PeterRS

My beef with taxis is only very occasionally being quoted a fixed price rather than taking the meter, a price that is normally 3 times what the meter would charge. I just walk away. My main beef about Bangkok taxis is something that I notice now more than ever before. My main supermarket is less than 1 km from my home and at the bottom of a main soi. My sub-soi is half way up that main soi and the meter charge is almost always only Bt. 37 so I give the drivers 40. I am losing count of the number of empty taxis going up the main soi pasing me by without even stopping to check where I am going. Almost every time I would be giving them an fare which otherwise they will not have. I have found this also on Ploenchit even outside rush hours. Empty taxis not stopping when waved at. Some taxis now have an "on call" sign on top and hopefully more will get them. But to sail past without even checking the destination is now far too common.

Thank you. Lots of good ideas there. I think my one concern is the balcony rail is just about 30 kms above the height of the bottom of the wndow and I have a great view (yes, even in Bangkok). So anything that disturbs that view will definitely look unsightly. On the other hand, if needs must . . . . I bought some engine oil yesterday and smeared it along the top of the balcony rail. The crows are still there today, alas, but thanks for the thought.

I have not been to Pattaya for at least 7 years. There with Australian friends, we briefly visited Nice Boys and found virtually all the boys in shorts or underwear and all anxious to show their wares either when trying to make moves to dance or sitting at the side of the stage eyeing customers. I cannot now recall how many customers were there. But if the boys are now fully clothed I would imagine that has to be a recipe for closure relatively soon. What on earth would make any bar owner consider this a way to increase profits?

Thank you. I will try. But their talons are quite large and the balcony quite thin. But worth trying.

I realise this is one of the most unlikely subjects for this forum, but it is driving me mad! Any suggestions from members which will help solve the problem will be extremely welcome. I have lived for 24 years in a top floor apartment in an 8-storey condo building close to the centre of Bangkok. It is in a quiet residential area and one of its attractions is that peace you get with virtually no traffic. Now a much more annoying noise has appeared. About 6 weeks ago, I was wakened at 6:00 am by a knock on the bedroom window. Shocked that there might be someone on the little balcony, I soon realised what it was - the wing of a crow which had hit it, settled on the balcony rail and then started an incessant "craw, craw, craw." Soon during the daytime a crow started appearing on the outside of the sitting room on the same balcony which spreads across the lenrgth of the condo. Same banging on the window followed by the same crowing. Friends advised me that crows do not like certain smells and I should put mothballs on the railing. Internet sites agree and add things like garlic. So I also have little bags of garlic along the rail. Nothing stops these very annoying creatures unless I myself go close to the window. What I find so strange is that I can't recall ever hearing a crow at any other time in nearly a quarter of a century. The condo management has checked for any crows' nest on the roof. Nothing. If anyone has any prior experience of how to get rid of them - bar shooting them as I'd have to shoot through the window and I do not have a gun! - I'd love to know.

I have ceased to communicate on this issue with Putin's Propaganda Puppet @Moses

Is that not taking "insulting" a little too far? I was brought up in the UK and was taught by my parents to be considerate of others. For example here in Thailand, if I am going into or out of a door and know there is someone behind me, I hold it open for them. In Europe, this generally, although not always, meets with the equivalent of "thanks". I do the same in Thailand. In nearly a quarter of a century I can count the number of "thanks" (in English or Thai) on one hand. In the same vein, when I am behind someone, they will rarely hold the door open for me. It seems to be part of the culture. For whatever reason it never worries me in the slightest. Perhaps I need a stronger deodorant!

Thanks everyone. I had never heard of a yahoo browser but in the 30+ years I have owned a mac, when using safari all I have needed to do to search for anything was type in some info. A search site has always opened up. I will take @daydreamer's kind suggestion and use Firefox or Chrome. I'll also take a screen shot of the yahoo page to the main Apple store in BKK to see if they say it is spam or some form of error.

On my last visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg several years ago, I saw many very handsome/cute Russian guys. Some were waiters in the bar at the top of the Swissotel and at least two were gay. I only know that because everyone in our group of four were gay and they eventually admitted they were also. In St Petersburg one of the train stations en route to Catherine's Palace is at some form of Technical University. There were many very handsome guys getting on and off at that stop. I have absolutely no idea if any might have been gay but the eye candy was great! Also at our hotel on Nevsky Prospekt, the only guy in the Executive lounge was a stunning young 18 year old. Unfortunately I guess that most of those we saw would not have enough cash to visit Thailand even if they wished to.

I just had a message on screen that Yahoo has ceased Search operations in Thailand. Yahoo ได้ยุติการให้บริการค้นหาในประเทศไทยแล้ว I have been using it for years. This seems very weird. I suspect it is some sort of spam. Has anyone else had this message? And if so, can you kindly advise how I change the search engine?

It is really very sad that someone who has contributed an occasional valuable post - especially on technical matters - has become this Board's Putin propagandist. Absolutely everything he has said about the Skripal case (and I apologise for having dragged that one out) is pure lies. And sadly far too much of it is coming from @Moses. Example - in large letters he claimed that Russia had never pardoned Sergei Skripal. I quoted sources, including Russian media sources, that President Medvedev had done precisely that. Yet has @Moses apologised for spreading false information? No! He lives in his own little Putin fantasy land. Well, I have made the case as best I can and will now let @Moses spew whatever additional lies he wants to embroider his tissue of lies.

For me it is simple. I do not have social media apart from Line and WhatsAp. Rarely do I receive texts that require an immediate response. I guess I am more old-fashioned and I'd rather phone. I do have a couple of gay apps but I use them almost exclusively when outside Thailand.

Why do you continue to lie when your lies are proved to be just that - lies? You stated Skripal was never pardoned. Will you now admit that is an outright lie? WIll you admit that Medvedev pardoned him, or in your fantastic scenarios did the Russian media make a mistake when they reported that? And that is one of the most hideously weak parts of your increasingly ridiculous arguments. The GRU agents admitted on Russian television their friends recommended Salisbury for tourism. Yet they sat for 8 hours on planes to and from the UK to spend less than 3 hours there. Since they were on foot it is highly likely they did not even visit the Cathedral, which is the only tourist attraction in the city. We know the Russian executioners were never there for sightseeing. They were there to murder Skripal and then get out of the UK as fast as possible, which is precisely what they did - get out, that is, but they failed in their murderous mission! End of @Moses utterly ridiculous fantasy!

Yet again you lie big time. Why, when the truth is obvious? So much for your bullshit!! July 9 2010 Sputnik News/RIA Novosti - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree on pardoning four individuals imprisoned in Russia for alleged work for Western intelligence agencies, the Kremlin press service said on Friday. The pardoned individuals are Alexander Zaporozhsky, Gennady Vasilenko, Sergei Skripal and Igor Sutyagin. https://sputnikglobe.com/20100708/159742682.html For your information, Sputnik News is owned by the Russian Government! July 9, 2010 12:17 PM GMT+7 Updated July 9, 2010 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pardoned four people jailed for passing secrets to the West as part of a Cold War-style spy swap with the United States, local news agencies reported on Friday. Medvedev signed a decree to pardon Alexander Zaporozhsky, Gennady Vasilenko, Igor Sutyagin and Sergei Skripal, who are all serving prison terms for espionage, his spokeswoman Natalya Timakova was quoted by Russia's state RIA news agency as saying. For your further information, Natalya Timakova was Press Secretary to Medvedev from 2008 to 2016. She has the federal state civiian rank of 1st class State Councillor of the Russian Federation, as I am sure you should know well! Quit the bullshit @Moses. Your lies have been found out too often for anyone to believe anything you write. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uk/russias-medvedev-pardons-four-jailed-spies-report-idUSTRE6680SH/

You still fail to answer my specific questions. Since the alleged purpose of sightseeing in Salisbury (ONLY Salisbury as they confirmed on Russian TV) why did they spend just three hours in the city - less, actually, since they walked rather than take taxis - before making a quick get away back to Moscow? But you are Putin's propagandist on this Board and your deflections and lies will continue.

Are you that simple-minded? I have quoted a mountain of evidence giving dates, times, locations, statements made by the GRU agents on Russian Television - and you merely make up an utterly ridiculous propaganda story. I will aswer one point, though, As you know extremely well - and like everything else you fail to acknowledge it, agents are often held with a view to an exchange of spies. That has happened throughout the history of the USSR and carried on by Russia. Why would it seek to execute Skripal in Russia when it would have a dead man instead of a living exchange spy? And when are you going to answer any of the mutifold and very detailed questions I have asked? Obviously never because you are Putin's proagandist on this Board. But your ridiculous story of how the Skripals were poisoned merely goes to show you have no desire to discuss the truth. You are merely Putin's propaganda machine.

Utter rubbish! Russian propaganda machine working overtime, clearly. Incidentally, you should get your facts more straight if you are going to find anyone to believe the nonsense you spout about Russian spies. You state the Litvinenko case again st the agent who poisoned his tea was tried in a court of law. Absolute lie! His murder by the Rurrians was the subject of a Public Inquiry which is a very, very different issue. You also ask why the Skripal case was not subject to a similar "trial". The Skripal case and the Novichok affair was also the subject of a Public Inquiry. End of Discussion!

You realise you are digging yourself into a much deeper hole? Just give it up. You have zero argument, you make ridiculous unverifiable points and those you do make are basically nonsense in regard to the Skripal case.

The usual Soviet-syle propaganda. I provided a lot of proof in my post above. You have refuted absolutely none of it other than to lie about what is written in Mark Urban's book! You can refute that by showing here the relevant page in that book where you claim that Skripal himself does not agree that it was the Russians who poisoned him. I have countered that argument. You have not. Skripal never said that! In fact you counter not one of my points! So much for "proof"! You don't even confirm that the Russian GRU staffers who poisoned Skripal actually said - in other words they told the Russian public, apart from @Moses apparently - on Russian TV that they did in fact visit Salisbury. But they said it was for sightseeing. For all of three hours? You agree? Total B/S.

Care to use the Search box and enlighten us when this post might have been made. Or is it merely a thought and not a fact? This is one recent magazine's view - "The Chiang Mai Flower Festival is a wonderful festival, held in the northern city of Chiang Mai every year. It’s a three-day event celebrating the end of the winter season, showcasing the stunning natural beauty of flowers and plants that bloom in northern Thailand. Visiting the Chiang Mai Flower Festival is one of the best things to do in Chiang Mai if you are traveling to the city in February. As a conscious traveler, you can enjoy the parade with impressive floral floats, witness Thai beauty pageants, indulge in Pad Thai and Khao Soi, and watch live music performances." https://travelersanddreamers.com/chiang-mai-flower-festival/

1) You really do ask the most ridiculous questions when you already know the answers! The British Police have plenty of evidence to charge the two GRU operatives and ensure a British court would find them guilty, but Russia does not extradite its nationals to face trial in other countries. Therefore you know perfectly well they cannot be convicted in a court of law! Your version of what "might" have happened is utter nonsense,. Surely you cannot be that simple-minded? 2) You also state a lie. Mark Urban's book was published on October 2 2018. As the author himself claims, the entire book was written on the basis of interviews long before the attempted murder by the Russians and deals with the "new" spy war between the west and Russia. Further, it usually takes 9 months at least for a book to be published after submission of the manuscript. Even though the book was clearly rushed into print, at no point in the book does Skripal ever state "he did not believe that Russia had poisoned him." Indeed Urban never spoke to Skripal after the poisoning. Further, due to the date of pubication, it is unable to mention much that follows below. The timing does not work! @Moses once again shows his ignorance and ventures into very obvious untruths. The history of the attempted murder of Skripal is in itself quite fascinating and was clearly a massive embasrrassment to the Kremlin and Putin. Let's look closely at the timeline. March 2018 Thursday 1: Julia Skripal flies from Russia to London to visit her father, a former Russian spy living in Salisbury, England. Friday 2: Two GRU agents under false names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov arrive at Gatwick Airport from Moscow at 16:42 hours. They book into the City Stay Hotel in East London for two nights. The room is later found to have traces of Novichok a deadly nerve agent manufactured in the south of Russia. Saturday 3: At 11:45 the two Russians board a train from Waterloo Station - destination Salisbury. In those days that would have taken fractionally less than 2 hours. CCTV footage shows them in Salisbury at 14:25. On 'live' Russian TV following their public exposure by the British, the two Russians stated they were "merely tourists" and travelled to Salisbury on the recommendatiom of friends. "Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," Mr Petrov said. They claimed they only stayed an hour in Salisbury on Saturday 3 March because of the snowy weather conditions, but returned early on Sunday 4 March to visit the sights. Clearly the March 3 visit had nothing to do with snow. It was a reconnaisance mission. Sunday 4: At 11:58 the Russians are seen on CCTV close to the Skripal's home. Following drinks at The Mill pub before visiting a Zizzi restaurant, at 16:15 a member of the public calls the police about a man and a woman lying hunched on a bench near the main car park. The couple are Sergei and Julia Skripal. In hospital, they are supsected of having been poisoned. At 13:50 the Russians are seen on CCTV heading towards Salisbury train station. What? Perhaps @Moses can now tell us what happened to all the sighseeing they had planned? On their return to London they immediately headed for Heathrow airport. At 19:28 they boarded a plane for Moscow. Wednesday 7: The Police believe the Skripals were poisoned by a nerve agent. The case becomes a murder investigation. Thursday 8: One of the senior police officers who had visited the Skripal's home is in a serous condition after being exposed to the nerve agent, Monday 12: Prime Minister Theresa May confirms in parliament that the poison was the nerve agent Novichok, made solely in Russia. Russia is given an ultimatum to explain why Novichok was found on British soil. Wednesday 14: Russia fails to meet the dealine. Britain expels 23 Russian diplomats. Wednesday 28: 27 more countries expel more than 140 Russian diplomats after hearing evidence from the UK. 4 June: British Counter-Terrorism Assistant Commissioner reveals 2,300 objects have been recovered from the Salisbury investigation, adding 4,000 hours of CCTV footage have been examined. 4 and 5 July: Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, two more British subjects living close to Salisbury, are revealed to be in critical condition following exposure to Novichok. Dawn Sturgess a mother of three dies as a result on 8 July. 14 July: Police find a Nina Ricci perfume perfume bottle in Mr. Rowley's home which contains Novichok. Salisbury MP John Glen confirms the couple were in the habit of "looking into bins". The method used to poison the Skripals was spraying Novichok from the perfume bottle on to their front door handle and then discarding it. 19 July: Police confirm they are certain they have identified who brought the Novichok into the UK. The UK soon adds new sanctions on Rusia. 4 September: The world's chemical weapons watchdog confirms the Novichok that killed Ms. Sturgess was identical to that used on the Skripals. 5 September: Scotland Yard confirms it now has sufficient evidence to charge two Russian nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov over the Salisbury poisonings. The charges include conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, the use and possession of Novichok contrary to the Chemical Weapons Act and causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Later in September: The two Russians appear on Russian State TV in what is obviously a stage-managed affair filled with iies. The flaws in the Russians argument are massive. Perhaps @Moses can explain the following - 1. What is the average salary of a member of the GRU and how long would it take to save up enough to purchase two round trip tickets to London on scheduled flights flying into and out of the two different London airports? They cannot therefore have been cheaper charter flights. 2. Having purchased airfares and they were on holiday, why only two nights? 3. They were in Salisbury for around 3 hours in total. Sightseeing? Total B/S. And why Salisbury, a city not known for its sights apart from the Cathedral? Why not Winchester which is close by? Since they were in London, why not St. Pauls Cathedral? Why not the main Canterbury Cathedral? Why not the magnificent Ely Cathedral near Cambridge? The answer is simple. The Skripals Iived in Salisbury and Putin wanted them executed. 4. They claimed on Russian television that men do not carry ladies' perfume. That's a real joke since one of the benefits of flying is duty free shopping at which they could have purchased perfume for their wives and/or girlfriends. These are all facts - not some made-up nonsense by @Moses. I will finish with more lurid background of Russia targetting Skripal. Skripal was a former Russian Military Officer. In December 2004 he was arrested outside his house and later convicted of high treason due to espionage for a foreign government. In 2010 he was swapped for Russians in jail in Britain. President Medvedev, during the four years Putin had to step down as President, then pardoned Skripal. Putin was mad and branded him a "traitor". Skripal's wife, son and older brother had all died in Russia in mysterious circumstances. Skripal was an ambarrassment to Putin who wanted him to suffer the same fate. But Putin's henchmen botched the job. I wonder if they are still alive.

Of course there is proof! Plenty of it. Only you refuse to face facts!

There you go again! It was LIVE PUBLIC TELEVISION in RUSSIA! That does not need a court. The two GRU officers were named and interviewed and STATED PUBLICLY they were only in the UK for 2 days to see Salisbury Cathedral. it is a matter of public record in RUSSIA! An interview on Russian television with suspects in the Salisbury poisonings was “shocking” and “welcome”, a senior police officer has said. Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov denied being the culprits and said they were tourists who wanted to visit Salisbury Cathedral, during the interview on RT in September 2018. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/salisbury-alexander-petrov-sergei-skripal-salisbury-cathedral-gru-b2650559.html

The question is inspired by an article in today's Guardian/Observer newspaper. First its idea of "middle age" is the 35-49 yo bracket as defined in a recent USA survey. Leaving aside the gay community, in 2021 it found that 15% of heterosexual men do not have any male "close friends". Those who said they enjoyed close male friendships with ten or more men stated the number had dropped from 33% in 1990 to 13% in 2021. As the article claims - "Creating better infrastructure for heterosexual male socialisation is a public health necessity, given that the isolation and loneliness reported in the wake of shrinking friendship networks has dire health implications. You can trust studies that repeatedly demonstrate that 'those who experience social deficits, including isolation, loneliness, and poor-quality relationships, are more likely to die earlier, regardless of the cause of death', or you can remember how mad we all went during Covid lockdowns and just imagine that being the rest of your life." It then goes on to claim that studies in Australia from 2020 show a similar pattern - “men who reported lacking close friends or relatives were around twice as likely to have thought about suicide in the past 12 months. Other local studies exposed the loneliest age group of Australian men was middle aged (35-49 years), who were 'three times more likely to feel high-level loneliness than men aged over 65'”. It then states that these trends are relatively new. It adds - "it’s becoming more of a problem: a shocking 25% of US boys and men aged 15 to 35 reported 'feeling lonely for a lot of the previous day' as per a recent Gallup poll." Some blame the advent of technology, but this does not explain why the phenomenon is not apparent in women and gay men. A variety of reasons are suggested, one being - "that an intersecting number of cultural changes are meeting new variations of old gender roles in a particularly destructive way, and with fewer social points of connection to bulwark men against them." Two issues not discussed. 1) Could the reason be that more and more men enjoy closer relations with their wives and families? 2) The possibility, however remote, of some in the western world becoming more similar to Japan where large numbers of younger men (mostly in the 15-39 age group) are quite literally withdrawing from all forms of social life. Reasons abound for this behaviour - feelings of inadequacy, shame, depression, anxiety, a profound sense of apathy and lack of motivation. Look more deeply and the rigid heirarchy of the Japanese education system and intense work ethic come into play. These hikikomori are not confined to men although there are considerably more men than women. The characteristic is they lock themselves in their rooms, only opening doors when their mothers leave their meals outside. This has become an increasingly worrying tend in Japan since 1990. It is estimated that there are now between 500,000 and 1 milion Japanese hikikomori. Perhaps they should all consider trying a gay lifestyle where men interact with other men of almost all ages! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/23/middle-aged-men-are-among-societys-loneliest-people-what-does-that-say-about-the-patriarchy

It does not need to be "highly likely" or anything at all. The two GRU officers who made that two-day trip to poison the Skripals appeared on Russian TV - in Russia, that is - and stated, admittedly somewhat childishly, that their only purpose - stress "only purpose" - for making the trip was to see the wonderful Salisbury Cathedral. You would at least think that seasoned GRU officers and their superiors could have come up with some more believable excuse.