humqdpf

I take it that your GF is Thai.

First, you would not be the only man who finds himself in a marriage after a few years with very little sex available. The world is full of such people in all sorts of cultures. In such circumstances, you plainly have a choice - either go for a separation or stay with the marriage but find a way of getting intimacy/sex/love elsewhere.

If I could deal with the second option first (and you may want to stay together for all sorts of reasons, including your child), if your GF is Thai, she will understand that if she is not providing the sex/intimacy, then someone else will. Unlike a Western style marriage when it is expected for the man to put up without sex if the wife does not want it any more, in Thailand men are pretty much expected to have a bit on the side.

You can have your sexual outlet in a number of ways - some men prefer to go for a massage with extras or some arrangement like this, whether it is via a well-known outlet that provides such services or through someone they find who is not ordinarily in the sex business - but the point is that money changes hands. It has the benefit of being discrete which will be appreciated by your wife and others.

You can go for a "gig" (friend with benefits) but that is usually transient. You can get a mistress (lesser wife) - this will have greater impact on your finances but has the benefit of being in a relationship, which is what many Westerner men may want.

In other words, even if you stay in the marriage, you don't have to live a sexless life forever. In Thai culture, your GF will not have a leg to stand on if you take any of the options set out above.

Otherwise, you can separate. Personally I would not suggest throwing the GF out and refusing to pay for anything including your child, as some in this forum have suggested. Part of your DNA is in that child. Only if your GF is a real problem (disappears with the child or otherwise refuses access) would I completely cut them off. And I would get legal advice on this. Going the separation route will cost you money especially if you pay child support and you don't want to be a complete jerk.

In all of these options, you will spend money. Like everything else in life, it is down to the money.

Possibly the option of staying with your GF but going for massage with extras is going to be your least expensive option although I hear that some gigs are not expensive. A mia noi or mistress is going to cost you as much as a wife. Your decision really depends on how much cash/income you have.

Look on the bright side - if you were in a Western country, your GF could up and leave with your child and take half your assets and have a right to a large part of your income.

You made various references to an aspect of your character, that you are not an alpha male or words to that effect. Actually, no one really likes alpha males, especially the bullying types. But if you are to survive living in Thailand, you have to learn how to assert yourself so as to have respect at least of your family. Your wife may not respect you because you are either too passive or do not stand up for yourself. The trouble is that if this is the case it is likely that you will have the same problem with any Thai woman you meet. Even the massage lady may try to rip you off if she thinks you are a push over.

If you are in a situation where you have very little income or capital but you are still young enough, you may wish to consider returning to your home country or going to a country where your skills are in demand and building up some capital. Life without money in your home country may not be fun - life in Thailand with no money is much worse because you get no respect and you can see large numbers of Westerners living it up and having a great time. Besides, being a falang in a relationship with a Thai woman and having no money has to a be a special kind of hell.

Anyone who could write lyrics like the following is worth remembering, especially when compared to the talentless guff that now frequently passes for lyrics

"I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man

Just a mortal with the potential of a superman"

David Bowie - Quicksand Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Abduct me once, shame on you. Abduct me twice, shame on me.

Standing up for yourself and refusing to be cowed by bullies making death threats - NO SHAME AT ALL

This has to be the worst Troll topic that one could imagine. Have it your way - alcoholism is not a disease. Feel better now? But alcoholism is an addiction. Does having an addiction mean that it absolves alcoholics of their actions under alcohol? No. But neither does calling it a disease absolve alcoholics of their actions under alcohol.

And then your point is . . .?

I don't know whether this service is still running but there used to be a Soviet style "cigar" boat running from Sihanoukville to Ko Kong. Not for the faint hearted if the sea is rough but seemingly safe. Not sure if that is still running.

...vaccines...big business and everything that goes along with loads and loads of money....

...read up on all the 'doctored' studies that tout vaccines as 'miracles'....

...while they contain traces of poisons and even cancers....

...essentially increasing rather than reducing 'risks'....

When was the last time you saw a child with polio? Why? Because polio has been eradicated in many countries years ago. How? By vaccine. Made by whom? A large company that had the resources to develop them.

Please cite the "doctored" studies with publications and dates. I cannot think of a vaccine that has been cited as a "miracle" - there is always a scientific explanation.

Please cite the vaccines that contain poisons or cancers. Name the products.

In what way to vaccines increase risks, as you claim? Cite the examples please.

I am as watchful and critical of "big pharma" as the next person. But to throw away vaccines and throw up all this nonsense without reference, citation or example is downright evil as it provides motivation to the misinformed and religious fanatics.

By raising such unwarranted fears, do you want to return us all to the 17th century in Western countries or present day in some conflict zones or places where vaccines are not available, where children die like flies from preventable diseases or suffer a lifetime of disability. I am old enough to remember cases of polio in my home country - none of my schoolmates who contracted it made it past their 30s, some died much earlier.

"but a subsequent technical mid-air glitch made the flight risky,"

They dont want to talk more about that....

Jet Airways has as many of the Indian Airline companies been struggling with profitability for years so poor maintenance is likely, together with disgruntled and poorly trained staff a recipe to disaster.

I must be stupid. I always understood a glitch was something that might be annoying, temporary and solvable, not something that would "make the flight risky."

You really need to manage your stomach acids better. If you are allowed to take your PPI twice a day, take it up to an hour before each meal.

Coffee may not be the culprit. You might want to drink a better quality version or with milk - I find that a caffe late or cappuccino is best for me. Drinking the sludge that has been lying around for most of the day on the bottom of a heated pot would probably do anyone's stomach in.

There are benefits for drinking good quality coffee. It may improve your mood, your concentration and help to reduce your uric acid levels and your risk of a gout attack.

don't walk blindfolded

don't look at strangers

just walk straight ahead and if anyone says ' hey you .... JUST KEEP WALKIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unless he is shouting, "Hey you - my brakes have failed."

For all of those people who live in Thailand but complain bitterly about everything in the country, man (or woman) up and say to the Thais, "Thanks for putting up with our idiots who think it is ok to travel somewhere far away from home without even medical insurance and think that it is ok to sponge off a much poorer economy than their own."

To put this in context, it is difficult, if not impossible, for a non-EU national to get hospital treatment in many European countries if you are not either resident for years or insured. The USA is almost impossible to get anything like free treatment for anyone. Ditto Japan.

So hats off to our Thai friends who are kind enough to provide hospital care for free for all.

The Mullah clerics in Iran are the de facto rulers of the people...can whip the citizenry into a frenzy with any demonetization of US or Saudi policies...

These same clerics destroyed the government of the Shah of Iran...created the atmosphere for a war against Iraq a few years back...and keep up the rhetoric against the West and other Arabs...

They are militant...but not necessarily stupid...they have more to loose by calling for a real shooting war with Saudi Arabia...

I think that most right-thinking people were of the opinion that the government by the Shah was a construction by the British and USA (through powerful oil companies) and was absolutely terrible for Iran. The absolute scandal of the gross interference by Britain and USA in the then democratic government of Iran and ultimately the destabilisation of the country so as to get their hands on a larger share of Iran's oil wealth is acknowledged by some historians and others as creating the conditions for the revolution against the Shah several years later that opened the door for the rule by Ayatollahs.

The Iranian authorities do not have to do much to demonise the USA or UK - that was done by the USA and UK themselves.

A couple of points seem to have gone unreported in much of the mainstream media about the various aspects of this case.

1. There were 47 other persons executed at the same time as the Shia cleric. No one is reporting anything about them. Iran and its friends are talking only about the one person out of 47. Perhaps the cleric is the most innocent - but we will never know unless the topic is debated. However, on all information available, this cleric was the most peace-loving of them all.

2. Iran executes far more people per annum than Saudi Arabia (perhaps double), many of them too are innocent of anything that any other country would consider a crime.

3. From what I have read, neither the UK nor the USA have mentioned the barbarity of the executions nor have they referred to the injustice of the cleric's case or any of the other 47.

4. If Iran wants to be accepted by the rest of the world community, it has to defend diplomatic missions against crowds (whether it is politically organised or otherwise), even if it is because of some grave injustice.

5. When will the rest of the world learn that Saudi Arabia is a thuggish state that has funded terrorism, treats its ordinary citizens to a very strict regime, is terrible to its minorities and has a huge destabilising effect on the region? It is time to call halt to Saudi Arabia's immunity to criticism by the West. Stop buying their oil - they are running a huge deficit because of the price of oil and sometime their cash pile will run out

I don't quite understand the reasoning behind Saudi Arabia funding Daesh. Wahhabism is dominant in Sadi Arabia it's the official form of Sunni Islam, correct? Daesh are also Wahhabi...the west is fighting against Daesh yet cozier than hell with the Saudis. I understand that this is due to US interests, the turning of the tap, on or off, the massive amount of arms imported from the US etc. However, not that this will happen, what if Daesh takes over Saudi Arabia? In the Islamic religion there are no Monarchies so the Saudi Royal family is not legitimate. Are they not cutting off their own heads by funding Daesh? Absolute madness!

Although certain very rich Saudi persons or organisations most likely funded certain persons or groups that may have morphed into Daesh, it is highly unlikely that they do so now. In any case, Daesh do not need them as they have plenty of funding from their own taxation and selling of crude.

However, Saudi Arabia or some of its wealthy citizens often funded Islamist groups in the past for geopolitical reasons or to further the reach of the Sunnis. In some cases, they took a more active role - the majority of the Al Quaeda terrorists involved in 9/11 were Saudis.

Although there are certain similarities between Daesh and Wahhabism, such as the very traditionalist and fundamentalist approach to Sunni Islam, that is about as far as it goes. It is a bit like the difference between fundamentalist Christians in the USA and the Spanish Inquisition.

There is the tradition of the caliph in the Islamic religion. This is part of the ideology that Daesh appears to adhere to, the notion of the creation of a Caliphate in the middle east. This and their declared intention to wage war against everyone who is not of their particular brand of religion, their willingness to enslave women, to kidnap and behead those of another religion distinguish them from Wahhabis even though the latter are undoubtedly fundamentalist.

grab the nearest shovel .... or buy a ferret !!

That is not a ferret.

You probably mean a mongoose.

I wonder at the politicisation of this case.

If he were not a celebrity, would there by any of this legal tennis going on.

By legal tennis, I mean the constant returning of the case back and forth between the various parties (Steenkamp's family, the prosecution, the Justice dept, the judges, the courts and the defence. No one wants to adopt the "hang him high" position because he is a disabled and possibly troubled man who would probably not survive long in a regular prison, never mind among the general prison population in South Africa. On the other hand, the authorities do not want to be seen to be easy on a privileged white guy who murdered his high society girl-friend.

So many issues are at play here - gun control, feminism, disability, celebrity, race and class.

If he were not so well-known, I guess that we would have had a case made in a few short months and a conviction for murder with a 15 year sentence a few weeks later. Full stop.

I said No. But with reservations: "High" and "Low" are subjective.

With regard to Russian intel and Syrian men entering the country, I think the likeliehood is very low.

That's not to say a different set of men won't do something, especially to Russians.

And cue the guys who will drift off-topic and bring up the South's troubles.

According to you, the fact that there is a Islamic insurgency in the South is off-topic when it comes to a terrorist attacks in Thailand.

There is only one point that surprises me about the Southern troubles, which is that the insurgents in the South have not already teamed up with one of the many international terrorist movements. I has to be only a matter of time. We have seen this occurring in just about everywhere there is conflict between a Muslim insurgency and a state.

When it occurs, perhaps you might not see this as a drifting off-topic.

Isn't the world a truly perverse place.

First, Bill Clinton gets the Glass-Steagall Act and related legislation repealed - this was legislation that was put together to separate deposit takers (commercial banks) and investment bankers so as to prevent the kind of financial activity that was said to have led to the Wall Street Crash and its aftermath.

As someone much wiser than me said once, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, or words to that effect. As more and more jurisdictions also withdrew their restrictions on commercial banks, this paved the way for a world financial crisis and we all know what happened then.

Meanwhile, Hilary Clinton, said to be much more "left wing" than her husband, talks about taxing the stock market, placing ever greater restrictions on banks and the finance industry etc etc etc and still gets huge funding from Wall Street sources.

And husband Bill apparently still gets huge amounts for his after-dinner speeches and lectures, presumably by paid up by some of those Wall Street types, despite having presided over the events that led to the financial collapse.

But lets be balanced about this: the three Congressmen who sponsored the bill that repealed the Glass Steagall Act were Phil Gramm, Jim Leach and Tom Bliley, all Republicans.

None of the parties come out of this smelling like roses.

To be second in command in North Korea your life expectancy is about the second in command in terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. Something always happens to number two and the boss keeps on trucking.

What you say about Al-Qaeda is only true since the death of Bin Laden when several second in commands were killed in by drone strikes and other means. His second in command, al-Zawahiri, survived for years, at least a decade as the number two and is now said to be the number one. Al-Zawahiri was often thought to be the power behind Bin Laden especially towards the end of the latter's life.

This is so different from the regime that Kim Jong-Un runs - no power behind the throne is tolerated. There is no unity of ideology, no true believers (unlike Al Qaeda, no matter how misguided you think it is, there is a very unified ideology followed by true believers). Each is in the game for what they can get out of it or to preserve their position at all costs.

Which rich and famous person would want to buy this jewelry for $10 Million Dollars knowing full well it belonged to Marcos? I know if I had this money I wouldn't. That would be like walking around with a Bengal Tiger Fur Coat!

The only way they are going to sell this jewelry at any price is if they destroy it and sell the diamonds separately. That should also reduce the appraised value as well, but this is what they will have to do to sell it at, if they sell it at all. Putting it on display is not a good idea either. Not sure what the best solution is, but selling it at full value is a Pipe Dream, at best.

Normally you reduce the value when you try to sell jewellery broken down into stones and precious metals. But in cases where the jewellery is of such questionable taste, you make find the opposite is the case.

Putin describes downing a plane in what he sees as disputed airspace as "a stab in the back."

But what does he call the invasion of a sovereign territory by militias with arms supplied by your neighbour?

Bad batch of ice me thinks !

Or indeed a good batch of ice, depending on your perspective.

I had this problem in Vietnam where the local authorities would blare out announcements morning at 5am.

Two strategies were used:

1. If you are young and fit enough, you can do this yourself. If not, get someone from a far away district and pay them well. After dark when there is no one around, get a ladder to access the offending loudspeaker; turn the speaker upwards and fix into place. The rain will do the rest. No one gets blamed, no speaker was stolen.

2. Get close to someone who is in charge of this kind of thing in your locality. Depending on the configuration and where the speaker is located, you may be able to have the speaker moved based on some excuse, such as you want to change wiring or it interferes with your cabling. Or just pay him off - it always helps if you find something that they want, bottles of whiskey or whatever.

If all this fails, just get someone from out of town who is prepared to cut the wiring to the offending speaker for a fee. It always helps if you get someone from out of town to do the arranging, the further the better - costs more but creates an extra step of separation between you and the guy if he is caught and he won't be gossiping around your village.

Blood sucking US taxman, no other country taxes their citizens when they are not resident in their country!

Oh yes they do. Most countries will tax you on any income or capital gains main within the country, even if you are non-resident.

What is different is that US citizens must make tax returns even when they have no taxable income in the USA.

The aim of these North Koreans is invariably to make their way to the South Korean Embassy in Bangkok. Worst possible scenario is they are captured in Laos - there they will spend some time in the really rotten prison for foreigners before being sent back to North Korea to a certain death. Laos is close to North Korea ideologically.

Getting caught in China is unsure - they can be sent back but there seems to be at least some chance of being allowed to stay as there are some north Koreans living in China.

Getting caught in Thailand is usually not as bad - although Thailand is not a signatory to many international agreements, generally speaking if they are caught they have a chance of the South Korean embassy claiming them by offering them citizenship or laissez passer papers.

Am I missing something here? How can you "expand" a probe into something that you are already probing?

In this case, they are examining Mrs Clinton's email behaviour - I don't particularly like the woman (I am not an American citizen and therefore do not have "any skin in the game") but even I find the investigation into whether she used this email or that email server tedious and hair-splitting to an extreme degree. How they can expand the probe into an even more hair-splitting exercise beats me.

Look, it would appear that a number of subscribers on this forum hate Mrs Clinton - and no doubt they have reason for their views (I mean reasons above and beyond watching too much Fox TV). But surely there are better ways of arguing against her than some nonsense about email server use? And an FBI investigation? With all the Islamic Fundamental terrorists, murderers and pedophiles out there, I would have thought that Mrs Clinton would be the least of their worries. I mean, yeah you may not want her to be the next President of the USA but there are a few current and former African politicians who have actually committed mass murder, stolen vast sums and made their citizens lives a living hell that I would prefer the FBI to focus on rather than Clinton.