orlov

Let's assume that the police had a modicum of success. Who would be the losers? A few hundred farangs perhaps, who run their bars behind the scenes. But thousands of Thai's who work in Pattaya in bars, restaurants, hotels and all the other support services would be deprived of an income or have it drastically reduced. The knock-on effect would mean that a huge number of up-country familes would also be deprived of any means of support (how many bar girls DON'T send money home to Mama?) So before the police start their crack-down perhaps they might think about the effect of unintended consequences on their own people. And yes I quite agree about the ease in which farangs may be found compared with Thai's. Thai's often don't live at the address at which they are registered on their family's tabien baan and if the family don't know where they are then it's very difficult to trace them.

The curious thing about Pattaya is that whilst the large supermarkets adhere to the law and, as has been mentioned already, can't process the sales anyway because of restrictions put on the tills, the slightly smaller supermarkets such as Best in North Pattaya Road just by the Dolphin roundabout, don't have any problem selling alcohol 24 hrs a day. Do they just ignore the law or what?

No one seems to have mentioned the collapse of the British pound and what us poor old whingeing pome have had to suffer. Three years ago one pound bought 71 baht, now it buys about 52!! Still, serves us all right for voting Labour for the last 12 years (though not me I hasten to add). But to answer the original question, yes the Thai baht is extremely strong at the moment despite all the political shenanegans in Thailand. Probably because, not only can the country feed itself but it's the single largest exported of rice in the world, which is no mean achievement. Furthermore, the banks are solid and extremely prudent in their lending policies so no queues of panicking Thai customers wanting to pull out all their savings in case they lose them all, like in the UK for example. No, the Thai economy isn't immune to the world-wide recession, but all thing considered Thailand has done pretty well for itself and that is reflected in the strength of it's currency.

China recently sent a powerful message to drug smugglers by executing a British man convicted of smuggling drugs into China. Wouldn't harm Thailand reputation on zero tolerance if the authorities here decided to do the same.

This is Europeans attacking Europeans so frankly it could have happened at any beach side bar virtually anywhere in the world. The Daily Mail seems to have got it 'in' for Thailand and I wouldn't mind so much if they also reported every rape that happened in London each night. A quick search of the internate reveals that rapes in London schools alone have risen by 100 pct in the last year. Needless to say that little gem was reported by the European Union Times, not the Daily Mail.

Always seemed to me to have been a bit harsh to disqualify him from the PM-ship for taking part in a TV cooking show. It didn't seem the greatest crime in the world - especially compared to some things that other Thai politicians have done! Condolences to the family.

If you are living abroad and have a UK private pension you should definitely be getting it into a QROPS as soon as possible, unless it's very small, say under £30,000. If you don't you will simply be taxed on your UK pension income under standard UK income tax rates. If you are already drawing an OAP then this amount will be added to your privale pension income for UK tax purposes. Getting your pension into a QROPS need not be complicated and can be moved across 'in specie' meaning that your pension investments don't need to be sold and re-purchased. I would highly recommend that you engage an IFA to help you because the choices are huge and yes he will charge you for this but it's worth it when considering the amount of tax you will save over the rest of your life (not to mention the pleasure of denying Mr. Brown the tax that he'll otherwise take from your life-time savings). By the way I am NOT an IFA myself. Your pension income will then be paid gross and you are supposed to report your income to the revenue authorities in the country in which you reside. But this is entirely your responsibility and HMRC will not require any paper work to prove that you have done it. After 5 years of non-residency your off-shore provider will no longer need to report your pension details to HMRC so if you have already lived abroad for, say, 3 years and move into a QROPS your provider will only need to report to HMRC for a further 2 years. After the 5 years has elapsed you will almost certainly be able to get your pension funds out of a 'pension wrapper' altogether so then the money/investments are yours to do what you like with. As a start check out "QROPS Bureau" web-site. They give genuine impartial advice but do not themselves sell QROPS.

I agree with TaoNow. It's left to the ticket seller at the booth to decide purely on looks. An overweight farang with a red face like me clearly isn't Thai but how DOES he/she discriminate between Thai's, Indonesians, Malayasians etc.? And what about my children who are half Thai but don't speak the language fluently? We recently went to the Tiger Temple near Kanchanaburi and no amount of documetation to prove I live in Thailand, such as work permit and driving licence, would persuade them to let me in for the Thai price. Dual pricing probably doesn't make much difference to tourist numbers but that's not the point. It's another small indicator of how xenophobic Thailand still is. Not that they mind all the local jobs that are produced by the money that foreigners and foreign companies bring into the country, of course.

Whatever happened to the driver (drunk, fainted, fell asleep) still doesn't explain why the train derailed. The only explanation would be going too fast either for the condition of the track or if it took a bend fast. But there is no mention of either.

Caused entirely by lack of proper maintenance of track and sleepers, as we all know. State railways of Thailand are bankrupt and lose the counrty millions of baht every year. The only answer, of course, is massive investment but if they don't, rail travel in Thailand will be become more and more hazardous. It's such a shame because the railways in Thailand are such an under-used resource. Take Bangkok-Pattaya for example. Despite an 8 lane motorway and buses trauling up and down every 30 mins or less, we still have one train a day (!) in each direction and the departure from Bangkok leaves so early that it misses the arrival times of the long distance overnight trains from north and south. So it's impossible to travel from. say, Chiangmai to Bangkok overnight and then on to Pattaya in the morning. Wonder which brain box thought that one out!

Well no it hasn't. -1.3pct over 3 months, -4.5 pct over 6 months and -9.7 pct over 3 years.

Compare that to pound sterling which is -21.5 pct over 3 years. Now that's what I call a plunge!