Sydebolle

+697 and +698 are VoIP, voice over internet - all spam calls. Had a few Philippinas on the phone and told them to wait for I was just too interested on what they had to offer. But I had to finish another (non-existing) call first. Kept the receiver next to me, my radio playing in the background and every once and then I spoke into the phone that I would be with her soonest. The longest wait was a solid 48 minutes - time she wasted and could not make other calls ...........

My words exactly, the biggest problem of Thailand and its people is ...... their fellow citizen ...... Their country, their money, their disaster - how sad indeed. Everybody knows it but there has never been - so far - any action. Let's see what 2027 might bring after 2019 erased 6+ million votes and last year some 14+ million votes were disappeared by the dinosaurs!

Well, that is a LOT OF MONEY; wondering if anyone in the audience was able to professionally analyze attempts to slip in some submarines, aircraft carriers, funny rail or road deals etc. I just wonder, where they want to get all that money from ........

a) the Thai government has not realized, that the problem is with them and those "agents" who skinned the workers alive - financially. b) Keep the Thai government's fingers out of the cookie jar and let those applicants apply directly for visa etc. with the Finnish authorities (Embassy/Consulate). If they cannot speak sufficiently basic English, they will be lost in Finland anyway. c) Hence maybe the Thai government, having meanwhile freed up human resources in their bureaucracy, might offer English classes to them on a free of charge basis d) financing those English classes could be done with a submarine less and maybe you try to get all those native English teachers back which former governments threw out of Thailand The Finns can hardly be shocked - that is just yet another but*ç%*t statement. There are plenty of English-speaking workers from the Philippines or India etc. available and have filled all those ranks, where Thais were leaving/missing (Middle East, North Africa etc.). In addition to that, they can get all those illegal migrants/asylum chancers to do the job, so do not over-estimate the importance of Thai labour on European soil. Last but not least, berries have no influence on shortages of yogurts. Should certain berries be in "shortage", then you always have other producers more than happy to jump in. Until a generation ago, there were no berry yogurts on Asian shelves and ....... it was not only not the end of the world but people were happy with whatever their fields and orchards produced. Despite all this, when yogurts started to hit the Thai market some 40 years ago, I never came across an i.e. mango yogurt - which has nothing to do with Finland 😉

"500 meters away from the Statue of Thao Suranari" ..... really? What would be the "appropriate" distance then? Gives you the medieval mindset of the protester - nothing more! Uneducated grannies and uncles now can be collected in upcountry busses and driven into city centres for protesting, free Somtam and a 500 Baht note once dropped off home in the sticks of 19th century again. Censoring is the duty of the government and quite obviously this ad it is either admissible or overseen. The rest is a matter of (possibly bad?) taste. The advertising agency though needs to be awarded a medal of solid gold for the fact, that their campaign is being not only noticed but meanwhile gets carried in the dailies all over Thailand; possibly also other media like TV - free of charge. Remember = there is no bad advertising!

Thais are excellent in many, many things - traffic planning is definitely NOT on said list. When they built the Amari Airport Hotel 40+ years ago, I remember that cars had to do a 10+ km trip for a simple U-turn; if you had to drive north of the airport = same U-turn. Result was another few hundert cars unnecessarily on the inbound lane and, due to the Thai inability to merge two lanes into one by driving a "zipper" (one left, then one right, then one left again) the mess was perfect. Don't think that this has improved and there was a direct branch-off to the north considered, even when they extended the elevated highway past Don Meuang airport. Makro on Sukhumvit Pattaya; you drive all the way to the Theppasit intersection before going to the Dark Side .... or outbound Pattaya - same, same.

Well, if the Prime Minister avoids calling it a "disaster", then he should be thrown out of office. For how stupid does he think, are those tens of thousands of coughing voters filling medical clinics, pharmacies and hospitals? Mop it under the huge corruption carpet of Thailand and hence an "impact on tourism" is avoided. Trust me, Thailand is well known for being the areal dirt pit of the planet; it is self-made to suit the selected few beneficiaries of faster growing cycles of corn and sugar cane.

The spell checker again .... should read "would shoot him dead on sight"

Just close the country and you have no problems anymore with those dirty farang. You then can start cleaning up your tremendous Thai mess with corruption, human trafficking, prostitution, loan sharking and all other - officially non-existing - issues this country has. The Red Bull sweetheart springs to mind as well as this couple in Phattalung which got booked for years in jail for stealing coconuts and Dr T has not seen the inside of a cell and miraculously got healed of a nasty neck issue on an airport from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The award of "world's most polluted city" being not disastrous will not interest anybody anymore, as the dirty farang are no longer here to remind their hosts to keep basics in check! It is an old warfare strategy, create a foreign problem/enemy to deviate the attention from domestic affairs; remember the Khao Phra Viharn war some 15 years back? Same same but different - what a beautiful country run by a tiny fraction of ......... let's not go there!

Head to court AFTER the visa were revoked? Interesting indeed! There must be a flip side of the coin; complete nutters or the copper got out of hands and started to brandish his gun around. I had nasty experiences driving a van between Saraburi and Korat up a hill. The engine was not a V8 7'000cm3 and hence not racing material. I overtook a truck and all of a sudden a sedan pulled up and kept honking. I managed to get back onto the left lane, the sedan car passed me and shot two bullets in the air. I kept the car registration which named a police officer living in Ekamai. I opted a Thai-style reaction; had a letter written in Thai referring to the incident and closed by saying, that if it would ever happen again, I would shoot him dead on site. It might have scared him as not everybody can find out a vehicle owner's details and address. Anyway, lets wait and see - most likely the boys will have to cramp a "Wai" in front of the assembled media, pay a fine and then get thrown out to rid Thailand of such farang elements!

Exceptions against the rule; see Charlie Chaplin who was 36 years older than his last wife Oona who were married 34 years and had eight offsprings. It rarely works, agreed, but if there are no financial interests by either party .........

Well, that means that the First Sealord and all those Admirals have to learn how to swim - or borrow the submarines from the Lao Navy for the time being .......

14h31, today 18 March 2024 - no further questions

Sir, whatever you avoid or ignore - Chiang Mai is a disaster zone and has been for the recent past. When I came 40 years ago, it was no subject and no haze, no smog, no nothing. Today Chiang Mai is Thailand's worst air polluted city and toggles, worldwide, between 1st and 5th rank quite often. Your ignorance is typically Thai; it does not go away with it. Get the police force to act less as highway robbers for bribes and more onto doing their jobs. Land owners can be easily identified = any fire = off to jail. Simple as that, juicy fees and jail sentences. You're not protecting tourism, you're killing the next generation of Thai voters and tax payers while the micro organism in the soil is - literally - getting fried. How hopelessly stupid; someone must have pampered the police and politicians nicely, just look for the beneficiaries and you might find the answer!

Maybe he rings the miracle man running the agricultural ministry; the latter seems to be an expert in conversions ....... and let's face it; ending up as a minister after having served four years in a "dirty farang" slammer in faraway lands is quite an achievement on the curriculum vitae - me thinks! If the picture shown is the accused gentleman's residence and the police has to "negotiate" 20 minutes prior to being granted access ...... the salary slip must be wider than tall 😉

Paying respect to all those metal and concrete figurines paid back nicely - the neck brace is gone and the wine glasses are on the table - nice going while on parole, Sir!

That money would put Thailand on the forefront of overland train travel; combining all those ideas of the men in uniform would be digging the Kra channel between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman sea and really bring home the bacon ........ But the generals, admirals, commodore and sea lords would have to live on their official income ......... nahh, no option = no chance!

Maybe time to clean up yet another hive of money wasting if not money destruction. The aircraft carrier was a total waste of money, now they start nuking their own boats and I just hope, it does not culminate in a battle where the new submarines without engines start launching torpedoes against each other. Yet another governmental part which should be closed, everyone sent home and the arsenal sold off as scrap metal. Latter revenues to be used for better education, social welfare of the underprivileged etc.

Whoa, how great is this. Thailand is training all customs offers to be ....... but read for your self " the customs and excise will determine the wine value". The hub of all sommeliers it seems, if not the mother-of-hubs 😉

Let's wind up the clock ...... Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok .........

What a co-incidence; they boys are attending the world's biggest tourism fair in Berlin, the ITB and then Anutin executes marching orders for the governor of Phuket - arguably one of Thailand's most promoted tourism destination. This story with that Swiss bloke went completely overboard; as said earlier on, file a police complaint, pass it on to the court, listen and execute the verdict. Take the landlord to the cleaners as well for constructing said staircase on public land - without which the whole story would have never happened. But, for crying out loud, if you want tourists, then do not hang out some individuals to dry; Thailand is - percentage-wise - much worse than those few wrong-doing dirty farang. Hence, process matters by given paths and a got set of laws. How can such an incident keep the governor, the interior minister and the prime minister busy - a world's first indeed. Just be very very very careful, the spark may jump over and the Maldives, Bali and the Philippines are valid alternatives for sun, fun and nothing to do!

The dinosaurs walk on ice which gets thinner and thinner ...... the world is watching as well as the 14.4 million voters who voted for this party ..... let's wait and see 😉

The carriers care only about one thing; does the passenger get off the plane at the end of the journey. If this is not allowed as the passenger has no valid document to enter the destination country, then the carrier has to repatriate the passenger on the first available flight back to the boarding point. a) in this case the passport remains valid for another five months, i.e. is not expired yet b) the passenger cannot stay in a country with an expired document hence that point is obsolete c) the admission of a person with expired documentation back into his home country is a Geneva convention decision which was introduced after WW2 In closing, I don't know, what the passenger's thoughts are. I - for one - would get the passport renewed, even a slow bureaucracy should be able to cough up a new travel document in five months .........

BMW - as far as you can see. Cheaper vehicles would allow better training which then would do away with "tourist" police. Is the "Thai" police as forcefully represented in the media? The police budget must be astronomical ...........

Does this also include unwanted nationalities, this month apparently mostly Swiss and German?