billd766

Do you truly think that Joe Biden should be personally on duty 24/7 monitoring every single illegal immigrant. There are whole departments of people plus the police whose job it is to find and apprehend illegals. That is their job and what they get paid to do. Joe Biden's job is the same as every other POTUS throughout the US history and that is to run the whole country.

The tourist I can almost understand though if they cannot use the internet to search for Thailand, then they shouldn't be allowed out without their Mummies. Having been an expat of various sorts in over 30 countries in my working life, I find that if the "expat" has little or no idea of the country that they are going to, then they shouldn't even be considered for expat status or the job.

But how many believe the BBC any more?

But still nonsense.

AFAIR he was selected by the Senate (who had handpicked himself and they were NOT elected) and their 250 combined with that of the largest remaining party, the PPRP along with their party list MPs accepted Prayuth as an 'outsider" PM, Without the party list votes the PPRP was NOT the largest party, the PTP was and if they went into a coalition with the FFP would have been the largest party and would have selected the PM. However Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit was stripped of his MP status and the FFP was disbanded by the Election Commission on spurious grounds. So whilst the BBC were technically correct, Thai politics is NOT the same as Western politics. They also did NOT complete the full oath of allegiance before the king, but that didn't really seem to matter. The fixes are already starting for the next election, but IMHO it will not be so easy for the PPRP and Prayuth to win this time.

But that won't help if something like this happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrey_Canyon_oil_spill

A lot depends on how an expat is described. An expat generally is a foreigner not living in their own country, but does that mean working or retired? If the expat is retired that is one class of expat. If he is working however, is he working for an offshore company, an onshore local company, or is he working for himself or as a contractor to an on or off shore company? Is he on a salary plus expenses, part per diem, full per diem or paying his own way. All of those choices affect the expats way of life. How long is the expat going to stay in the country is anther choice. When I first worked in Thailand I worked for a US company on salary, o/t plus full expenses for about 3 months. When I came back a year later I was on a 3 month assignment which gave me the choice of full expenses or full per diem I was extended another 3 months and was given full per diem which meant that I was paying for everything. The expat package came in after a 1 year extension and included the sale or rental of my UK home, my family could join me, all international school fees etc would be paid here in Thailand and the company would have tried to find my wife a job. This is the problem when people talk about expats without understanding what an expat really is.

My state pension dies with me. However my widow is entitled to a % of my RAF and company pensions until her death. Yes I did investigate that several years ago.

I think that choosing a way is better than choosing a time and date. It gives you more time to break it to the family and discuss the problems form both sides. In my case it gives me time to teach my wife how to transfer my pensions from Wise to Thailand. At the moment my 3 pensions go from the provider to wise. I do a manual transfer to Bangkok Bank and from there to Kasikorn Bank where our joint account is. I brought it up yesterday and she asked why I used BBK and she asked why not straight to Kasikorn. My answer is the BBK transfers show up as an FTT which is what Immigration want to see. If I do it through Kasikorn I have to open a new account, bring my passport, Thai ID, Yellow book, pension letters etc, plus my wife, her blue book, ID card etc. However I then have to go to Kasikorn call centre once per month to get credit advice notes to prove that the pensions come from offshore. My marriage extension on income is due in October so I will set it up his year to start in November. That way when I die the pensions can keep coming to Kasikorn.

For the first 6 months of this year my electricity monthly bills came to difference cost cost per unit daily units used 837.0 ฿3,771.60 ฿4.51 27.00 765.0 ฿3,429.90 ฿4.48 24.68 960.0 ฿4,355.37 ฿4.54 30.97 1,029.0 ฿4,682.86 ฿4.55 33.19 1,053.0 ฿5,060.19 ฿4.81 33.97 936.0 ฿4,475.63 ฿4.78 30.19 That is for 2 houses, 2 freezers 24/7, 2 fridge freezers 24/7, usually 1 fan 24/7, 2 other fans 12/7, Aircon in my room set to 28C 10/7, water pump available 24/7, various lights mostly led 12/7.

The pilot is not using cloud and clunk radar to find clouds with hard centres.

Of course they do. there are different types of road accidents too. They also die or not die in road accidents.

I have been living in Thailand full time since 2001 and working here on and off since 1993. I am not stuck in the past. When the rule is wear a mask, I wear a mask. When the rule is no longer a rule then I don't wear a mask. I do carry one and if the place I am in wants me to wear one, then I put one on. I respect your choice to wear a mask, why is it so difficult to respect my choice not to wear one? AFAIR none of my Thai family have worn masks going back into the 1990s, until Covid came along and the government mandated it. One of their stupid rules was/is if I am alone in the car I don't need a mask. If my family are with me we all have to mask up, even though at home we didn't have to mask up.

How about one that couldn't get away quick enough?

I am glad you wrote it that way. quote "Johnson's mayoral administration was responsible". How much do you truly think that Boris personally did of that project? Did he personally initiate the project? Did he personally allocate the funds to it? Did he personally design the procurement process and letting contracts? Or was that all done by other departments, and then presented to Boris as a complete package? Most projects are created, planned, designed and built by grunts, handed off to department managements for review, then back and forth until completed and agreed upon and only then does it get presented to the CEO, who probably has a general idea of the project but not the details. That would be down to each department head and his team. While the CEO gives the final nod he has to rely on the department heads to get it right and they in turn rely on the team under them. So, yes the end responsibility is his, but thousands of man hours go into any project, and the CEO simply does not have the time to do it himself.

Here in Thailand where in the hot times it reaches over 35C some days the boys wear shorts or tracksuit bottoms and shirts, the girls wear skirts and shirts or tracksuit bottoms and shirts. Some classrooms have a/c and others don't. My son will be 18 next month and my neighbours daughter was 17 last month. All the 40 odd students in his class are 17/18.

As Arthur Fallowfield, the farmer character in the legendary Radio 4 comedy series’ Beyond our Ken and Round the Horne, would have said, “The arnswer loies in the soil”, and it is in here somewhere, depending on the variation of "new hospital". https://www.bbc.com/news/59372348

Try looking up sarcasm on Google.

The problem is. that that this IS their reality

What nit picking? The rates apply to all whether you make 1, 12 or even 100 transfers per year.

Thailand did a lot more than watch. They organised all the outside requirements such as oxygen, waterproof battery lamps, food, accommodation, pumps, hoses, they were even happy to allow their land and houses to be flooded, one Thai driver drowned in the rescue attempt after stockpiling oxygen bottles at various spots along the caves. There were even ordinary Thai going around collecting and disposing of trash. Thai companies supplied water pumps and hoses, generators and cables, all manner of items without which the rescue would not have ben possible. Many of the items remained in situ for moths until the dry season when they could be recovered. There were around a total of 5,xxx people involved, most of whom were Thais all sitting around watching according to you. So, yes you're were right. quote "Thailand? Thanks for watching."

quote "The came up with a totally anal requirement where you had to show 12 monthly identical payments into a Thai bank account." Not correct at all. AFAIR for a marriage extension based on income only, you only have to provide proof of an average 40,000 baht income per month to be paid into a Thai bank single account in your name only. The IOs DO understand the forex rate, and that it changes one or more times daily and certainly many times a week. The last time I checked with them in the Kamphaeng Phet IO they were using the Bangkok Bank forex rate which is not a very good rate,

About the same as when I voted to leave years ago. This time I will just be an interested observer as my vote ran out last year. It might be back in July 2023 though. As for the books I am currently updating my master list of authors as I do twice a year. I m down to the last 5 or 6 on my tablet before I need to add more. I have about 190 single books and around 150 authors with multiple books to choose from. I have just read several books by Rhys Bowen, Some I liked and a couple I have dumped after 50 or 100 pages.

For me it was company policy for engineers to wear a tie. After the Monday visit to the office it was down to the car, throw the tie in the back and clear off out to work.