the problem When the coupe was designed, to save money they decided to use the original saloon front doors making entry to the rear available only to circus contortionists. Back on topic. I have never heard or seen an XJC in Thailand. They are becoming rare in the UK especially the V12. There are a few XJS in Thailand. In fact one is for sale. Unfortunately it has been converted into a boy racer with a hideous interior. Just been to see a Jaguar Mark 2. it is roughish, but a re-trim, paint job and re-chrome would see it all right. Unfortunately it is the least desirable as a 2.4 litre. If you twist the owners arm he is prepared to let it go for 3,000,000 baht.

Unfortunately we will never know the real reason as since 2020 all parole board hearings are private. In 2021 the government amended the rule that if concerned persons made requests the hearing could be made public. In Pitchfork's case requests to make both his hearings public were denied by the parole board for the following reasons. a) Mr Pitchfork does not wish the hearing to be held in public. b) Due to the nature of his offending, to ensure Mr Pitchfork’s safety, his identity is only revealed when it is necessary, including within the prison estate. c) Mr Pitchfork has changed his name by deed poll twice to keep himself safe. d) The ongoing risk of serious harm to Mr Pitchfork is as a result of media attention. Significant threats of harm have been made to Mr Pitchfork and the Probation Service has ongoing concerns about vigilante incidents.

What makes it even more unbelievable is that he was previously released, and had to be recalled to prison for breaking the terms of his release license, by loitering outside girls schools. He also was observed approaching young girls in the street. In the UK one in five murders are committed by former murderers released on parole.

Talking with a guy whose UK parents are retiring to Thailand to be close to him. He is positive that they only need one retirement visa and the other can be a dependent on that visa, so only one bank account with 800,000. I thought that married foreigners were treated as individuals, except they could have joint accounts with 1.6 million instead of two bank accounts with 800,000 baht.

I have just re-watched the select committee party gate inquiry in to Bozo's behavior. Contrary to what he said in his resignation letter the person that crucified him was not Harriet Harman but the senior Tory on the committee Sir Bernard Jerkin.

When my Volvo's AC packed up I was close to a Volvo dealer. They took the car to an AC specialist shop as they said they know more about ACs than them. They diagnosed a leaking dryer, never a problem again.

There is a recent story of a guy refused a SETV in Savannakhet for staying 90 days continuous in Thailand. When he pointed out that he had done a border bounce 30 days previously they showed him his stamps that he left Thailand on the 23rd and entered Thailand on the 23rd, so as far as they were concerned that is a continuous stay.

Johnston only resigned because he was given the select committee inquiry report in to his behavior during partygate yesterday, which stated that he was to be given a punishment of more than 10 days suspension which means he would be sacked as an MP. Rumour has it he will stand at the next general election as an independent candidate in Henley on Thames where his new home is. But the long knives are out already. Sunak returned Johnston's original honours list of 100 names and told Johnston to reduce it. The next list had 50 names but only 48 were accepted. Names removed were a knighthood to dear papa and a peerage to his squeeze Nadine Dorries The original plan was for Dorries to take up her lordship immediately triggering a by-election. As that plan was scuppered Dorries had to resign to trigger the by-election. Why they want by-election. Dorries seat is a previously safe Tory seat, if there is a large swing away from the Tories vote, or heaven forbid they lose it to the Lib Dems, the Nat C division within the party can say that Sunak is not the person to lead then into the next general election and should be replaced. This will appeal to the MP's who are in marginal seats and will probably lose their seats at the next election. Of course the original plan to replace Softie Sunak with Bozo the clown has disappeared.

Here is the condensed story. In 2007 the Volvo Thailand truck business was taken over by Izuzu Truck division called UD trucks. Litigation then followed as UD Thailand trucks is not a wholly owned Izuzu subsidiary but a joint venture. In 2013 the case was settled and production started at the Volvo factory of both Volvo trucks/bus and UD trucks/bus for local distribution. Volvo Thailand truck division have announced that they will start producing 1000 electric trucks annually, at the Thai factory for regional export. I would image that as they will need added capacity they will stop the UD truck manufacturing side at the Volvo factory. To make up for lost capacity they will look to other UD truck factories to take up the slack. UD also have an agreement with Mitsubishi Fuso Thailand to assemble UD trucks. PS The market for Volvo and UD buses has totally collapsed due to the proliferation of Chinese made buses. Next time you drive Bangkok/Pattaya along highway 7 check out the manufacturers of the tour buses you pass.

How to gaslight the British public part 3. Braverman stood in parliament yesterday and claimed asylum seeking detainees had dropped by 17,000 since 2022 due to government policy. Twice she was told to redact that statement (which she did not do) as figures quoted from the Home Office state that the correct figure is a 10,000 person increase.

Service bill from UK.

How to gaslight the British public part 2. We are constantly told that the UK has the highest growth rate in the G7 especially on PM's question time by Softie Sunak. From Office of National Statistics. Office of national statistics show that the UK’s GDP growth between the final quarter of 2019 (pre-pandemic) and the final quarter of 2022, was the lowest in the G7, at -0.8%. This means the UK is the only G7 country in which the economy remains smaller than it was before the pandemic. For comparison, the US GDP grew by 5.1% over this period, with the second-worst performing economy, Germany, growing by 0.2% between Q4 2019 and Q4 2022. In summary. High growth is true when comparing the growth in annual GDP between 2022 and 2021. However, when comparing quarter-on-quarter growth in 2022/2023 to date, the UK is among the worst performing in the G7.

I would imagine that once this blows over the TV presenter will be given a peerage by the government for keeping the Sunak, Johnson, handbags at dawn feud, off the major news paper's front pages for 23 days.

I should be on holiday there in the next couple of days. I have a good Laos friend who does a bit of Thai visa agency work so will post on the latest news on my return.

As the UK is mentioned, here are some stats from 2022 regarding EV cars. Total car registrations were 1.6 million cars. Of that number 20% were all electric, so 320,000 cars. Of that number 67% registrations went to fleet and company sales to total 214,400. Therefore 105,600 were individual sales. The government predicts that by 2030 the UK will need 300,000 charging points. To meet that target it needs to open 100 points per day. The average target to date is 23 per day.

Here's my prediction. Before the end of the year Savannakhet will introduce an appointment system. I am going there on holiday soon and went to book a hotel which includes a Monday night, and both the Aura and Avalon are fully booked.

A little bit of history. From 2015 to 2016 I lived in Thailand on 5 SETV from Vientiane all extended plus 4 land crossings to Malaysia all extended, everything done using an agent, so almost 2 years. I reckon there were around 200 people per trip and 3 trips per week, with a lot working in Thailand. First trip we did not even have to go to the embassy. Last trip we were treated as normal applicants. So even then they were tightening the rules. When I posted that embassies were going to have to change the rules, I was laughed out of TVF.

Here's another irrelevant post. Just talked with a guy who was bitching and moaning that he has been trying for 2 years to sell his 22 million baht house in Thailand. He showed some pictures of the house. The interior doors are Global house fake wood. Some rooms have slatted glass windows. AC pipework is exposed along the walls. Rooms have individual ac's where for 22 million I would expect central air. And to cap it all most of the electrical wiring is stapled to the outside of the walls. There once was a general rule of thumb for property development in the UK and that was figure the selling price of the house, then try to balance that price by 33% for land costs, 33% for construction cost and 33% for profit margin. Obviously that formula does not work in Thailand due to the land price being the dominant factor.

My mate in the UK has just finished the electrical work on a 4 million pound barn conversion. He has described the electrical work installed and it blew me away. Every light, every curtain, every appliance is ethernet connected. Everything is operated by a phone or on a timer.. Every room has mood lighting settings using different colours and intensities . Doors out to the outside all remote controlled. Underground parking. There is a lift from the garage to the the top floor. The owners do a lot of home entertaining so there are two industrial ovens, a walk in freezer, and walk in fridges. The reason I mentioned this, is what do multi millionaires think of so called villas in Thailand. You could not even get a reliable power supply to run a house like this in Thailand. There is a 40 million baht villa for sale in Phuket that does not even have a remote gate opener.

Regarding visa appointments for HCMC. it appears they are doing the 14 days notice as others do. First available time today is 7th June only 4 times remaining. 8th and 9th June all times remain as you will not get your passport back until the following week. Checking on Monday 22 May this week, all times for 5th and 6th June were gone by 1000 am. There is only 10 times remaining for 12th June all other days and times available that week as of today.

Between 1968 and 1970 Ford UK had four industrial disputes while BMC had 58. This has been attributed to the fact that Ford workers were salaried employers and BMC workers were paid piece rate. Management's policy was, if you need more money increase your output. This led to the situation of what we used to call the Friday cars. Everyone would go hell for leather assembling cars and parts to either increase their output or meet their weekly target. I was on the door fitting line and there was no way I was going to spend 20 minutes trying to get a door pressed from a worn out press to fit reasonably. As long as it opened and shut that was good enough for me.