JonnyF

Bad news for Baldwin. I always felt his best chance was to use his fame, wealth and connections to get this thrown out before he was formally charged. Now it's going to trial, all that evidence is going to come out for the world to see. Difficult to see him escaping this one, unless we get another OJ style farce. I hope the family of Halyna Hutchins get justice on this one. Baldwin's reckless, entitled behaviour on the set cannot go unpunished, especially when it resulted in the fatality of an innocent young woman.

I saw a prediction about the next 12 months. Let's wait until the end of 2023 for the verifiable data.

Maybe change location. The area where I stayed with my family was doing fine. Everywhere was packed. A couple of high street shops had closed due to Covid but apart from that most places were very busy, plenty of money being spent, new cars on the roads etc. It's a bit like hanging around in Khlong Toei and then declaring that Bangkok is a slum and everyone lives in shacks.

Sounds like the school is aware that you are not paying tax (since you are working on a tourist visa), so they are reducing the salary they pay you by the amount you should be paying and keeping the difference themselves. They'd rather benefit from the situation than have you benefit from it. Since you are working without a work permit which is not technically legal, I wouldn't kick up too much of a fuss if I was you.

They should really make it clear at the point of booking. If you are a smoker who has switched to Vaping, it's quite a big deal in that you either have to give up smoking (not great while on holiday) or switch back to normal cigarettes (which people may have spent several months moving away from). Clearly the correct solution is to legalize Vaping, but the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly wouldn't like that. They'd prefer to continue making money while people kill themselves with normal cigarettes than see them switch to less harmful Vaping.

Cruelty to animals really makes me sick. I'd love to see the elephant break free and trample these sickos into the dirt.

It's disgraceful that any government should dictate how many children people should be allowed to have. This is what happens when the state has too much power. One of many reasons I support minimal state intervention in the private lives of citizens.

Downtown Bangkok, where you can barely walk down the street without smelling Marijuana being smoked or bargirls offering sexual services, but vaping leads to extortion by corrupt police ????.

Same when I was back earlier in the year. I was expecting some kind of scene out of 28 Days Later. Instead, shopping malls were packed, pubs were packed, golf course was packed, restaurants were packed, roads were packed with brand new cars as I cruised around in my friends brand new Audi Q8 Etron (NHS Middle Management positions seem to pay very well). The Chavs were still overweight and their screaming kids still had iPhones. The reality vs. my expectation from the horror stories I had read was startling. I'm sure it's cold and miserable though, it's Britain in January after all.

Double whammy for Thailand. Now everyone knows.... 1. Thai police are corrupt to the core. 2. Vaping is illegal in Thailand and doing so makes you a target for extortion. Just legalize vaping for god's sake. It's hardly crack cocaine.

Facebook thinks Trump is no longer a force, and they're probably right. They can pretend to be unbiased on this one for a while. But make no mistake, if he starts to gain traction he will be silenced by left wing big tech again. Fortunately Musk has Twitter so at least one platform won't be silencing their political opponents.

Life experiences? Or choices. Of my group of a dozen close friends from school who hung around together for 10 years or so, about half of us have done well, half are what you might say, "struggling". In each and every case, the result was down to their choices. Getting girls pregnant (or not), getting an education (or not), buying a house when they were cheap (or not), forging a decent career (or not). Their life experiences are a result of their choices.

They are not to blame for the crisis. That much is true. However, a large % of them are to blame for the fact they are struggling. Unfortunately, the welfare state in the UK has created a culture where people make poor decisions lightly, in the belief that the state will bail them out if needs be. Huge mortgages for houses they can't afford, big screen TV's they don't need, new BMW's when a second hand Honda would do the job, and so on. Then, when the pooper hits the fan in a scenario like Covid melting the World economy, they cry like babies that they haven't got steak for dinner every night. Treat people like children, they will act like children. The West has produced generations of weak minded cry babies who think the world owes them a living. Hopefully when the cost of living crisis ends a lot of people will have learnt some of the harsh lessons of life and take a bit more responsibility for their own well being in future. In the mean time, I wish them the best but prefer not to pay additional tax to bail them out.

No need to ruin a good thread with that Bunny Boiler.

Nonsense. None of my extended family are struggling. None of us were given anything either, we simply worked hard, planned ahead, lived within our means, didn't make a myriad of poor decisions. People need to start taking responsibility for their lives and stop blaming governments for everything.

As has minimum wage. Almost trebled in fact.

I suppose it's the Tories fault that people spend their money on tattoos, Playstations, beer and cigarettes before food? It's the Tories fault people are too lazy to cook? How about personal responsibility? I used to eat for a pound a day when I was at Uni and nearing my overdraft limit. I'd skip the occasional meal. That's life. I didn't expect the government to put steak on my plate every night. Those luxuries came later after getting my degree, working for a decade and paying off my student loans. I was fortunate enough to be under a Tory government so I did get a small grant. Labour removed that shortly after I graduated.

I'm guessing this was Thong Lor police. Now I am no fan of Thai police but I suspect either she had something on her or she had the "Don't you know who I am" attitude and rubbed the police up the wrong way. Maybe even deliberately to get content for her social media profile. I've been stopped and searched by them a few times (also outside The Robin Hood on 33/1) and as long as you are pleasant and don't have anything that you shouldn't, then they are OK and send you on your way. Having said that, if they asked me to do a pee in a cup at the side of the road test, I suspect I might end up spending a night in the cells for 'attitude adjustment' and making a donation to their annual party.

She really perfected the #bekind #caring image, complete with benevolent smile. That's what made her so dangerous, at least with the likes of Daniel Andrews it's abudantly clear from the start that he's a nasty little wannabee dictator, but Ardern's disguise was quite effective. It is quite chilling that behind the smile was a deeply authoritarian character, one that brought misery to so many of her countrymen. One can only hope that people are starting to wake up to the type of shysters pushing the deeply flawed Woke agenda, and remove other such characters (Trudeau, Sturgeon etc.) ASAP.

A load of rubbish if you ask me.

It seems there had been many issues re. guns on the set prior to Baldwin pointing the gun and pulling the trigger, killing his colleague. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set Given that Baldwin was not only the star of the movie whose body double shot the live rounds, but also one of the movie's producers he would surely have known about this incident, which makes him firing the gun at a colleague without checking not long after, even more reckless.

I didn't see any camps in Redfern. What camps are you referring to?

I'm guessing I'll be accounting for 2 of those arrivals, once when I returned from visiting family in the UK and once when I returned after attending a business meeting in Sydney. Neither of my "arrivals" was for tourism though.

So good in fact, you had to quote me twice ????

Unfortunately Aboriginal communities have long suffered from the plague of Alcohol abuse. When I first worked in Sydney I used to walk through Redfern to my job in Alexandria. It was an Aboriginal hotspot at the time (maybe it still is?) and there were always groups of Aboriginals there, huddled around in groups of 5-10 hitting the bottle - and that was at 7am. I'm not really sure banning it for certain hours of the day or days of the week is the best solution though. Maybe education would be the way to go in the long term, it seems like a change of culture is required.