BillStrangeOgre

Thanks for all the replies ????

Hi, i'm looking at having dental implants done in BKK as apposed to my home country, UK. Doesn't seem to be much difference in price from what i've heard but of course you have to factor in the quality of life while you're here having it done ????

Can anyone recommend a dental clinic to do this? Not necessarily the cheapest but the best value (quality-cost)

Thanks for any info/comments

Robin Hood pub, Sukhumvit 33/1 open from tomorrow 5pm ????

Many pub's in Bangkok have a restaurant license...anyone have any info on reopenings? 

28 minutes ago, Pedrogaz said:

I have an unpopular view on this statue vandalism. These men were men of the establishment and the statues were erected in their esteem. Historically they tell us what the society valued at the time they were erected. That they erected statues to slavers, writers of hymns and brutal colonists tells us something about the values at the time.

Britain was still building its empire and getting rich off the slave trade that our American cousins used so well after killing off all their natives. It was a brutal time and to deny it by pulling down all the statues is simply vandalism that achieves nothing.

Not a single black man in America will get better treatment from the police there because a stupid statue that I bet 90% of people who walked past it didn't even know who it was or what he did. My answer would be to put a large plaque there informing everybody that values have now changed and the statue is of a terrible slaver.

There is a statue in Central Park NY of a surgeon Dr Marion Simms that is extremely controversial. He performed experimental surgery without anaesthetic on black slave women. He was revered because he found the surgical answer to a problem frequent in black women at the time....which is where a fistula develops between the womb and the colon and feral material enters the womb and comes out via the vagina. The smell from this condition was truly awful and the women, of course, lost their men and were ostracised. Well Simms came up with the solution so that it is not a condition we even hear about today in the modern world. Yes doing surgery without anaesthetic is an awful thing to do....but to invent a procedure that improve the quality of so many women's lives is praiseworthy.

Our problem today is that we take a Manichean view on everything...everything is black or white, good or bad....whereas most people are a bit of both.

...the problem is, people want to feel good about their city, proud of where they live. It's harder for local government to collect taxes, people less likely to take care of the place they live with negative images around. It affects the moral of people. Who wants to be constantly reminded about pessimistic aspects of past? Besides, todays residents aren't responsible for what went on before.

Remove the statues, place them in a museum with a record of who they are, why and how they were removed.

I've also got a problem with 'doctors' that perform experiments without the authorisation of the patient and usually they are doing it for self promotion...any statues/profits go to the patients who suffered these horrendous experiments?

35 minutes ago, baansgr said:

What did they have to go through....and please not the "no blacks" signs....minimal and was almost immediately outlawed

...when they arrived there was no accommodation available for many of them. They were housed in unused parts of the underground system, notably Clapham Common. The nearest labour exchange was at Brixton for them to sign on, hence Brixton became the African Caribbean enclave it is today...

When they arrived they faced discrimination, difficulty getting jobs and a place to live. The lucky ones got work on public transport working for the government, many companies didn't want to hire blacks. Their children faced discrimination at school. 

I was born in 1957 so grew up in the 60's and 70's, the attitude towards minorities (black, asian) then was often hostile. Common to hear the N word when describing blacks and intimidation was common place. This was the time of <deleted> bashing, the attitude towards all dark skinned minorities was appalling 

4 minutes ago, EVENKEEL said:

The guy had fentanyl and meth in his system when he died. I'd have to guess he's been doing these drugs for a long time. 

...that's interesting. Do you have a link to that information. Okay found it

22 minutes ago, CG1 Blue said:

I can actually envisage George Floyd having stuff named after him, or a statue going up. I heard a clip of Reverend Al praising him to the rooftops at the memorial. Praising this violent career criminal and heavy drug user who once held a gun to a woman's stomach while burgling her home. Is this what Reverend Al wants his 'people' to aspire to I wonder ????‍♂️

 

I didn't know about George Floyd's past. This from Wiki:

"...After several arrests for theft and drug possession, Floyd was charged in 2007 with armed robbery in a home invasion which he committed with five other men; he agreed to a plea deal in 2009 and was sentenced to five years in prison.^[2][16][17] He was paroled in 2013 after spending four years at the Diboll Unit.^[5] After his release, he became involved with Resurrection Houston, a local ministry,^[2] where he mentored young men in a Christian church community.^[15]

In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis, Minnesota area to find work, as some of his close friends had done.^[18][19] He worked as a truck driver and a bouncer, and lived in St. Louis Park.^[3][5][20] In 2017, he filmed an anti–gun violence video.^[2][9] In 2020, he lost his security job because of the COVID-19 pandemic..."

But it looks like he was trying to turn his life around

1 hour ago, tribalfusion001 said:

I'll be watching the premier league by then lol

My point exactly...????

10 minutes ago, tribalfusion001 said:

But no one was protesting about that, this time it's personal for both sides. Summer of discontent.

...okay, let's agree to meet back here at the end of the month and see how your 'Revolution 2020' is progressing ????

34 minutes ago, tribalfusion001 said:

Yeah when the pubs open.

...perhaps, but i think before then they'll be something else coming along to occupy minds. Remember Dominic Cummings? He was all the rage a few weeks ago! ????

21 minutes ago, tribalfusion001 said:

Just woken up and had breakfast, cup of coffee next to laptop and I'm ready to hit this debate...

 

Take them all down, we don't need these people looking down on us anymore. They looked down on the average person when they were alive and still looking down on us in a stature now!

 

Power to the people, this is what democracy looks like. No peace, No justice. Decolonize, decolonize. Revolution 2020

I think you'll find your 'revolution 2020' will be nothing more than a wet dream in a few weeks, bruver ????

18 minutes ago, baansgr said:

What did they "have" to go through....they all came voluntarily

...they were offered free passage to the UK and a passport to help us out with labour shortages. True, no one forced them to come but they did so to better their lives in return the helped build the UK post world war two....When they got here they most definitely did 'have' to go through a lot

23 minutes ago, bannork said:

The DNA of Brits contains 60% European ancestry. Ruled by the Romans, raped by pillaging Scandinavians, conquered by the Normans.

There's not so much Brit in the average little Englander.

They can't see that in their quest for an identity as a pure race ????

14 minutes ago, BKKBike09 said:

Why stop at statues? Let's knock down castles since they're no more than appalling monuments which speak to a time when a privileged few lived lives of relative comfort and plenty while the majority of the population eked out a pitiful feudal existence in downtrodden squalor.

 

We should cleanse all public spaces of any trace of the past - whitewashing history (although I'm sure there are people who object to the term 'whitewashing' on tortuous grounds of perceived ethnic connotations in the word) in order that no-one can be offended.

 

How far back do we need to go? How about Richard I outside the Palace of Westminster, who happily prosecuted the Third Crusade to the detriment of many Muslims. 

 

And while we're in Parliament Square, let's have a crack at the bigot Gandhi .. oh, actually, someone already has.

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/35-cops-injured-in-further-london-violence-as-gandhi-statue-defaced/articleshow/76269593.cms

 

The most illiberal these days seem to be the purported liberals championing 'diversity and inclusion', except when it's inconvenient for it to apply.

 

 

...of course, always a rallying cry of those that cannot find solid argument in the subject matter is to claim 'it's just the thin edge of the wedge' and then cite some ridiculous extremes of where all this will lead as an argument to stop...

Let the protesters have their moment and topple a few dubious statutes, they do have a point. And at the end of the day, it's better than looting, violence and wanton destruction of stuff that matters ????

In a few weeks all of this will pass...

1 minute ago, evadgib said:

How about one of our own ?

One of our own?? Another little Englander?

4 minutes ago, baansgr said:

No...probably by some unknown black guy that was the first bus driver in Oxford, or someone as irrelevant, as long as they are black, that's what counts

In my view the first black immigrants that came to the UK in the 50's (en mass) deserve a statue. They had to go through a lot..????

4 hours ago, sukhumvitneon said:

"truly inspirational people" is incredibly subjective.  How about not erasing history, especially ugly history, if it makes you feel uncomfortable?  These monuments need to stay up to remind ourselves of history, both good and bad.  Putting them in a museum is stupid because you usually need to pay a fee to get into a museum and most people don't bother going anyway.

I disagree. People want to feel good about the cities they live in. Having what a lot of people see as unsavoury statues of questionable characters from the past dotted about doesn't define what many people believe in.

Put them in a museum with a description of who they are and how and why the statue was removed.

Personally i'd like to see a statue of George Floyd erected somewhere, perhaps in Bristol to replace the one toppled there. After all,  He lost his life to inspire this movement...

1 minute ago, CorpusChristie said:

Well , they were not students , it wasnt a dodgy statue..................and I am not frightened ............apart from that , you are quite correct ????

 

Fine ????

4 minutes ago, CorpusChristie said:

"likely" "Remains to be seen "

Not too different , quite the same really 

Good boy! ????