Johpa

Not forgetting Cathareeya English of course... I wonder where one of her parents is from... ?

Not being familar with Ms. English I googled her and now have questions as to whether "she" too is a gender bender a la Bird judging from this image below.

According to my gay Thai boyfriend, Bird's gayness has been an open secret for a long time. Or maybe such a secret it's not. I mean, when did we know absolutely for sure that Sir Elton John only batted for the gay team - when he got married last year?

I think a little Scottish ancestry goes a long way. A Nicaraguan priest named Miguel d'Escoto was/is part Scottish; that's his family name.

You mean Elton John is Scottish too?

I would recommend the Montri Hotel because it is right in the middle of everything and clean and air-con cool and very safe (the lobby and hallways are all videotaped 24 hours a day) with a nice restaurant in the lobby and cable TV. The price is something like 650 baht a day, but discounted in slow season.

Also, the Top North Hotel is close and it has a nice swimming pool, but is more like 950 baht.

My brother-inlaw and his pals use to hustle quite a bit in the Montri, hanging out in the north end of the lobby. Maybe they have limited that action these days. For a little bit more I always found the venerable Porn Ping Tower, adjacent to the Night Market, a good family hotel. And for a little bit more the equally venerable Orchid on Huay Khao RD adjacent to the mall, and it had a pretty good breakfast buffet.

the toilet thing is just something we have to accept

we don't have to accept squat toilets if we don't like them. i for example have never used one and i'd rather sh*t in the open than using one.

So I guess you take a portable high rise commode along with you on all your outdoor adventures or do you do the astronaut thing and wear adult diapers?

What are the grammar rules please re verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc., in spoken Thai? I expect there are exceptions, but what are the rules generally?

The general rule is the same as English, your basic sentence structure is: Subject Verb Object

When modifying a noun the general order is: noun adjective

Pardon me, but to paraphrase a famous line in a classic American film, in this thread, what we have here Mr. Luke, is a failure to transliterate.

While we are on the subject, my son will need his wisdom teeth pulled soon, so we are going to get it done in LOS this summer to save some expenses. What is the correct term for this procedure, basically the correct term for wisdom teeth?

Blog Gone Wild for British Diplomat

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A British envoy in Thailand has learned that writing a blog can open the door to some very undiplomatic exchanges -- on delicate subjects such as his trips to Bangkok's famed red-light districts..........

"I'm not going to complain that I've never been there. But at the same time, the suggestion that I'm some sort of upholder of the sex trade in Bangkok ..." he trailed off. "It's pathetic, frankly."

= Associated Press

Or was he misquoted and it should have read "It's pathetically frank."

On the other hand, a male British public servant invloved in a sex scandal that does not involve dressing up in womens clothing or being spanked by a dominatrix is indeed frankly pathetic and scarcely worthy of notice.

One added note, at BofA make sure you note on the transfer form to send fund in dollars; otherwise, BofA will give you a poor exchange rate and then send the funds in local currency. As other have noted, BofA fees on international wires are quite high, but usually it is not worth the hassle of taking the funds elsewhere for the wire transfer if you do your banking there.

I would not turn this tragic accident into another ' The Thas are useless drivers' thread, I expect that if you had that road in any other country on the planet, it would still be a dangerous road, and drivers would still get frustrated and try to overtake struggling trucks at any given opportunity, dare I say it........ even Farang drivers.

But all too many Thais are useless drivers and the inability of the Thai police to properly patrol the roads is a national disgrace. And as a life long snow skier of over 45 years, I have driven plenty of dangerous roads in hazardous conditions without seeing the carnage that one sees in Thailand on an annual basis.

Not too sure about your transliteration system there, but for all the native Thai speaking lurkers out there looking for a good new words in English, LuckyFarangs avatar can only be described in the too little used adjective "brobdingnagian".

Get those Navy Harriers working again! Put the carrier to sea! Prepare to invade Singapore and reclaim the stolen satellites!

The glorious Thai military machine will be financed not only with frozen chickens, but also with fish heads, empty crisp packets and bottletops.

Ah, less you forget that with the recent arrival of the odorless durian, Thailand shall have a surplus of odiferous durians. Placing into context the technical ability of the Thai military, I would suggest to the admirals thay they place a line of trebuchets upon the deck of the mighty HMS Chakrabongse, sail up into Singapore harbor, and then launch a relentless broadside of the most odiferous of the odiferous into the heart of the city-state until the satellites are dutifully returned. All the while the mighty RTAF will be patroling the borders in the air to protect the nation from the equally mighty neighboring air powres of Cambodia, Laos, and especially Burma, where even rebels are known to have knocked down two Thai aircraft back in the 1980s.

Yes, what Thailand needs over jungles is jet aircraft. Heinie Aderholt, you don't know squat.

. The idea for a Smart ID Card was very much a part of the Thaksin government's style of big-buck mega projects coupled with a tangible token of popularism.

- Bangkok Post

I am curious as to how the smart card project has been merged into the vilified concept of populism. Was the card expected to bring some sort of financial benefit to the rural poor?

the 30b health care scheme , whilst a great votewinner , is bound to bankrupt the health ministry before long unless it gets much much more funding. it was ill planned from the start.

the uk health service is struggling to fund treatments and pay wages and that swallows billions of pounds.

if local clinics are staffed by well trained personel , there is no reason why they shouldnt be capable of reducing the workload of the hospitals.

there is no reason why a specialist should have to waste time treating a sore throat or broken leg when he could be better utilised diagnosing and treating heart problems or malignant disease.

Perhaps the Health Ministry could use some more funding. Dare I suggest taking away some funding from the military and putting into healthcare. Dare I suggest taxing the rich a tad more to even out healthcare. Perhaps the same change could occur in the UK and in the US for the betterment of global health.

I have no problem with providing first aid care at local clinics. Heck, when in-country I use the local pharmacist as my first line of defense against common ailments. But in the rural areas these health clinics are not often staffed by doctors who can detect what is perhaps a more serious medical issue that needs more specific care and what can be treated locally. Rural folks often only head to the hospital when local care has failed to generate improvement. My take is that now they will have to go through more hoops that will take more time, often critical time, to see a competant doctor or specialist.

And none of the discussion has been about specialists having to provide general care. Nobody is asking an oncologist to set a broken femur.

Guess it creates a whole new set of nuances when one goes out to pee phii.

Just another case where the newest post-coup ruling elite wishes to reduce expenditures to the public, especially the rural poor, in order to keep more for themselves. and they certainly would not want a hospital bed taken up by some farmer when it could go to a person who is paying for private care. It is the sufficiency economy taken to preposterous extremes, be happy with your medic at the community health center and be happy even though you can't afford a real doctor.

Never met an Asian that was not sensitive.

I deal with mostly Koreans in Phuket and they are telling me of zero cancellations to the region.

I have met plenty of Asians, as well as non-Asians, who are rather insensitive. But the issue is not that of tourist cancellations but of people not making the reservations in the first place. The coup leaders have taken the Thai government down a rather dark path and even folks in East Asia, not a bastion of liberalism, are taking note.

Karl Marx had brilliant theories and was likely a genius too. Look at the benefit to the economies that took his advice. A quick trip back to the stone age.

As Chomsky might say, Marx was rather spot on when writing on the descriptive level but got himself onto thin ice when writing on the explanatory level. Chomsky himself skates on that same thin ice. Some things just ain't amenable to explanation.

Many (perhaps most?) modern linguists today dismiss Chomskyean linguistics and teach/treat it only as a matter of historical reference. When I was a grad student in applied linguistics in the 80s, for example, I had one syntax professor from Quebec who stubbornly held to Chomsky, but the other eight or 10 academics I studied under considered his linguistic theories moribund.

......... Dr Hayley Davis, in Redefining Linguistics, for example, concludes 'In short, Chomskyan linguistics is open to criticism that it is more about what linguists think language is than about language as it is actually used.'

So one is left wondering how valid Chomsky's political science is. Such ideas as 'manufactured consensus' have an easy intuitive feel about them but can such notions ever be empirically proven/measured? Perhaps Chomskyean political science is more about what he thinks political science is than how PS actually works.

One must ask whether there exists any linguistic framework that is not open to criticism? Debates beteeen the various camps in linguistics quickly degenerate into juvenile name calling. And often the division lines are more about national preferences than about the ideologies. I too was a graduate student in applied linguistics in the 1980s and rest assured the majority of university departments in the US were, at that time, fanatical followers of Chomsky who would have characterized all alternative frameworks as trivial. The same was not true in academia in Commonwealth countries.

Fortunately I long ago ceased being involved in these petty juvenile academic debates that clearly have not subsided over the intervening decades. I take both Chomsky's linguistic theories with a grain of salt (and too those of his linguistic detractors) as well as his political musings. But I do not for a moment doubt his intellect.

Regarding Thailand and the coup, the professor of linguistics (while honestly and non-hypocritically and non-anti-Semitically admitting to knowing very few details about it) says, "My expectation was that the outcome of the military coup would be a system that was worse than the one it overthrew, except for small sectors of the population that were privileged and wealthy and may benefit from it." That sounds about right.

I disagree.

The wealth distribution under the pseudo democracy of Taksin had far more concentrated wealth distribution to a select few than now. Much as i like the writings, he falls into the same category as the Economist; spouting generalities without understanding the issues underneath; I'd expect that from someone admitting not to really know; more of a surprise from the Economist who have really stuffed up their coverage on this one.

Although I do not always agree with Chomsky's political views, I find his thoughts are almost always well informed and insightful. As for the Economist, there journalistic job is too understand and explain the underlying issues. As an intellectual, Chomsky's job is to look at the overlaying issues.

I didn't read Chomsky's statement as focusing upon wealth concentration. I for one thought the coup would change things little other than who had access to the biggest piece of the pie, the traditional focus of Thai politics. But other aspects of society have indeed gotten worse ranging from poor fiscal policy, to increased anti-foreigner resentment, to increased censorship, to harsher applications of existing laws.

I noticed another Lese Majeste incident. This time it was a comment. They did ban the member, but the comment is still there.

I can understand the point of banning YouTube completely if they refuse to remove videos/comments.

As I am sure has been said before blocking youtube over this was not a smart move. Nothing to do with cencorship anything like, it isn't smart because it gives this video publicty. Want to make something famous? Ban it.

You got that right. Without the ban, the video in question would have been long forgotten in the moronic wasteland that is YouTube. Now excuse me while I go listen to mrpregnant's criticism of rap music one more time.

I have a friend who regularly arrives in Bangkok late at night. He has taken to asking around and even putting up a sign to find people wishing to travel on to Chiang Mai.

If he finds one or two other passengers, he will arrange a taxi from Bangkok straight home to CM. The bargained cost is normally about 7,500 Baht and he is frequently home before his morning flight would have taken off.

Doing so saves considerable time and $. No hotel bill, no taxis to and from the airport and no air ticket to CM.

Well there is a great idea! There will be five people arriving in the first group (I arrive a month later) so perhaps booking a van ahead of time to meet them at the airport and take them all the way to the house in CNX would be the way to go. I will have some acquaintances in Bangkok look into such an arrangement.

The Northern Thais (khon muang) use 'khon sayaam' (Siamese) to refer to the Central Thais and do not feel the word includes themselves... so either way the label will be somewhat exclusive.

The Northern Thai I know refer to Central Thai folks as Khon Thai and to themselves as Khon Muang. On a national level that they may see themselves as Khon Thai, but in everyday speech the term, or at least it use to, referred to others from Central Thailand who were not Khon Muang.

I hope there is some experience now as to some of the better strategies for connecting between the new airport and CNX. (I know this might get moved to the travel forum, but I would hope it stays here where the experience might reside) I have time to plan, as I am sending the family off in late June, and they arrive in Bangkok around midnight on a US carrier. Has the experience been that it is worth finding a hotel near the new airport and then taking the 10:30 Thai flight or to send them over towards Don Muang upon arrival and then having them catch a flight north from there?

Any other tricks or advice for this transit to pass on?

Regarding Thailand and the coup, the professor of linguistics (while honestly and non-hypocritically and non-anti-Semitically admitting to knowing very few details about it) says, "My expectation was that the outcome of the military coup would be a system that was worse than the one it overthrew, except for small sectors of the population that were privileged and wealthy and may benefit from it." That sounds about right.

Yep, for a guy who admits to not knowing alot about Thailand, he certainly hits the nail on the head.