ThaiMatters

It would be nice if you did not have to hear an hour of BBC news on the hour. I like 89.5, but you

have to be parked in their driveway to keep a signal

Yes, the signal of 89.5 is not good, keeps dropping, and for every minute of real radio content they have two minutes promoting themselves! They should rename the station 'Radio Narcissus'! 91.5 Phuket Radio and 90.5 Blue Wave are both a lot stronger, so I tend to switch back and forth between them while driving. There's another English language station too, but I don't know much about it.

I have just read an official apology at the Phuket website that cannot be named admitting that they made an error of judgment in calling this a murder. I just wonder how the victim's family felt when they read the original 'report' on this site. At least with the Gazette they do seem to get the facts straight.

Yes, that website (if you mean the green and white one) gets it wrong often. But perhaps even worse is the annoying habit of the editor injecting his opinion into everything. They need to learn the difference between a proper news report and an op-ed piece. You just don't put opinion in the former. I don't know why the green and white one couldn't get it right when the Gazette had the story straight and true from the get-go.

Oh, wow - that's really far. I just sorta wondered how the disruption of an ASEAN meeting soooooo farrrrrr away could have been cause to cancel a "film festival" in Phuket? Hmmmmm, maybe there was something else behind that? Ooopps, sorry, I have to go and get my umbrella now. It's raining in Mumbai.

There's a surprise.

It wasn't marketed well at all, I remember hearing the organisers griping that the government weren't giving them enough money which seemed to be a strange way to start what is after all a commercial enterprise. I was unaware that it had even started and I run a home cinema company here in Phuket so would have been very interested.

Scott_Cos - You seem to be laying the blame on everyone else but seeing as you are the organiser I woulkd think it lays at your door rather than the Soi Dog foundation, Phuket Gazette, Central or anyone else you seem to have palmed the blame off on.

I feel sorry for those people invited to screen movies, coming all this way to have their movies cut from the line-up, I think it will be pretty hard for the festival to continue in coming years without a massive rethink, perhaps it should be fully funded by the government/tourism authorities and free entry.

You're right, Benjie. This festival has had a very rocky history. When it bombed in 2007, the organizer blamed SFX at Jungceylon for all the problems. Last year, when no one was interested in going and films were disappearing from the 'promised' list at an alarming rate, he simply cancelled the festival at the last minute, blaming the protests at the ASEAN meeting in Pattaya, 500 km away from Phuket, for the cancellation And now he's blaming everyone in sight – SFX Jungceylon, SFX Central (for being to expensive), Soi Dogs, Gazette, and even a group of 'Cheap Charlies' (for trying to 'sneak in' to the theatre without proper tickets.

For a film festival to work in Phuket, it needs 1) a new and more organised organiser; 2) a better location; 3) less hype and more substance.

It's a good event. I've been to about 5 of them now and they're always a good laugh. You have to get there early, though, as the room fills up quickly and if it's full before you arrive, you're out of look.

The venue is the Holiday Inn Patong, so couldn't be nicer.

What a strange article from the Gazette! So the Gazette is now posting "News" articles that include the musings of anonymous posters on an Internet forum?

A tourist asks...

A guy replies...

Another posting reads...

Yet another...

I don't think Thaivisa needs the publicity - it comes out top on most search results about Thailand - and I certainly don't consider what "a guy" thinks is "News".

Come on Gazette, you need to re-think what you are in business for.

As a new member of thaivisa, and as a tourist to Phuket, I'm hesitant to take issue with you, JetsetBkk, but I've been reading thaivisa for about 2 years as a guest (not a member) and i can assure that what is posted in this forum IS NEWS to anyone who has not already read it. So what thaivisa members think and write is interesting, significant and certainly newsworthy to visitors to Phuket.

My wife and I live in Singapore and are currently staying at the Laguna Beach Resort. The Thai staff here, and the Thais we met in Phuket Town today, all seem extremely proud that Phuket is hosting the Asean meetings, a mega-event for their community.

Expats here, in Bangkok, in Singapore and around the world tend to become jaded over time, so perhaps they are not much interested in the meetings, seeing them only as a cause of (oh, terrible!) traffic jams. But for Thais, what is happening here at Laguna is an opportunity for their country to restore credibility in the world. If that means 8 days of slower moving traffic, I'm sure they couldn't care less.