thaibeachlovers

I learned very early on to never drink with a bunch of Thai guys, and never regretted it. Refused to drink with my Thai BIL as he was a nasty drunk.

Perhaps, but what one doesn't know, one doesn't miss. I'm not AGAINST learning Thai per se, but IMO it's just not necessary, other than the basics. Truthfully I never wanted to have a conversation with a Thai man, and was never interested in vocal conversation with a Thai female ( if you get what I mean ). If anyone wants to spend the time and effort, has the hearing ability to distinguish tones, and has a reason to do so ( like working in LOS ) by all means go for it.

555555555555 Said farang will likely be with a group of like minded individuals that will all rally round said farang to beat the living <deleted> out of you.

I wouldn't have a conversation with those people in my own country, so why would I have in Thailand? The only people I wanted to "converse" with were tourists, and regardless of where they were from they all spoke English. I can see how it might save my life, but happily such a situation never arose for me.

It absolutely is worth the effort in every conceivable way. If you are single, you'll get the girls easier, if you are married, you'll not want to take your wife every single place you go. That is indeed a ball and chain. I never had a problem getting girls in Thailand, even not speaking Thai. I never understand why anyone would claim it's necessary to speak Thai, as I visited and lived there many many years without being able to speak conversational Thai. If anyone wants to spend the time and effort to learn it by all means do so, but please don't say it's "necessary" when it is so obviously not. However, a basic vocabulary is important to get by. I found a few phrases were all I needed, eg where is the toilet, thank you, all the way ( for on local buses ), numbers and "how much", a few food choices etc.

I don't consider 56 to 60 to be "elderly" We don't even get the pension till 65.

I wasn't aware that the mRNA vaccines had been in use long enough with this virus to establish anything about long term effects.

I wouldn't have Pfizer myself, so obviously not. Had the poll been about vaccination per se, and not Pfizer my answer would have been different.

Out of a population of many millions obviously many people will be dying every day, and while many may die WITH omicron, how many of those were fit, healthy and not obese with no underlying health problems?

Agree 100% about the "BS". Seems to me there are two sorts of people regarding covid- those that are unconditional believers and follow the dictat religiously; and those that don't. Personally, i couldn't care less if the believers want to wear a full body condom and run around screaming that the sky is falling, but what "annoys" me is that they want to make everyone else conform to their opinion, and they spout inane slogans like "care for others" when it's pretty clear to me that not much caring is going on, when so many have lost jobs, savings, livelihoods, and in some cases their lives due to family violence and suicide, IMO caused by lockdowns.

You are wrong on that. I always post links WHERE THEY ARE REQUIRED to back up my post. When I'm giving something that is MY OPINION, I don't give links because it's MY OPINION and I add that's it's IMO. Have a nice day.

As I remarked initially, 55 is not old, and IMO is not markedly less healthy than those of a younger age. If that were the criteria I'd be making it 60 at least. I know 70 + year olds that are still fit and healthy, and work outdoors every day farming.

On that at least, you are correct.

I wasn't attacking you when I made my post. I was just pointing out to some that the sort of cheap masks most wear are not so good at "protecting" the wearer. I agree with wearing a mask when coughing/ sneezing etc, and did so last time I had a cold, which was long before covid. I also agree we are probably all ( or rather most of us ) going to get some version of covid, so IMO time to man up and live with it, instead of making futile attempts to eradicate it.

You must have gone to a different Walking Street to the one I used to visit a lot.

I went on a day trip with Malibu Travel from Pattaya. Boat took us direct to their own resort on the island. Happier days back then. Sorry to hear the travel company has ended. Seems everything with Malibu in title has ended. I loved the Malibu show when it wasn't just ladyboys.

The NHS is free, which does indeed make it better than most, but bad management stops it being as good as it should be, IMO. As for the Thai public system, I had a far better outcome re diagnosis of problems than I ever had from western public health systems because I could be seen by a consultant any time I wished, so long as I was prepared to wait a few hours to do so. Cost a fraction of what it costs to see a GP in NZ and the chance of seeing a consultant here is extremely poor. I've been trying to have a chronic problem diagnosed for years, without any success. So YES, the Thai public service is better.

Are you sure about that? The one I worked for had bad managers and wasted millions of pounds on fancy buildings. Not so good on cleaning wards or taking care of patients for various reasons too many to go into in this post.

IMO the people and economy destroying lockdowns didn't work very well, and the only reason they are still being used in some countries is IMO because certain politicians love the power they have while lockdowns or equivalent are in place. The British government has, IMO, woken up and accepted reality, and abandoned the IMO misguided policies of the past 17 months. The sooner we all get governments that wake up, the better. However, it won't be good for those that love telling other people what to do. Imagine, they won't be able to pontificate about people that won't vaccinate or wear masks any more, if it's not official policy.

Pity you couldn't leave the covid obsession out of it.

That was probably why I disliked him so much, but in the 90s I saw a lot of his music VDOs and I came to like his music a lot. His songs were certainly more than the usual 3 minutes of bubblegum, and the VDOs were great too.

For a mask to actually "protect" IMO they'd have to filter the virus, and seal around the nose and mouth completely, and preferably have an eye shield as well. Masks that do neither may IMO stop the wearer spreading the virus to others to a certain extent, but IMO they are not very good at protecting the wearer. I wear a mask when in shops etc, because I have to, but I do not personally believe it is "protecting" me from the virus ( I wear the cheap ones the supermarket gives away for free ). Once the omicron version gets established it's likely many will catch it, including myself, so I'm not stressing about trying to prevent myself catching it as IMO there are too many ways to become infected to protect against all. I'll do whatever the dictat says I have to do, but I don't take it particularly seriously.

He's obviously psychic! Cops have been missing out on the tea money for a long time- they are going to be making up for it big time now, IMO.

LOL. However, IMO there are similarities between the climate change story and the covid story. Certainly the same posters seem to be aligned on both stories re for and against.

I believe Sweden has a higher population than the others you quote, so a more relevant statistic would be as a % of population. As always, statistics can mean whatever one wants them to.