Drumbuie

Also guilty of a very serious crime against fashion.

Good. The influx of oligarchs has ruined London, especially the ones who bought properties as investments and didn't actually live in them. Friends tell me of restaurants closing because there aren't enough actual residents to keep them open, people moving because the oligarch next door's digging three extra basement floors to add a garage, swimming pool and cinema and the structural damage is spreading .. and house prices are completely unaffordable for 99% of Britons.

That would work... IF the raw materials for the stuff the US makes were sourced in the USA. But.... PS Russia is noticeable by its absence from the increased tariff list. Who do you think told Trump to make this move?

Somewhere I saw a note that after 2007, Bangkok buildings were designed to be earthquake- resilient. However, having seen that video of Park Origin's Sky Bridges shearing away, I'm not 100% convinced, tbh.

CREC has seven decades of experience of building railways, smoothing gradients, tracklaying etc - but no experience of building high rises. Contracting them was a bit like asking a bus driver to tailor your suit. CREC was the company whose railway tunnel collapsed last year in Nakhon Ratchasima. Some of their officials were caught yesterday trying to remove files from the Audit building site.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2758639/italian-thai-development-faces-b108bn-debt-crunch-as-overseas-projects-fail ItalThai is already in financial difficulties. The Chinese company is the same one whose tunnel collapsed in Nakhon Ratchasima, suffocating workers: their expertise is in tracklaying, not building high rises nor, apparently, tunnels. But their bid was the lowest. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Actually, young people *do* sometimes drop dead. A friend's 18yo son collapsed and died during a school sports day race, due to an undetected heart abnormality - she and her husband were watching. In this case, the erratic behaviour would tend to indicate drug use, and the nose bleed could relate to a head injury when he fell on the pavement, or to overenthusiastic restraint. Whatever the cause, it's a sad waste of a life.

I didn't have to fill in a TM6 when I came back to Thailand this week, nor the last time I flew in, last year. Immigration have all my info from my visa extension ( retirement) so once they've scanned the passport and checked the biometrics, it's all linked up in their database - and that's that. Presumably the new Eform is only for visitors and tourists. Incidentally last week, a S African friend of my son's was refused entry at Suvarnabhumi last week and had to fly home. Reason given: "too many tourist visas". I'll see if I can get more details.

You might try Waterfox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox instead of Firefox. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are issues with FF these days). Also Ecosia as a search engine, if you like software with a handcrafted feel rather than the mass produced stuff.

It would be fascinating to know exactly where the £420 million raised from the sale of the British Embassy by the last (Conservative) government went. And how much renting part of an office block in Silom and a duplex condo for the Ambassador is costing them. Meanwhile the face the UK lost in Asia by selling that land is incalculable. The budget the FCDO allots to Consular services each year is cut and then it's cut again. They do the best they can. The Consular offices are not a nanny service, there to wipe people's noses after yet another idiotic, predictable mistake usually caused by a cocktail of ignorance and arrogance.

Actually......Finland conducted a study on 1.8 million children, lasting for 14 years from 1982 (when they introduced MMR vaccination) to observe any negative side effects. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1119409/ There were less than 100 adverse reactions from over 3 million vaccinations, and none of them anywhere near as bad as the consequences of contracting Measles, Mumps or Rubella.

You, like so many, are forgetting all the public infrastructure that you benefit from every day which is paid for by taxes.

He was 42. Is that ' young'? Old enough to know better, in my book.

You will be *astonished* to know that not all accountants are up to speed on every paragraph in the tax regulations in Thailand. I had read them* ( yes, saddo, I know, but it's my money..) to see what allowances and deductions were possible. When I met my accountant, he was unaware of several of them**, but after checking agreed that they were legitimate. * In translation - you can find them on the internet ** This was not a surprise. It was the same with my UK accountant. At least the Thai accountant is cheap.

Bangkok Bank deducts 15 baht from all its savings accounts every month. If OP checks the phone app, he might find the words " Annual Fee" next to the 15 baht debit.

Scotland was for many years my home; I lived mostly in the Highlands and Edinburgh, and in Glasgow (where, incidentally, I have never eaten a bad meal, and have frequently eaten world class food) every January for Celtic Connections. There are many different Scotlands. The Highlands are not the same as the Borders, the islands are definitely different from the mainland, especially the Northern Isles ( Orkney and even more so Shetland), the cities are different from the rural areas. Nowhere have I ever seen anything remotely resembling The Wicker Man - except at Edinburgh's Beltane Festival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane_Fire_Festival

MRT, BTS and ARL have been much fuller than usual this year right through the day, not just in rush hour. Mostly backpackers, Chinese tourists with lots of luggage, and of course Russians, but lots of ( mostly Northern) European languages too. I lived in a UK tourist hotspot for 25 years and by the end you could feel the whole village gritting its teeth, waiting for the end of the tourist season. It definitely got worse after COVID. It seems as though during lockdown a lot of people forgot how to behave; now most just focus on what they want and pay no attention to the effect that that has on others. I have friends in Pai who've been suggesting I visit them - having seen that photo, I'm now *not* tempted.

I consulted a Thai accountant about my income this week. I brought over THB1.1 million into Thailand last year. By the time he'd removed the non-assessable income and deducted all the allowances, I'm due to pay just over 20k tax - in three installments from April. That is less than a third of what would have been due on the same income back home. Stop moaning about the tax, guys. Pay up and enjoy actually having the moral right to moan about the infrastructure.

Evidently you're not a dancer.

You will be obligated to pay tax on this year's income next year before the end of March. The allowances are generous, the taxation bands are gradual, and I'm checking my calculations with a Thai accountant (friend of a friend) tonight but I'm expecting to pay around half what I'd pay back home. In three instalments, with no penalty. I don't understand the mindset where you live in a country, you expect all the infrastructure and services in that country that are paid for by taxes - and you complain about them frequently - but you don't want to contribute.

The Thames barrier was built to withstand a "once in a century" flood. It has been raised over 220 times since 1982. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-thames-barrier Most capital cities of countries with maritime border are on the coast at the mouths of a major river. They are thus vulnerable to rising sea levels ( and Hull is not generally considered a belwether as far as that goes - try looking at some of the research instead).

Actually....Thailand has been tapping into Dutch expertise on water management since at least 1902. https://www.netherlandsandyou.nl/web/thailand/themes/water-maritime

I'm sure all you guys commenting on her size are distinguished by your sleek, muscular bodies without an ounce of flab or excess fat.......right?

A Jewish friend told me that many Israelis are descended from Russians who claimed to be Jewish in order to get out of Russia after WW2. (And who can blame them, tbh? ) Meanwhile, many Israelis today continue to protest against Zionist expansionism. As ever, truth is complex, not black and white.

It takes less than an hour in CW, once a year. No pain at all. While waiting for my number to be called, I amuse myself by counting up the money I've saved by *not* having an LTR visa.