BexMan

We are in Spain at the moment and there was no power to cook food yesterday evening. A local branch of a major supermarket here has its own generator. They also have a microwave that customers can use to heat up food brought in the store. Went there to use it and found it wasn’t backed up by the generator. 😭To our amazement they had every checkout open and a minimum of 15 people in every line, most with fully laden trolleys. Usually they have a third of the check outs open with no more than 3 people in a line. Must be the same people that brought all the toilet rolls and pasta when Covid hit.

I use several. If it’s an important question, I would double check the answer with 2 or 3 of the free AI apps. Sometimes I have had conflicting answers, which then needs a bit of further investigation. Mainly I just use Perplexity.

Not living here yet, plan to move later this year. My wife is Filipino and we first came here on holiday 30 odd years ago. She felt at the time she got many sneering looks which she put down to Thai women thinking she was a Thai hooker with a faring. Now she’s 60, people don’t think she’s a hooker and she hasn’t experienced the same looks. People still often mistake her for Thai and talk to her in Thai, but not a problem.

Interesting question, WHO states a Thai average of 20000 a year. Latest figures I could see was for 2021 when Thailand had 18218 road traffic deaths. So usual 50 road deaths a day which is higher than the Songkran rate this year, so far.

Not victim blaming at all, but the last place I would go if I wanted to keep a fresh tattoo dry is Soi 6.

It was recently in the media some of the business owners were campaigning to get a stop on water gun after dusk. Nothing appears to have come of it though. https://thepattayanews.com/2025/04/10/pattaya-business-owners-push-for-suns-down-guns-down-during-songkran-2025/

When a security guard takes off his jacket, you have a good idea what’s coming next. Fair dues to the woman in Pink, she tried several times to defuse the situation.

Thanks for the link, I hadn’t read about that success! I did see a video the other day showcasing the amount of weapons that the Iranians had stored underground, it was quite startling. It’s a bit of a concern that they are likely to use these weapons to hit US targets and Israel if they are attacked. I know Israel has been very successful fending off previous Iranian attacks, but there are a lot of weapons in storage.

I can’t see the US attacking Iran. They have used so much weaponry going after the Houthi’s, there is now a shortage. They have also had limited effect on the Houthi weapons stored underground, so Iran with their even deeper storage facilities would be really difficult to destroy. No point hitting them if you can’t destroy their weaponry and take out their Nuclear building facilities.

Got to say, as a Brit, I was surprised recently to read a Google hotel review where a German was slagging off “Chav” behaviour by Brits. Having now stayed at the hotel, I can fully understand his review. Plenty of nationalities there, but it was only the Brits camped by the bar taking advantage of the All inclusive and getting rowdy. Bit embarrassing being a Brit at times.

I don’t know where they get these temperatures from, but the website I just checked stated that the maximum temperature in Pasay City was 36c over the last week. https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/@1694608/historic I checked as my wife has relatives living in the Philippines.

Seems to vary on a daily basis when I look in the mirror. Most days I feel I look like a real minger and on a few days look OK. While, if you took 50 pics of me, perhaps one would look OK, in some of the other 49 I’ll be giving the Elephant man a run for his money . Have to look on the bright side, at least most people think I look at least 5 years younger than I do and the Missus still fancies me.🥲

Even more importantly, if I ever go to jail, I pray Vitaly is not my cell mate.🥱

It’s a good job the neighbour acted to save the dog. Spain comparatively recently ramped up their laws. Minor animal welfare offences in Spain carry a €500 fine, and serious ones like this can be punished with a €200,000 fine.

Genuine question! Is there a video that shows the ambulance approaching, or are you just quoting what the IDF stated? I only ask as the only video evidence I have seen is on the BBC website. It shows some stationary ambulances by the side of the road with a man in high vis jacket in a non threatening stance. They were clearly not approaching the IDF, it was vice Versa. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cj9e22dezeno

Personally I can’t see this being planned, rather having to act as the ”law of unintended consequences” took effect in a number of ways.. Bond markets began retreating and the free fall of stock markets around the world. West Texas Intermediate fell 20% to their lowest levels since 2021. Fears of a global recession and trade war heightened and consumer confidence dropped and a deep recession was likely. People who had planned to sell funds or stocks, to finance certain expenditure, had to put those plans on the back burner until prices went back up. Perhaps the most unforeseen consequence was that some Countries began seeing China as more friendly than the USA and China was moving to exploit that situation. As a result of the tariff China was trying to project the image as the protectors of free trade. The recent Bangkok meeting involving Cambodia, China and Thailand where they discussed enhancing economic ties being one example. While some of these events were predictable, the full extent wasn’t. So to save face it the message was “We told you if you didn’t retaliate we would reward you” (big China dig) and “it was the art of the deal”. Reminds me a bit of the infamous Liz Truss mini budget of September 2022.

When I first heard about Songkran I thought it would be fun to experience it ONE day. I wouldn’t mind joining in for one day and getting wet, but not multiple days on end when you want to just pop to the supermarket.

I was on my own in a gym cycling on a static cycle when 3 Chinese came in. One sat on the bike next to me and his two buddies came over and held a conversation with him as if he was 20 metres away. I had been listening to a podcast on my mobile phone with my ear buds in, but couldn’t hear it properly with their shouting. After a while I took the ear buds out and played some music at the highest volume on my mobile. They moved off to other gym equipment after a while, so went back to ear buds and podcast.

You have to feel for the woman, she must be living hand to mouth, if she can’t afford to repay the 50 Baht promised.

I don’t get why bad behaviour from Foreigners is so often connected with the Thai Visa free policy. From reading the report how can you conclude he would not have applied for a Visa, if he needed one to get in?

Interesting I asked 4 different AI apps which countries have the worst accident records per kilometre travelled. The answers varied from Africa to Eastern European countries, India, China and Latin America. So while the accidents in Thailand are alarming, per km travelled they are probably nowhere near the worst. Not that that is reassuring when you are on a Thai bus.

I wonder why they say it could be a publicity stunt? Maybe some sad person desperate for Likes for a TikTok video showing people dashing to collect the money?

The war simulations are not actually secret meetings. They simulations were well publicised in different newspapers at the time: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14114765/can-win-war-china-simulation-taiwan-invasion.html I can’t imagine any American president going to war over Tawain given the potential US losses of life and equipment. Sweeping sanctions against China would be the likely scenario.

I would not want to be living in the US if they went nuclear against China. It would surely lead to mutual destruction with Chinas access to 600+ nuclear warheads. Fortunately These Heads of state recognise this and are extremely unlikely to use them, especially in the defence of another Country.