Bangkok Barry

I've had four or five people contact me on my LINE account over time, people I don't know. The last two began by asking me if I was still in Bangkok, and the similarity made me wonder if this is some kind of scam in the making. I have no idea how they were able to contact me as only a very few people are regular contacts on it. The last one said she must have made a mistake and apologised (I still don't know how she had the info to contact me as I didn't ask). Another one today, with both who asked me if I am still in Bangkok looking pretty/click bait. I've asked her how she got my info but haven't had a response yet. Anyone else had this, or know how they accessed my info? I do have it set to can find me by phone number but, again, very few have the number. Could those I have to give my number to be selling my number to scammers?

And that the fireworks might have been substandard, according to the report. What? In Thailand, land of Safety First signs?

Yet you are happy to speculate that this will be ' a positive improvement ' , hypocrisy in a nutshell. I blocked Liverpool Lou but still have to see his ****. Is there no escape ????

Strange. I'm from the UK and never once in decades heard of anyone being attacked in a car. Maybe I read the wrong newspapers.

My wife carries a mini baseball bat beside her in the pickup. Great country, huh?

A Thai will continue to run away like a child who has been naughty until doing so results in an automatic jail sentence.

You have a point about compensation. Someone in our village killed a kid who was taking an apple from his tree, and he simply paid off the parents, left the village for a few months and is now back as if nothing happened. The police didn't even get involved as far as I know, although they might have negotiated to get their cut. The way we do things in the west, the family would have got nothing.

I have VPN Unlimited, can be used on five devices, $99 lifetime membership if that's what you want. It's never let me down. Connecting to Singapore is recommended from Thailand, but it has various options in the UK including iplayer. I haven't checked elsewhere.

Interesting job.

Interpreting things literally and never assuming anything comes with doing my job as a journalist. Sorry if that offends you. As it turned out, you were correct.

I have, many times. But I didn't check people's nationality while I was there. Didn't seem to matter.

No. Another U-turn.

You assume. You have no way of knowing that.

It's not unusual for prices on the shelf - if they bother to put a price at all - not to match what is charged. I've lost count of the number of times it's happened to me. And they appear to be aware of the problem as Lotus and Big C have price check positions around the store. I've never seen that in any other country, but I stand to be informed if they exist elsewhere. Being able to correctly price things appears to be completely beyond them. Here are some examples, where you would expect supervisors to spot the errors even if the brain-deads who put the prices up do not.

He is from New Zealand. Bondi is in Sydney, which is in Australia. I thought everyone knew that, but apparently not.

(my bold) Says who? How do they know that? Made up to support their own totally unfounded belief. Like all religion, I suppose.

Doesn't matter. He abandoned the vehicle, finders keepers. Lucky day for someone.

Supposed to in many countries, but not in Thailand. Nobody in Thailand expects anything positive from those bodies. The police are universally known throughout the country for being utterly useless and often corrupt, and all the army is used for is to attack Thai citizens exercising the right to free speech. It's not only a Thai thing, of course.

Thais don't care about anything enough to do something about it. Total apathy, which is why in many respects Thailand is decades or even centuries behind some other parts of the world. An example: we have power cuts about once a month. Been happening for the 10 years plus I've been in the village and the cuts could last for hours. A close relative of my wife was elected onto the local council, and I suggested that he use his position to ask why it happens and what is being done about it. She won't even ask him to ask, and even he who suffers the cuts does absolutely nothing. Total and complete inertia. You might as well ask the cows in the field to sort it out. It's their culture to do nothing about anything. Complaining is frowned upon in Thailand, which is what helps keep standards so low.

And I've noticed that since it changed to Meta ownership it loads more slowly.

My experience is that they tell you to return next day as they can't open up the machine (or don't want to at that particular time).

This is Thailand and you're looking for logic. You're a newbie according to your status here and will learn never to do that. But, some banks do return the card first although some do not.

Any recommendations, please?

I've got a Barclay's Visa card from when I banked with them in the 70s. Now I don't but the card is independent of that. I have to have a UK address and they won't send my card to me in Thailand because of the country's reputation (see my previous post!!) but my sister sends new ones on to me. But the funny thing is, they let me use a Thai address for transactions such as booking with Agoda. Another oddity is that years ago they sent me a letter saying they were closing the account unless I supplied a UK address (so I set up my sister's) but when I called them they had no knowledge of the letter. All very odd and hardly confidence-inspiring.

Me too. They call it 'grandfathering', and is welcome. I did have to fill some forms and get it all countersigned by a Thai lawyer a few years ago when they tightened things up, and I didn't receive the original forms because the local postman was burning the mail as actually delivering it was an inconvenience to him. By sheer luck I received the final warning, called them and they were very helpful. Opening a new account from Thailand though, or probably anywhere that isn't the UK, has not been allowed for many years, as far as I know.