AyG

- No custody fees

incorrect information.

Saxo Custody Fees.jpg

Sorry. Should have been more precise. No custody fees for equities. (That said, from next year they're also introducing a charge if you don't trade at all over six months.)

Another minus: they don't cover the London Stock Exchange AIM.

Bit surprised, though, that nobody has any experience with them to report.

Never seen a little lamb frolicking in Thailand

You've perhaps lived a sheltered life. Over the last couple of years or so loads of places have opened up where one can pet sheep and lambs. The Swiss Sheep farm near Cha-am, Black Sheep Fund Farm at Hua Hin, and one of the floating markets in Ayutthaya all spring to mind, but there are dozens of other places.

I brine my pork when I make a batch of 3 or 4 kg into ham otherwise it is just pork.

Just pork? Just pork? Don't you know that the existence of pork is the ultimate proof of the existence of a loving God?

She in her infinite wisdom gave us wonderful thick slices of belly pork to simmer for hours with bean or to roast to crisp perfection.

She gave us the ribs to barbecue.

She gave us gelatinous trotters and crispy fried ears.

She gave us deep, rich pâté from the liver and fried kidneys for breakfast.

She gave us the brain, pancreas and thymus gland, delicious soaked in milk then pan fried.

And she gave us the intestines with which make andouille sausage and chitterlings.

Then the cheek meat for delicious head cheese.

And she gave us pork scratchings to eat with beer in the pub.

And when all the skin and flesh is stripped from the carcass she left us with the bones to make amazing stock of incredible sweetness.

So never, ever say "just pork".

Another thread in this forum mentioned Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore as a broker. I've used Internaxx (now TD International) in Luxembourg for over a decade now and thought it was time to review whether I might be better off switching. From a purely cost perspective, I would. I'd be saving several hundred pounds a year - though that's offset by the costs of transferring my positions from Internaxx at EUR 75 each. I'd be very interested to hear about others' experiences with Saxo in Singapore.

My initial investigation has identified the following pros and cons:

Pluses
- Cheap transaction charges
- No custody fees
- No European Union residence proof each year
- Similar timezone
- Mobile version of website

Minuses
- 30% withholding tax on US securities income (no W-8BEN support)
- Minimum of SGD 100,000 for multicurrency account
- Reporting is more geared towards traders than investors. (I'll probably have to maintain more detailed records myself.)
- Website doesn't work properly on Linux (uses Silverlight)
- Website doesn't work properly for Chrome browser

Any thoughts, anybody?

Food question belongs in the food forum

But just as an FYI Manitoba flour is super refined flour, you can try mixing cake flour and regular flour ot achieve the same results

//MOVED//

The key feature of this flour is that it's exceptionally strong, having a high gluten content, making it very good for bread. Cake flour is the total opposite, so mixing cake flour with regular flour just wouldn't work.

Never seen Manitoba flour here. I used imported Australian bread flour from Villa and get good results.

its hard for me to believe Thai people do not know about brine!

Not hard for me to believe. "Brining" appears to be predominantly an American pastime. Never encountered it in Europe at all (apart from cheese). To be honest, the thought of it to me is rather distasteful - rather like the cheap chicken breasts that are pumped full of polyphosphate and water. Nothing wrong with the natural taste of meat.

Isn't it also the case that when there's "early voting" the weekend before the election, alcohol sales are also prohibited?

Technically you can't buy through a bank, but most banks here have a brokerage arm which may agree to take your business. There are also non-bank related brokers.

One thing to check is the level of tax withheld on dividend income. The "default" rate is 30%, but can be reduced to 15% by completing a W-8BEN form if the broker supports this.

And you were likely no more unconscious during the procedure at Samitivej than you had been at Vejthani, just the use of a drug (or dosage) that induced retrograde amnesia.

Thank you for knowing more about my personal experience that I did. I was under the foolish expression that my level of consciousness was totally different in both cases. I stand corrected. I am in your debt.

I think what you are calling "twilight" and what Mobi is calling "general" are one and the same, i.e. IV sedation deep enough not to feel any discomfort or remember the procedure.

No. Different things. Twighlight anaesthesia is indeed sedation deep enough not to feel any discomfort, but one remains awake. (In practice I did remember parts of the procedure, including one rather embarrassing moment that I'd rather not have remembered.) This is what I had at Vejthani.

More recently I had a colonoscopy at Samitivej Srinakarin. This was under general anaesthetic, meaning that I was totally unconscious and have no memory whatsoever of the experience.

At least in British English "general anaesthesic" specifically means being unconscious. See, for example a British government website http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Anaesthetic-general/Pages/Definition.aspx

I doubt whether you will get a colonospy in Thailand without a general anaesthetic. At both hospitals I went to they gave me one, (Q Sirikit and Bumrrungrad) and I was even admitted overnight at Rajavithi just to have an angiogram, which has never happened anywhere else.

I had it under twilight sedation at Vejthani, so it is available here. I didn't have to ask for it - it was the doctor's preferred choice.

BTW, one of the worst parts of having a 'proper' colonoscopy is the enema you have to take the night before to clean out your stomach.

Agh.......

I think you meant "laxative", not "enema". It's also required before a virtual colonoscopy.

Colonoscopies aren't only done under general anaesthetic. They can be done under twilight anaesthesia (you're barely conscious, feel no pain, but can change position if asked. You may also be left with vague memories of what happened). The really brave can also have the procedure with no anaesthesia at all.

Taking vitamins appears to increases you chances of dying younger.

http://www.livescience.com/19000-vitamins-supplements-earlier-death.html

But there could be some connection, how about unhealthy might be more inclined to seek health from a box of vitamin pills rather than balancing their diet and doing exercise.

Except unhealthy people don't care about themselves enough. In my experience it's the health fanatics that are more likely to knock back loads of vitamin pills and other dubious supplements than the lardarses.

In general highly refined foodstuffs are worse for us than natural alternatives. Think of sugar, white rice, white flour. Vitamin pills fall into the same category.

I doubt there'll be much of a market for this. Few Thai people like Indian food, as recently discussed at length here. The Indian-Thai community already has its own sources.

Rang Mahal used to sell frozen curries. The business appears not to have gone well. The curries have disappeared from the supermarket freezers, and they're now selling frozen Indian desserts.

Taking vitamins appears to increases you chances of dying younger.

http://www.livescience.com/19000-vitamins-supplements-earlier-death.html

It's all just one big marketing scam so the pill companies make vast profits.

I am not sure about the trafficking allegation. Surely anti-trafficking international NGO's can be informed?

It's a difficult situation. The United States in particular has agreed to take some of them as refugees who have fled the violence in Burma (which some undoubtedly have). Thailand has refused to recognise them as refugees, so won't allow them to be leave. This very much looks like a "commercial" decision by the Thai authorities for what ever reason.

Unlike other ethnic groups fleeing violence in Burma (non-long necked Karen, Shan, Mon, &c.) who are frequently turned back at the border, the long-necked Karen are welcomed and quickly find themselves in fake villages as a tourist attraction. If the other groups do make it into Thailand they end up in squalid refugee camps. Again, the long-necked Karen are seen as commercially valuable and the Thai authorities apparently complicit with what is going on.

On reflection I should have carried on taking photos of her till she smiled.

Why should she smile? She has (or her parents have) been trafficked to Thailand and is held against her will in a human zoo. She's not allowed to leave, and receives a tiny fraction of the money her Thai captors make from tourists. The whole situation is a human rights abomination, and the Thai government does nothing about it.

Dont know the context.

Something like this, ฉวยโอกาส?

I think ฉวยโอกาส is more like "seize the opportunity to ..".

Can't answer your question. However, remember that if anything suspicious or unclear is found by the virtual colonoscopy you'll have to undergo a regular colonoscopy, doubling the costs. In my opinion it's better just to have the standard colonoscopy.

As I see it at the moment: If the system of Government UK Pensions does collapse,at the very least you will be entitled to some years of refunds of what you have already contributed to your state pension (to invest in a Private Pension Scheme)

You say that if the Government UK pension where to collapse, you would be entitled to a refund,are you sure about that? Remember most of us thought that we would be entitled to a yearly increase to our payed for state pension.

1. There would be no refund. State pension (not "government pension" - a government pension is paid to ex-government employees) is not funded by NI contributions you've made in the past; it's funded by those currently working, so there's no pension pot to be disbursed. The government simply couldn't afford to buy everyone out.

2. Rather than an outright collapse, it's far more likely that any government will simply allow the value of the pension to wither. This is what the Tories are attempting with the switch last year of the indexation basis from RPI to CPI (which is consistently lower). Compound the effect over a decade or two and pensioners will be significantly poorer.

In Thailand no work=no eat=you die. I agree with this

Does that apply to babies? Should young children work in sweatshops? And what about the mentally ill, physically handicapped and elderly? Do you really want them all dead? Or is this just the moronic posting of a heartless imbecile?

I have also just been cancelled by my UK broker for the same reason. Am currently looking at Saxo. They offer trading in shares in most markets and their commissions are a lot lower than Internaxx - GBP 8 for UK shares.

Very interesting. I also see that they don't charge a custody charge (unlike Internaxx/TD International).

When I see frail, gaunt elderly women picking through trashcans I think there's something wrong with a society that doesn't provide for them in their old age. The concept that in Thai society family will always support you doesn't always work. There is definitely a need for a better social security safety net here.