billd766

Have just returned from the centre of Utopia with breaking news!!!!! NO you are going to have to wait. I went to the local Tesco and the new manager, is like the England football manager. The rolls he now tells me 16th, you cheeky bugger with that I felled him with my truncheon and sure enough out fell a KPP Thai ID card that deserved a volley into the groin to which he replied arghhhhhhhh.... With that the BIB ratcathers arrived and deported him. Tesco now closed for decontamination. Apart from that and reading your drivel not much has happened today appart, of course from the breaking news, Jeeves is arranging to have them mounted all around the city and province.

BuT before I reveal all, one other thing, as I was doing a circular tour today I perchanced to be held albeit briefly at the BIG C lights when I noticed that the BIB had caught a couple of the KPP dignitaries and had put them on display on the crossroads, they are on the south eastern corner of the crossroads, 2 of them and they look in some distress waving their arms about, expect it will deter others hopefully.

So the breaking news............. Utopia (aka Nakhon Sawan ) has been declared an area of "outstanding Natural Beauty" by the Nakhon Sawan licencesed Vitualars Association. This came after a pretty long and lively session late last night accompanied by much burping and wind breaking . The clincher apparently was firkin of "Essex Border" that had recovered from an illegal drinking club about 100kms away where people dress up in red coats, black hats and baggy trousers doing unmentionable things to horses. The liquid was said to be deciding factor in the award. Hurrah for Utopia!!!! We wsill stand and sing the Utopian Anthem.............."Heavenly" Copis and sheets at BIG C.

Utopia? More like euphoria caused by the copious amounts of alcohol dulling the brain cells.You have to get 'lagging' to live in a God forsaken concrete epitaph like Nakhon Smogan. Here Ex',I hope that the England manager you were referring to,was the future one! If he had an annoying twitch and was a talking fish,you would have done us all a favour by giving him a spank.Why this preoccupation with bread rolls? If that is the main topic of conversation in the Dustbowl,the contamination of the grey matter is far worse than I thought! Our conversational topics in the Garden Province I hear you ask? The Meaning of Life,the Ascent (descent in your metropolis,sadly) of Man and of course,more importantly,the health and welfare of my favourite pinto and Fred's chestnut (Titter ye not,the horse,not the other chestnut).

Frankie Howard lives (actually he died on 19 April 1992) but no matter.

The best bakery I have been to in many years was in Taupo in the North Island of New Zealand.

The bread and rolls were superb plus meat pies and cakes to die for.

Oddly enough it was run by a Chinese family and most days the queue was out of the door.

OP back again.

The bike in the picture isn't the bike I'm considering - that one looks far different .

The picture's only to demonstrate what the chaincase/primary drive cover looks like; I couldn't find a better picture.

Does the Steed you are looking at have a green book?

If not you may well have a problem in the future.

So nobody knows ???

My little 18month old great great great nephew sits on a pillow on my lap and steers the car for me, his very good.

I'm asking what about when I'm 70years old and want to continue to drive in Thailand.

I have another 3 years to go yet to reach 70 and then I may give up biking but my wife won't let me drive the car if she is with me.

On my own is no problem.

I definitely don't like being on the bike at night and I am less happy in the car at night than I used to be.

snip

Police said the pickup, with about 30 kilos of explosives, had been parked near the fence separating the official residences of the permanent secretary for Pattani provincial government and of the provincial publichealth chief for two days without arousing any suspicion.

snip

You mean the vehicle was not moved or suspected for TWO days parked there in an area which is not safe and where car and motorcycle bombs have been going off.

I would be seriously kicking security peoples asses for that.

The most that it should have been there is 4 hours before being checked and towed away.

I would have predicted well over 50 percent without any military experience, though I'm not really up on which countries have mandatory national service.

I don’t know Jing, I think the military types are more prone to chest-thumping and more inclined to respond to a thread of this nature. Just read the responses. For many of those who never served, it is kind of a nonissue.

It's going to be a non-issue for those that never served. Genius. Please, share more of your wisdom.

Obviously you are a man of great wisdom, as well. I of course would not refer to myself as a genius but am flattered when others do.

Most of the ex military guys I know in Thailand don't go around chest thumping or shouting how good they are and how they can kill or disable you with just one finger.

They just get on with their lives and are quietly proud of what they acheived.

The loudmouthed chest-thumpers that are so often seen in bars are probably not ex servicemen unless they were in Fred Karno's barmy army serving under the name of Walter Mitty.

3G is working in Thailand, has been for a while. If you know about the background, sure there was a ridiculous amount of graft and skullduggery going on.

But I've been using True 3G for close to 2 years, it's fast, reliable and cheap. A plan that in the USA costs $100 / month costs $20 here. And now with True-H it's got pretty excellent coverage too.

As for "smart Thailand" - this is good for everyone. Even though I would be willing to bet all my money on there *NOT* being e-government services available within 6 months, it's going to put more internet in more places, and that's a good thing. Particularly if they can convince the fat cats at AOT to provide free WiFi at the airport it will be something benefiting most people here at the forum directly.

Similar initiatives - covering all of Thailand in internet for example - have in the past brought access to far away places. CAT CDMA in Pai and Mae Hong Son, and loads of other out-there places; DSL internet and now even fiber to my house 6km outside of Pai town! Compared to the west, that's really impressive.

BTW I've yet to encounter a WiFi hotspot system in Thailand that actually works. I've tried 3BB - either slow, or not working. TOT - not working, not even a little bit. True WiFi - so slow as to be unusable. Starbucks KSC for 150/hour: Working, but really slow, a joke for the price. So I have my doubts that Smart Thailand's WiFi spots will be better...

Up here where I live 65 km southwest of Khampaeng Phet there is ONLY 2 or 2 1/2G.

We have an ols AIS omni site in the moo ban, a 2 sector onroad site where my wife has a shop and a DTAC site about 500 metres from that.

The only True site is in the main village 6 km away with no expansion planned.

Last month TOT put up a 20 metre tower and I now actually have a good internet connection.

I have been waiting to a TOT, TT&T or CAT landline for nearly 9 years but now I don't need one.

The last map I looked at of the whole of Thailand shows that most of the country does not consist of big towns and cities but small villages and moo bans.

To have a "smart"Thailand will involve a major amount of money just to build the backbone fibre optic network to get back to the swithcing centres and that is before you consider going out to the villages.

Thailans international gateway access will need to be 10, 20 or even 50 times bigger than it is now to enable "smart" Thailand.

Can you imagine what will happen on the day that a big school gets its tablets at last and switches them all on together.

I can, and the answer will be not much will happen unless the backbone is done first.

I served 25 years, boy and man the the Royal Air Force.

I was and still am proud of it.

As you should be sir,I have the upmost respect for those who serve their said countries.

It's not something I ever wanted to do.

I my career I ended up with one medal, the Long Service and Good Conduct medal.

I was fortunate not to have served in an active service zone but if I had been it was what I was paid for.

However local and national government officials in Thailand have far more medals than I do, but I earned mine.

Every time i visit Bangkok, I see vast amounts of import cars (not all new) on red plates.

Now I did not arrive into Thailand on the last Banana boat, so i'm guessing theres a loop hole that allows you to take an import in on a red plate?

I'd really appreciate if someone could put me in the loop.

I think there's more to it then that to be honest.

I think there must be some loophole that allows people to run the exotic cars around on red plates. You see so many high end cars on them i refuse to believe they have all just been purchased.

My friend told me you can take a car in under your passport as a temporary import, but you need to visa run the car every once in a while??

Then go ask your friend and don't bother to post here

Why do people ask a question here at TV and then insist that they know the answer all along ?

Keep your attitude it check mate, flaming people on the internet is a bit 90's.

Not once did I mention that my friend had every detail about this, that's why i came on here looking for some answers.

You are not being flamed.

You asked the question and it was answered by several people but you didn't appear to believe them but do appear to believe your friend.

What I politely suggest that you do is to search the forum for the information that you are looking for and read up on them. The threads go back years and many people has posted on the subject and the result is that your friend is incorrect.

I am sure that I remember more than 6 months ago one of the PTP campaign promises was that everybogy would be rich in 6 months.

Mind I have been wrong a couple of times (only) before.

Funnily enough whenever I refuel my bike or the truck I always get out and check the pump meter and I think I have only been caught out once in some 10 years.

Easy thing to do and I have to get off my bike and open the tank cap anyway.

Royal British Legion, it might be worth contacting them

Good suggestion! Bert of Tropical Berts in Pattaya is the welfare Officer for the Thai Branch of the Royal British Legion contact details: http://www.tropicalberts.com/

Thank you for that information.

I am ex RAF living 400 km from BKK near Khampaeng Phet.

I will contact them later this week.

snip

Prompong insisted the charter amendment is a campaign policy of Pheu Thai and reiterated it has nothing to do with the changes proposed by the pro-lese majeste amendment Nitirat Group as claimed by the Democrat Party.

Prompong slammed the Democrats for trying to link everything to politics while ignoring its duties of checking the usage of the budget or the government’s policies.

snip

Does Prompong mean that the charter amendment is not politics or part of the government policies?

Those nasty Democrats are checking everything the government does but they shouldn't really as it upsets Prompong.

In case anyone did not notice, a large part of the world faces a food shortage. Yes, there are some suppliers in the market that can and will sell for less than Thailand. Let them. Thailand still produces high quality grades of rice that are sought after in the market. These grades fetch the higher prices on the market. Yes, there may be stockpiles of the lower grades. However, its these lower grades that end up in the food aid programs that benefit SE Asia and Africa. They can sit for a bit, because as long as there are starving people, there will be a market, even at the alleged higher prices.

BTW, the PM didn't recently pop into India to practice yoga.

- 2.5 million children in India die every year from malnutrition and related illnesses — that is 25 times the number of people estimated to have died in Somalia due to famine-related causes last year.Rasnah Warah, Daily Nation (Indian Newspaper) Sunday, February 5 2012

To put it into its proper context and I only used Wikipedia the population of Somalia in 2010 was 9,330,872 and in India in 2010 the population was 1,170,938,00.

My calculator gave the rough figure that Indias population is 125 times larger than that of Somalia.

In both countries the main cause of starvation was drought.

For me it would be a simple thing. I followed the basic rule of never spending more than I could afford to walk away from. I could walk away from what I have invested tomorrow and still have a roof over my head and never miss any meals. I would however, be gutted because of losing my wife. No doubt I would survive but I would lose the most important thing I have. I hope to never have to face that situation. Good luck however it turns out.

I am in a similar position toy you with the exception that my wife is the second most important person in my life.

Our 7 year old son is the most important.

Even out her at the edge of the jungle we are going to do our bit for those lower class of people in NS.

Land and houses will be sacrificed (as well as black chickens at midnight) as this year we will be building a dam across the might Klong Klung.

Last week it was almost 2cm deep and a couple of metres wide but after Thursday night's thunderstorm and more rain last night it has tripled in depth and doubled in width.

Last year at the height of the rain it was nearly 4 metres deep and 50 metres wide in places.

Compensation will apparently be paid in large amounts.

I served 25 years, boy and man the the Royal Air Force.

I was and still am proud of it.

Ahhhhh, the joys of having an Apec Business Travellers Card

Ahh the joys of being retired and not having to wait 2 hours at Immigration to go in or out of the country.

It doesn't happen at KBank.

Errmm... please red carefully; both my accounts are with K Bank. 1 in Bangkok (city) and one in Pattaya.

Please accept my apology.

For some reason I misread it as BKK bank.

I've seen the countertop single-loaf bread machines for sale at malls in the larger cities, and even at Makro. Usually around 4k baht or so, give or take.

I'm blowed if I can find one in Bangkok, I looked in a couple of Central stores, Siam Paragon, Emporium and even MBK, to no avail.

Surely they must sell them here somewhere?

as for me, I was looking for a bread-cutter (electrical or "man-powered", doesn't matter), but to no avail. even those European-bred chains such as Big C, Tesco and the former Carrefour did not have that.

don't want to spend a fortune on it either, so probably will have to wait until I visit my home-country again, where I can get such thing for roughly 25€ or so....

Verasu has food slicers (which slice bread) also.

http://www.verasu.com/product_detail.php?pid=732

Unfortunately most kindergarten teachers in Thailand speak little or no English.

My son is now 7 and he has been to 3 schools in the last 3 years up Near Khampaeng Phet and each school was a bit better every time.

Currently he gets picked up just after 6 am in a minibus and is taken 65 km to Khampaeng Phet where he is in the Anuban school.

He returns around 6 pm.

We enrolled him there as they are running an English language programme which actually has English teachers and the subjects are English Languge, Conversation, Maths, Science and computer studies.

There are only 23 children in the class as most parents either can't or won't pay extra for it.

We do because we think he is worth it.

Up here in Khampaeng Phet province the Pu Yai Ban has sent out a paper and a map showing the area which will be flooded after a dam is built.

As far as I know the dam will be about 400 metres from our house and the eventual water level will settle around the 161 metres AMSL mark.

It will cut the road in a few places and quite a few villagers will lose their farm and lands.

It is said that compensation will be paid whoever most of the land has no chanote and is really government land granted to people during the communist rebellion many years ago.

For all that I dislike the TRT party and their politicians SOMEONE somewhere seems to be doing something.

The klong that the dam will cover is dammed by sandbags in places and in other places it is perhaps 10 cm deep and a metre or so wide.

Last September or October it was 5 metres deep in places and perhaps 40 metres wide and a few corners were straightened out and land washed away.

The klong is called Klong Klung and runs from Mae Wong across to Klong Klung on the route 1 and into the Ping river and then on down to Nakhon Sawan where the Ping joins the Nan river to form the Chao Phraya and on to Bangkok.

I've seen the countertop single-loaf bread machines for sale at malls in the larger cities, and even at Makro. Usually around 4k baht or so, give or take.

I'm blowed if I can find one in Bangkok, I looked in a couple of Central stores, Siam Paragon, Emporium and even MBK, to no avail.

Surely they must sell them here somewhere?

That they do.

At Verasu down near the American embassy on the same side.

A quick link for you.

http://www.verasu.com/product_detail.php?pid=224

The old Arial square 4 and Vincent 1,000 cc had a compression relief valve lifter but if you got it wrong it could easily throw you off the bike and do some serious damage to your body.

The Arial square 4 was a collection of vibrating nuts and bolts only held closely enough together to allow the oil to leak out.

The King saw this problem coming long ago and already developed a solution for it. Its just up to the government to channel the water to the monkeys cheeks.

Oh thats right they built an airport there.

Don't forget the factory sites built on monkeys cheeks as well.

I read in the last few days but forget where that in one place out of 43 factories 13 will relocate.