Stocky

Bedsit in Luton watching the Weather Channel more likely.

I recall someone joking about the DUP's manifesto as being like the Old Testament but with regular bin collections.

Don Mueang opened as a Royal Thai Air Force base on March 27, 1914 - so the Thai military were responsible for that. First commercial fight was in 1924, first flight was KLM. Though seeing as Thailand has been run by the military for most of the past 100 years I guess they're responsible for most of it.

You don't need faith to understand that treating others with respect and kindness is common sense, if you wish to be treated with respect and kindness in return.

That's just sad "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." – Mae West This isn't a rehearsal as they say, this is it, make best use of it.

You expect them to work for free!?

Your consciousness dies when your brain activity stops; dead is dead. But I accept some folk like to believe in an afterlife, some greater purpose than simply the replication and survival of your genes across generations, but I'm happy with the latter.

The guy Trump shook hands with in Saudi Arabia recently. Said he was such a handsome man and dropped the sanctions. He's former al-Qaeda, not ISIS.

So an Indian made iPhone + 25% tariff is the cheaper option

No issues with recent transfers from Singapore, to Kasikorn and Siam Commercial. Just checking the transaction receipts I note the last 4 transfers have used Tranglo as the partner bank, didn't notice any difference, all arrived in seconds, largest was THB100k, smallest THB4k.

Likely fewer visitors to the Whitehouse

That'll teach them to reject Baron Trump

Prices aren't fixed but rise and fall based on demand and what they think they can get away with

No direct flights Bangkok - Birmingham, but several 1 stops options. Qatar via Doha Emirates via Dubai Turkish via Istanbul KLM via Amsterdam Lufthansa via Munich or Frankfurt There are no doubt a couple more

Anyone dumb enough to believe there's such a thing as 'a "can't lose" investment' deserves to lose their shirt.

Most of the UK's coal 'reserves' aren't accessible, the closure of the coal mines in the 80s rendered what remained in those mines financially unworkable. The UK has little in the way of open pittable coal, most is narrow seam suitable for underground mining which is expensive.

Emerging markets are popular https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/22/emerging-markets-next-bull-market-sell-us-market-watchers.html

2023 was expensive, I had a 29 day hire for £807 (Peugeot 308) - August/September 2024 was 19 days for £385 (Vauxhall Astra) - September Both with Europcar, though I presume there's a seasonal variation in price that would account for some of the differences between April, August and September.

Yes, I flew Qatar to Birmingham. I have a house near Stourbridge, so Birmingham works much better than London. It would have been slightly cheaper to take the Europcar hire from Birmingham airport, but after a long haul flight I wasn't keen on driving at 7:30am. I've found that booking direct is usually the same or cheaper than the aggregator sites, but I do use Rentalcars.com first to get some idea of prices. Note Europcar has a budget option called Keddy worth seeing what price you can get via Keddy by Europcar. The other car hire company I've used that are reliable and not too expensive is Sixt.

Yes, I keep a couple of pay as you go Giffgaff SIMS alive, you only need to send an SMS every 6 months. When in the UK I just buy a data plan last trip I got 80Gb for £20, which I could hotspot.

Last month I had a 18 day car rental from Europcar Birmingham, total for £277.56, that was for a medium size car Ford Focus or similar, I was given a cherry red Jeep Avenger, which was a surprise. This was the basic hire package, so would have been liable for £1,600 for any accident, but I wasn't willing to add another £7,60 a day to reduce the liability. It's cheaper to book and pay in advance, there is free cancellation.

Thankfully we don't see scorpions here, but I very nearly stepped on this one at a field camp in Sumatra a few years back.

I am arachnophobic, my wife kills large spiders

Gan-jaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

From the Economist article: "The precise daily counts from Gaza are unusual. No such tally emerges from Ukraine. But during this war, as in past ones, Gaza’s authorities, run by Hamas, have issued details of how many Palestinians have been killed. Doubts about such figures are reasonable. Hamas, presumably, has an incentive to inflate civilian losses. When previous conflicts ended, however, estimates from Israel and the UN of the numbers killed have roughly matched those released during the fighting. This war has been far more extensive and lasted longer than any in the past. Many of the institutions that count deaths, such as hospitals, have been destroyed. As of May 5th, the health ministry said that 52,615 people had died in the war. As in previous wars, its tally does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. In January, Israel estimated that about 20,000 of those killed were militants. The ministry uses two lists, one based on information from hospitals, the other from an online survey in which people reported deaths, along with other data, presumably of those who have died but have not been identified, to produce its official total. In a recent study in the Lancet researchers examined these two lists along with a third, which they collated using details from obituaries on social media (only including deaths from traumatic injuries). All three lists included the names and, usually, the age and sex of the dead. Some also had an ID number. Independent investigators have confirmed that those on the ministry’s two lists have almost certainly died."