Guderian

It just goes to show you that all the paperwork and reporting hoops we have to jump through here so the Immigration Police can locate us at any time is really useful - not!

TAT really needs to get its act together on the quality tourist thing, lol.

I drove from Second Road along Soi 5 to the beach. This is now a one-way road heading west, i.e. towards the beach, yet I met around 6 cars driving in the opposite direction. On Beach Road itself, as usual since the one-way system was begun, bicycles, motorbikes and samlors all believe that it doesn't apply to them, with 2 cars and a truck also deciding that it's silly to follow the signs. It seems to be another of those optional Thai traffic rules, a bit like stopping at a red light, lol.

Health benefits = medical reasons. Ergo, no need for any certificates, just self-certify that you get health benefits from weed and that's your medical reason for using it, lol.

You're popular here? Really? Your profile shows 325 likes for 387 posts, which hardly makes you Taylor Swift. lol

Here he is having a chat with his special advisor on Thailand about conditions there... lol

I occasionally drive up to Laem Chabang to see the GF, and I've given up using Suk for the trip, too slow due to all the roadworks. Instead I just take the 7 and join Suk in Laem Chabang. A lot further, and a 20 Baht toll, but who cares? It's much better than sitting in a traffic jam for half an hour in Pattaya.

What next, nobody was actually ever hurt at Tak Bai? The Shins are really a family of saints and have been sorely misjudged by the negligent media? And so the rehabilitation continues...

Any tax cuts are likely to be offset by the plummetting value of the Thai currency, lol.

It's happened to me a number of times over the years. I just move on and park the car somewhere else. They can't stop you parking on Beach Road, of course, but then you'll probably find that a monkey has dropped a coconut on your windscreen when you get back. It's easier to just go with the flow and move on.

Will the farang perversions never end? lol

They should keep up with the news a bit more. Clearly, to solve all the problems they only need to ban people from Switzerland, since it's Swiss who've been causing all the problems in the last week or so. They're giving the angelic tourists from Britain an Australia a bad name! lol

I won't believe a word of it until we get the TAT numbers! lol

A sign of the times, or 'progress' as some like to call it. Ten years ago, this scene would have been set on a mango plantation, but nowadays it's on a cannabis farm.

Why don't they just round them up and train them to harvest the coconut crop? lol

...and TM30!

Yeah, this'll be approved, there's too much money waiting for too many politicians for it to be blocked much longer. Contrast it with the refusal to get rid of the daft afternoon booze sale ban a week or two ago, there was little or no money in that change for the politicians so they couldn't be bothered with it.

A few days ago there was a doom and gloom article saying that the Thai population will halve in the next 60 years. I should have thought that this would be great news, especially as both racially and religiously there's a great deal of similarity between the mainstream Thais and the Bamars.

The question in terms of voters isn't so much absolute numbers, but where they're registered to vote, and I'm not aware of any data in that respect. If most people were last registered in safe Tory or Labour seats, then the two main parties would be right in thinking that a few thousand expat votes isn't terribly important. In the marginal and swing seats, however, it's a completely different game, and both parties will fight like cats in a sack for any vote they can get. I've just registered to vote again in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Labour doesn't get much of a look-in there but, over the last quarter-century, it's been held by Lib Dem, SNP and Tory MP's. I suspect they might all be keen on securing my support at the next general election. I'm not familiar now, though, with the official policies of Labour and the Lib Dems on the frozen pensions issue, while the Tories have made their position clear enough, and I shall enjoy rubbing the current MP's nose in the matter as, north of the border this time, they're mainly fighting a resurgent Labour Party rather than the SNP.

Well no I'm really miffed, nobody at Swampy has ever offered me champagne and caviar before my economy class flight, lol.

The government should get its act together and simply start taxing weed, like it does tobacco and alcohol. The cheap prices here will go up a bit, but not enough to really concern anyone, and the government will get more funds to buy its submarine, or whatever's on the current wish list. Everyone's a winner!

The Cambodians had a plan to build a cable car on their side of the escarpment up to the temple, so getting around Thailand's control of the easy access to it. Sadly, it never seems to have materialised, even with their friends in Beijing who could probably have built it in a year or two.

Blimey, the pickings in the girly bars are poor enough these days (I was going to say 'slim enough', but that's clearly not the case, lol), I wouldn't want to be a Gogo Bar owner in 2085.

With the numbers on the road in Pattaya lately, I can believe at least 50,000 of those were sold in this city, lol.

There's a language school up by the Machanu statue, on the south side of the 7-eleven and medical clinic. It seems to have a steady flow of customers when I'm in that area, try calling then and ask if they offer what you want.