Sydebolle

As we can take it for granted, that nobody in the navy took anything looking like a commission, it remains simply the "preference" of Navy Chief Adung Pan-iam. Since when are admirals, together with the rest of the uniformed circus, able to "prefer"? They should prove need, get the approval of the government and then look for the best possible option to close a deal. That might include the side-effect, that a submarine should have an engine - me thinks. But as long as the admirals, generals and other fellows in colourful clothes and funny hats defend Thailand's sovereignty by the "preference", it remains to be seen, if we do not see a repetition of the aircraft engine issue - although those airframes got some engines from Rolls Royce though ;-)

What a pity; I was lucky enough to take two bouncing checks to the court and managed to get them honoured and paid upon threatening to impound other assets. Regretfully the minimum bouncing amount had to be THB 100'000; I still have two checks just below that. But, as the saying goes, sometimes you win .......

I would have personally welcomed the Chinese counterpart as they cannot be more corrupt than those local crooks

What a pity but then again, the local boys do not want anyone else feasting on the monetary flesh pots of Thailand's highways ..........

In addition, Google's map on i.e. Laos is serious crap. Some areas have no internet signal either hence there is no reliable 100% working alternative, if you're in the sticks of Indochina. GTR maps can be ordered with David, the cartographer, directly at [email protected]

Honest mistakes, overtaken by honest misunderstandings ...... what a face losing farçe!

....... if it is constitutional - otherwise we just rewrite the constitution once more again until it fits our ideas ;-)

If the cabinet would focus on the really important things in this country .......... the less the government interferes, the more the market mechanisms can work. Another interesting fact is, for shoppers in i.e. Makro, that at times the customer is forced to buy at least five kgs of sugar. This has nothing to do with the difference of retail or wholesale but maybe it is a store operator's unique idea to increase sales.

Even worse then .......

I think getting Chinese police officers to ensure safety in Thailand is an absolutely great idea. It will send their more-than-corrupt Thai brethren packing ;-)

He did not feel well, had to vomit and followed the content of his stomach ....... an actual headline in Pattaya Mail some +/- ten years ago explaining a "suicide"

Apart from not being worth the money - as in many other places in Thailand meanwhile - the visa mess, the extremely exciting news on hunting on dirty farang and alien ...... all helped a lot to destroy the little that is left. Their country, their monkeys, their circus!

The old goat again - she has been farting into politics of this country for too many decades already - some of these years she was even banned from politics for possibly sitting in the wrong party (and she changed political parties more often than some change their socks). Where on Earth should the government (irrespective of who is at the helm) get THB 560'000'000'000 - in words "five hundred sixty billion" from? The government only costs money and does not generate a single Baht and said amount is in addition to the present budgetary structure. In other words we are talking about 15+ billion (not million) US Dollars! The only way is to borrow such an amount. But no reasonable finance institute would grant Thailand such a loan hence it is only possible with somebody who is absolutely blind or stupid or both. How does Thailand want to return the money with interest and compound interest to the borrower? So it will be a government bank which they might send down the Mekong or Chao Phraya as the dress rehearsal of 25 years ago proved successful once already. That happening would nosedive the Thai Baht on the international monetary market, aggregate inflation further and possibly result in Thailand's financial collapse. The only reasonable thing to do is to crawl back and disappoint all those grannies and uncles who expect a financial windfall without contributing anything to it!

When asking a second-hand-bookstore owner on what people read these days he coined the unbeatable answer by saying that "People don't come to Pattaya to read books". After the floods 10+ years ago in Bangkok, the Bangkokians discovered Pattaya as a weekend retreat and subsequently stare into their mobile phones in Pattaya's coffee shops and restaurant or stroll through the increasing number of department stores which are carbon copies of the same outlets in Bangkok. With a family there are so many better and also cheaper alternatives to Pattaya. Those below-their-navel driven men from the past have mostly disappeared into thin air, as the red light offerings elsewhere is cheaper with less obese "service agents". The Russians came and left, the South Asians and Middle Easterner came and left and now they try everything possible to lure the red brethren from the North. Make Thailand attractive again, teach Khon Thai to provide a service beyond the rip offs, two-tier pricing and corrupt police forces, get the transgender troops of Pattaya's beach road off the street and put a public transportation service in place by having parking facilities out of town with very frequent buses plying their routes at a nominal flat fee per day. In closing, have you taken a closer look at the culinary offerings in a department store lately? The majority is Japanese food which has nothing in common with Japanese food and, if luck has it, there is a pizza outlet serving stuff which has nothing to do with pizze. I have not came across a decent Thai restaurant offering authentic food without MSG or tons of sugar - for a long time. And the subject of pricing is yet another chapter. So, get your act together and you will succeed!

13 a day is not even the tip of the iceberg. Many Thai men are chauvinists - to say the least; hardly a day goes by where nobody asks me about how many minor wives I have. Other men leave their unpaid homes bright and early morning, drive to work in unpaid cars or are sardines in Bangkok's public transportation, arriving at a job they don't like and show off with fancy, unpaid, mobile phones and wrist watches purchased with an unpaid credit card. Lunch is in many cases a street side culinary accident before they return back to their job they actually hate. In the evening they drive back to their unpaid home in an unpaid car and can't afford the highway hence burn time and money in Bangkok's endless rush hour traffic jam. Alternatively there is again the sardine treatment on the buses or trains. Once they're home, the release the steam which so nicely built up throughout the day and the culprits are wives and children. Spend only money you actually have, focus on human values rather than monetarism and materialism and a lot of that tension will never occur. Bottomline again is "education" and, as long as kids need basketball wear exceeding 10'000 Baht to keep up with the Joneses ......

Fine the owner a six digit amount plus the repair costs of the road. Having said that, the BMA might also consider proper road construction as, despite this mishap, the roads of Bangkok should not just cave in like that. It takes no rocket scientist to see, if a truck is heavily overloaded; either it is completely overloaded or the truck is not in a roadworthy condition. The "B" for bribes is the icing on the cake - see police which are unable to protect Chinese tourists as they focus more on "more tipping please" ;-)

The Republic of China was created 1912 in ..... China. Back in the day, Taiwan was a Japanese colony in line with the Shimonoske agreement of 1895. The ROC government began exercising jurisdiction over Taiwan after the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II. The continued Chinese civil war saw the loss of the mainland part of China to the communists who had established the People's Republic of China; subsequently the ROC government fled to Taiwan in 1949. It is yet again about educated hatred in as much as you see all the other problems like racism, religion, ethnicity etc. There is hardly anyone alive today who was in a decision-making state back in 1949. Look at those caucasian Rhodesians or South Africans or ethnic Indians in Thailand. They've been in those countries for generations yet, due to education, are considered today second class citizen. Hence Beijing has to get to terms, that ROC and PRC are two different countries and all that rhetorics from either side is as much nonsense as the North Korean stalinism facing South Korean capitalism. If Beijing and its envoy to Thailand would have not mentioned the interview some ten days ago, hardly anyone would have noticed. Where I come from we call it "shot into their own foot"

Srettha should remind Anutin (in clear terms "kick Anutin's backside") who then can start doing his present job as interior minister and do a serious clean-up job among the police and immigration. The corruption is rampant, for decades, and getting worse and worse. But yes, Srettha stops at nothing to lure Chinese tourism money into Thailand and, as an extra bonus, if a red brother from the North is having problems, Srettha can turn around and blame it on the Chinese police force not doing their job properly. Bottomline is, clean up the police force - which could mean that more than 50% are sent packing for good; in a country avoiding confrontation at all costs = will never happen.

The hospitality business has seen shortages for two decades already. Unable to obtain legal permits for ASEAN citizen most employers have resorted to illegal hiring in this field. Along the borders of Thailand you find hundred thousands if not millions of illegal alien, some working for peanuts in an environment of no insurance or labour laws at daily wages, for which the semi-divine Khon Thai would not even work a few hours. It is - again - a governmental problem while other ASEAN states understood and promoted the hiring of qualified labour at market salaries, see i.e. construction industry in Singapore by Thai labour. Your call!

In many upcountry locations there is no running water at all .........

In the past they harvested mangoes etc.; in having moved into the 21st century it is cable harvesting time....... as long as copper and aluminium fetches premiums in the recycling market ....... where nobody asks about the origin of the ware being offered ;-)

Declare 13 November the offciial "Blame it on the GPS Day". This driver should be taken away the driving license for good - some are just too stupid, sorry!

You're aware that Thailand is the perfect place to cook your books; every expat working here (or having worked here) knows that. My company's auditor (above figures are apparently not audited yet - although that does not make a difference with TG) always asked me ahead, how much profit I want to show. If you run a Farang-managed company, you are well advised to show a profit each and every year, irrespective of your actual result. Showing a loss wakes up the revenue department which will turn your entire accounting upside down and downside up again and usually walks away after having received a "little gift". In my case it was a yearly refrigerator for the office and my contribution alone was 4 fridges - your call! Those planes parked longterm in Bangkok and U-Tapao (possibly on other airports as well) cost money each and every minute they stand around; minimizing losses or operate profitable for an airline includes their fleet being airborne as long as possible; see all those LCC (low cost carriers); some of them keep their equipment airborne for 14 to 15 hours daily despite operating mostly locally or regionally - i.e. hardly any long distances on an intercontinental network.

Interesting; Thailand stops at absolutely nothing to lure Chinese money into the country. Having foreign police on your own turf means, in no unclear way, that the local boys are simply not able to do the job as good as their foreign colleagues. In Thailand though it is not inability but unwillingness to part with bribes, kick-backs, beer money or whatever else you want to call it. Anutin, the interior minister, is also too busy accepting honorary doctorate degrees in public health and hence has not sufficient time to focus on his present job cleaning up this tremendous pot of corruption. As a surplus, if anything goes wrong with a Chinese as of now, the Royal Thai police can blame ....... their Chinese counterparts for not doing their job Thailand is making itself yet another laughing stock again. In other, more civilized countries which have arrived in the 21st century 23 years ago, police is not even crossing provincial borders; the difference between a state trooper and a federal police officer. What a joke!

Well, yet another lie in big capital letters might be more to the truth. 50+ jets of Thai Airways International are parked all over the Kingdom's airports, Suvannaphoum and U-Tapao to come first. Having had a debt load of THB 300+ billion and pretty empty planes on an above-market tariff structure ......... Well done, boys, keep up the good work. The next thing we will hear is to let Thai Smile go down the abyss and take all those nasty debts along. It is more than evident that it is pure management inability which has plagued this previously most profitable star on Asia's aviation skies. Ever since 1992, once the Air Force and the finance ministry invited the former professional management to "retire" or to "resign", things went South. Overheard the possibly best explanation on Thai Airways being compared to a 7/11 store where there is no cashier on the way out, i.e. everybody helped themselves and just walked away. Remember the little stint on the Rolls Royce engines - never ever heard anything from that seriously expensive corner either ;-)