xen

big hit all over Asia and Australia in the late 50's . Still love this song even now but it was indeed a one hit wonder except maybe in Japan .

Lots of Albums but i think this is the only one that got into the charts..

Not sure if he only had this hit making it a one hit wonder but i had his album which i played alot

The NSW Food authority has said that the poisoning is something to do with the fish releasing histamines in the freezing/handling process. It has become all a bit hysterical the reaction in Sydney with the Murdoch press doing their best at adding oil to the fire . It is serious enough without added bullshit.

Probably going of on a tangent here but I fill my bag with cheese, vitamins, cotton socks for the kids , size 14 footwear , Jägermeister for me( my current favourite that appears unobtainable in BKK), cherries or other cold season fruits, often avocardos good Honey, herbal teas and so on. I have clothes and everything else I need in BKK so it is just the quality luxuries I bring in that are expensive or hard to obtain .

Isn't that clip from the rocket festival they have in Bun Bang Fai ?

I use http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm#.VAultlfV_eI

Seat 61 is a great site and the bible for train travel and i use it a lot (yesterday actually) but the fares and times are not always quite up to date as it must be difficult to have all the fares and times accurate all over the world that seat 61 covers. It does give a good indication of what to expect though.

#1 Choose healthy plants at the garden center - thick stems, well shaped form, no obvious disease or insects, good dark green color leaves.

#2 Plant a bit higher than level ground and make sure that you prepare the hole; if it is clay or fill, replace with the bagged type soil. Make sure you have some sand mixed in...around 10% is good. Roses don't like standing water and overwatering.

#3 When you plant, remove the rice husks in the plastic bags by knocking off and just plant a bare root rose into your prepared hole.

#4 Next time you have fresh shrimp shells - dig them into the soil around the rose. Initial planting - use a mild analysis fertilizer mixed into your soil mix.

#5 Check that the soil doesn't get to compacted around the base of the rose and keep the weeds away

As others have noted, water in the mornings and remove old flowers. Roses also benefit from cutting back, after the plant is well-established. Like a grape vine, you can cut back more than you think. Any time you see yellowed leaves, dead branches, insect damage - cut it back. Watch for white mealy bugs, snails and aphids.

I would agree if what you have said but could i add that it is also good to look at what roses are looking good in the neighbourhood and see if you can find the variety. I always preferred the old favourites like time tested Peace , Queen Elizabeth and Mr Lincoln but i doubt these would be true to form even if they were found them in Thailand.

A lot of roses do not have scent as they are breed for size or colour of bloom. It seems like a lot of things in life is you can't have it all.

As for watering i always make sure i water the soil and try to keep the water off the plant itself unless i am squirting of aphids of the stems. Usually i never use a nozzle on a hose . Evenings or morning is the best time to irrigate. I have found a long deep water for roses every second or third day is better than a light water everyday. You can always mulch around the base but not up to the stem if it is drying out too much and to protect the soil against heavy tropical rain.

Do not be scared to prune your roses hard , especially every few years . a hard prune every few years is often called a renovation prune in that you can take it back to the minimum and re-shape the rose into a "V " shape to aid air circulation around the plant. This helps both in combating fungal and black spot disease. Also the flowering will improve.Get rid of the old canes and dead wood and let new stems grow. Lime sulphur sprayed onto the old wood will help with scale but be careful as it will burn foliage and it smells like rotten egg gas. Not too sure where you will find it to buy.

Deadheading is the practise of cutting off the spent blooms. This promotes further flowering as the plant is not supporting a non-productive /dead flower. The idea is to cut the rose as you would cut a long stem rose for the house with a stem at least 100 mm long. Prune back to an outward growing bud.

You mean something like this ?

Or if you make your own i would go to your local golf course and see if you could scavenge some of their old coring tynes - they will be much better quality steel than the mild steel in these bought ones like the one below. A garden fork will also do the job although nowhere near as well as a hollow tyne corer. The commercial models that are used on golf courses, and even the small walk behind models are on par in cost to a small car.

i have had a few shredders over the years - the cheap er ones have a limited life as they burn out . I now have a commercial one and apart from being quieter and quicker it can shred for 20 minutes plus without the overload switch activating.. I shred all my paper and cardboard not just business papers as it is much easier to dispose of paper in a shredded form. Cross-cut shredders are the way to go. I use the most of the shredded paper as compost and mulch in the garden rather than burning it .

Congratulations . You must be so happy .

We dont have the visit yet xen, i was just saying how over waiting we are!

Sorry I misunderstood. I must be projecting how happy i will feel when ( and i guess, if) ours come through .

I feel your pain & happiness when we get it. When did u apply xen?

we applied in July and so if it is 9 months approx for the verdict it will be April May for us. I think you are a little ahead of us.

Congratulations . You must be so happy .

We dont have the visit yet xen, i was just saying how over waiting we are!

Sorry I misunderstood. I must be projecting how happy i will feel when ( and i guess, if) ours come through .

Congratulations . You must be so happy .

I have always wondered why so much fertilizer is used on Malaysian or carpet grass (Axonopus compressus ) when some of the main uses of it is being able to survive in very low fertility, lower pH and in shadier areas. It basically needs water and lots of it. Using manures in a domestic situation is not a bad idea aside from the odour and mowing high rather than shaving the turf are also advisable. Many years ago we did experiments on removing carpet grass in other turf species by increasing both fertility and pH and although not completely successful the carpet grass went backwards compared with the other grasses.

Here is a good link for anybody who wishes to learn more http://www.blog.asianturfgrass.com/carpetgrass/

In photo 1 it appears the the faded red ball valve could be where to turn the water off before the pump, but if you turn it off before the pump and the pump turns on you have a very good chance of burning the pump out.

The other three photos show the solenoid valves which cut the water of to the different stations. They should be only 12 volt and it appears that the box is flooding indicating that they are not completely shutting off. A small piece of dirt will often stop them from functioning properly.

Is that concrete the pipes are running though? it looks like a handyman has installed the system rather than a professional installer and that makes it harder to work out what they have done.

If you are not going to use the irrigation it may be easier just to cap of the ends like h90 suggests .

I guess it stops at the point where one of the friends runs of with the money. Right?

Right on. My wife used to be involved with these schemes in Oz ( highly illegal i might add) with other Thais and invariably the whole thing collapses when somebody disappears with the money. Then they would get me to chase the money up but more times than not the money had gone back to Thailand.

Then another scheme would start . Never learn !!!!!

Try Dasa Books in Sukhumvit , just down from Emporium. They have a good selection of books other than English on the top floor.

Also i understand there is a Goethe Institute in Bangkok that may be worthwhile contacting to see if they are interested.

An recommendation for headphones is such a personal thing - depends on what type of listening you do and what type of music you are are mainly listening to , and how long you listen to music for. I find something that is bass heavy like (and extremely overpriced in my opinion) Dr Dre's give me a max of 5 minutes before i want to take them off but Beyers ATKs i can listen for hours and most genres of music.

The last couple of headphones i have bought have been Koss - mainly because they are more than adequate for mp3 and they are very affordable.

However you really need to decide what you want ( buds, open air, closed etc) and what your preferences are and then go out and listen to a few. Even amongst the same brands the sound will vary too and sometimes price will not dictate what sounds best for you..

Rare Earth