Drumbuie

The momentum of a C-130, reverse thrust or no reverse thrust, is considerable.

Legal advice on wills, power of attorney etc, is offered by the Office of the Attorney General for free to all Thai residents, no matter their nationality. I now understand why from a Thai friend whose family spent decades in litigation after the grandparents died without a will - apparently Thais, especially the older ones, are v reluctant to face up to the necessity. Their case tied up the courts and enriched lawyers for years.

If you are in Thailand now, go to the nearest Office of the Attorney General and ask them for assistance. It should be free.

Had a message from Bangkok Bank last week. I'm in the queue at my branch right now to show them that the bill is aid by my son ( but you can do it at any branch).

I've used OpenOffice for years. It's free, it's stable, they don't keep changing it for the sake of change, and it's even better now because it doesn't keep pushing AI doodads at me. Gradually trying to move everything away from US-based software - for reasons which will be obvious to anyone capable of critical thinking. About to try NextCloud for online storage, for example, to remove all my stuff from the Googlesphere.

I would guess that it might be due to the fact that the offices have been closed for three days last week due to Songkran.

I wonder how the Italian tourist would have responded to a Chinese tourist in Italy saying "hallo" to him in Arabic? Or Hindi?

Thanks to the internet I can tell you that acetone ( nail polish remover) and peroxide ( hair bleach) combined can be used to make the explosive mentioned above. Both are commonly available ingredients and it's not impossible that if some of his Thai friends were female, a drop or two if those substances might have contaminated his bag and triggered the sensor.

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.