Rogie

I agree. I have noticed the diet in the villages is largely free of sugary foods. I have never seen a Thai in the village drinking tea or coffee with sugar, although the advent of drinks such as 3 in 1 coffee (coffee + sugar + whitener) may change that. Likewise biscuits / cookies, sweet cakes etc are not often eaten in my experience. Fizzy 'soda' type drinks are available but I do not see people drinking them much. The village kids drink fizzy pop in the way I did when I was a child, almost as a special treat, and not guzzle it down every day like they seem to do in many countries. We will all have seen old skulls in museums and been amazed at how good the teeth were. Sugary foods and drinks are a hazard. Thaiworthy has warned us off hamburgers, I'm sounding off in similar fashion and my target is coke, pepsi, fanta, 7-Up and all the others. Pure junk!

Useful to delve into the way people use the language. The quote FH has from his Taiwanese contact seems in line with other comments that've been made in this thread. Perhaps the 'Q' word is less often heard and therefore causes those hearing it (or reading it) in many western countries to question the speaker's (or writer's) bona fides. I notice the Taiwan chap cites "academic studies, advocacy groups, marches for equality, rallies etc". I'll admit I'm not a fan of 'academic studies'. That leaves the three others he mentions. Has anyone reading this Forum been on either an equality march or rally recently or is currently a member of an advocacy group? If so, is it fashionable to use the Q word? I'm sure you can see where I am going and I shall hypothesise thus - in places where equality marches exist the Q-word may quite possibly be often heard, in those places they don't (by which I mean they are not necessary, rather than any law forbidding them) the Q-word will seldom be spoken or heard (other than by some homophobic loony).

I cannot imagine many of us fail to appreciate a good smile, especially when flashed in our direction. An essential part of a pleasing smile is a good set of teeth. They don't have to be perfect but they should look clean and healthy. I wonder how the Thais go about taking good care of their teeth? Any secrets of the oral cavity we ought to know about? A few visits ago, I came across an unusual brand of toothpaste on sale in Thailand. It's called Herbal Twin Lotus. It was the first dark-cloured toothpaste I had ever seen - quite a contrast from the usual white sorts, or the stripey red and white kind. As it says on the packaging "the dark colour comes from natural herbs". They do two versions, Original and Fresh & Cool. I love them so much I use Fresh & Cool in the morning and Original before bedtime.

Time for some home truths: It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks Take responsibility and stop trying to avoid taxes, International Monetary Fund chief tells Athens http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/25/payback-time-lagarde-greeks?newsfeed=true

Siamese if you please . . .

That seems reasonable. But that does mean the jury in such cases will not be representative - there won't be a cross-section of the community serving on that jury, so surely something doesn't quite add up. By omitting those who are excused for the reasons stated, that leaves those with a completely opposite viewpoint. Quite possibly I am viewing juries through rose-tinted spectacles - no doubt many juries can be manipulated so that in the opinion of defence counsel his client stands the best hope of a sympathetic hearing that may make all the difference beteeen conviction and aquital. I didn't know that, I thought it was just a 'handful'.

A very understandable feeling FH, and one I think I would share if the UK still had the death penalty for certain crimes and I was called up for jury service in the UK. Fortunately that conundrum facing a jury no longer exists in Britain. That leads me to wonder how somebody called up for jury service in one of the states of America that retains the death penalty feels about that. Suppose he is chosen to sit on a jury trying a person (or people) whose crime, if found guilty, may carry the death penalty. I know the jury are just handing down a guilty or not guilry verdict, and the judge decides on the sentence, but it stands to reason that in some criminal trials it is going to be obvious to those following it (i.e press and public) that the accused is guilty and will be sentenced to death. Whereas at one time a death sentences were common, with people being executed on a regular basis, nowadays it is pretty unusual in western countries. That must have repercussions for the particular society the juror hails from. I would hazard that in a state where the death penalty is still intact, inevitably some people living in that state will have serious misgivings whenever a new trial begins. These might be people made to feel awkward by vocal opponents of the death penalty, and embarrassed that their state still retains it. Others will react pugnaciously to any such criticism, effectively saying it's none of their business. Selecting a jury for a trial where outside observers can be pretty sure the accused will be sentenced to death if found guilty must be one hell of a headache.

Stonehouse fulfilled all those criteria! Words are at the mercy of changing circumstances: whereas some people take great care in their use of words (Shakespeare) others are happy to latch onto the latest buzz word - more than likely soon to be jetisoned in favour of the next one.

Is that right? You've lost me there. Reminds me a bit of another John, a certain John Stonehouse. If memory serves he was, or had been, the Postmaster General (or held some other high office in Britain). He staged his own death by drowning. I forget where he turned up!

I'm sorry his life ended in such a fashion. Washington isn't a nice place is it, once you get away from the White House Lawn and into the suburbs. Same in London & many large cities. There's always a restless undercurrent, threatening to swamp anyone inadvertently straying into such territory. What is it that makes some people want to insult others? Ok, we know as already agreed upon it's the way you say it and to whom, the intent behind the 'insult'. Maybe some people don't have the ability to reign in their language when appropriate. Their tongue is like a scatter-gun - it cannot fine-tune what it spews forth, so whether you are friend ot foe you get the same vile invective.

Thanks for the link Christian, and the fact it's written in German (natch) saves me having to read it so would I be right in assuming Der Spiegel's opinion reflects that of the majority of German people? Hang on, wasn't he in the running for the Republican nomination at one time? You sure have some strange people in the US Unfortunately, I believe some politicians actually believed in political and economic union in our time, so to speak. The Euro was all part of the Grand Plan. This is very simplistic and a bit jingoistic, but basically France and Germany got together, allied with the Eurocrats (the salaried placemen in the European Union) and steamrollered the whole thing along. Feeble countries like Italy went along with it and of course the weaker countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland (the PIGS) rode the gravy train for all it was worth until the poor old thing ran off the rails. A few countries, such as Britain, declined to join and I think you sum it up pretty well when you say "many nations simply instinctively view their currency as inherently connected with their individual brand of nationalism".

That's a recipe for anarchy! Perhaps one of the best known 'grievances' is that of single people or childless couples who resent having to pay that proportion of their taxable income that goes towards the schools budget. But there must be hundreds of similar 'irksome' demands on peoples' taxes and if you take a hundred people at random you'll probably get a hundred different demands for an opt out. I haven't a shred of evidence and don't have the time to check that assertion you make Z but I would eat my hat if it turned out the Bill Gates Foundation squandered more money, dollar for dollar, than any foreign aid donated by any government, anywhere.

I think you were quite within your rights to contact HKUP about this. Assuming you have given the Chief Editor a reasonable period in which to reply, his failure to do so is poor form. I would be surprised if he is unaware of such feelings beyond the groves of Academe. As far as my memory serves, one of the reasons for adopting the word 'gay' was to take the bad taste out of the mouth that 'queer' (and other even worse names) had built up. My suspicion, and that's all it is as I have no evidence and haven't spoken to anybody about it, is that the older generation, those of us born before gay rights were taken for granted, probably resent this word more than those born since then. A comparison could be drawn with words used to address Africans. Negroes (a perfectly reasonable word as it just means 'black') became 'blacks', or the PC term African-Americans if referring to the north American continent. Unfortunately negro spawned the 'n' word. However whereas use of the 'n' word is no longer acceptable if used by a white person, it can and is occasionally used by certain sections of black people amongst themselves.

These poor people are little different to those living in Britain in the 18th or 19th century when life expectancy was a fraction of what it is in developed countries today - a hand to mouth existence, survival of the fittest. Lots of children need to be born in order that a few survive. I cannot put myself inside the head of a couple living in a hovel in Bangladesh so have no idea what's going on in their minds, but I suspect they are living purely on instinct. Where the food is going to come from to feed the next child when he is born does not feature - there is no forward planning, just living for the day. What an awful meagre existence that must be. Of course governments are to blame but when many governments in turn seem incapable of seeing beyond their fingers in order to try and address their country's problems, what hope is there? Foreign aid supplied by international charities is well-meaning, but as already discussed, such help is often frittered away. Maybe I am being over cynical, but I wonder if wealthy countries aid budgets are just a political football. If a country is seen by its peers to be generous, that country's foreign aid minister can sleep soundly at night untroubled - he doesn't want to concern himself with the minutiae. Not a bad idea, but referendums are expensive and time consuming and many British voters are apathetic. The only way to galvanise the average Brit is to make it personal, i.e. hit his pockets. The Anti-Foreign Aid supporters would have to spell out the implications in simple language.

I had the Bkk Burger Co earmarked on my recent trip but ran out of time. Sorry, far from having any new ones to suggest, I have a huge backlog of recommendations to tackle.

How many of those will be single males desperate for a bit of pussy? Looks like the bars (gay and str8) are in for a bonanza

Looks fishy to me. Many airlines suffer from periods of under-performance. It would be interesting to know the position of the Thai government in this. Surely it is a matter of serious loss of face if the national airline is seen to struggle. If an airline is not truly independent then its executives will know there'll always be the comfort of a safety net.

I'm not particularly interested in planes. Because of poor eyesight I never got the plane-spotting bug that infected many of my schoolfriends. My earliest flight was in 1967 between Ringway airport, Manchester and Montreal, Canada (Dorval airport I think). We were spending the summer with my uncle and aunt to coincide with Expo 67. I have no idea what kind of plane that would have been. It would be interesting to know whether flying is actually safer these days compared with the sixties and seventies. Stories such as that recounted by FH would suggest it is a lot safer!

Here's a nice succinct summary of what foreign aid involves: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid (NB. No need to click on the link, the quote above is in its entirety) Of course, anyone can trot out the theory of foreign aid, but which countries deserve it and how to implement it are real hot potatoes. Another hot potato is corruption. How to guarantee money, food or whatever, reach the people it is intended for. This problem is often aired in the British media and drives some people wild, witness some of the comments readers have added to articles such as this one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082383/Strip-corrupt-countries-British-taxpayers-foreign-aid-say-MPs.html#ixzz1va7OFlWi

My italics. I have several pages with Thai immigration stamps and on only one page have they squeezed 8 in. (The 8 stamps are made up of 4x entry stamps and 4x exit stamps). I have another couple of pages with 6 stamps with space at the bottom for 2 more, but it seems they prefer to start a new page rather than fill that final slot! It doesn't bother me as I have the 48 page British passport and I have only 3 more years to run before it expires with plenty of free pages left. But it would be frustrating if I only had a few spare pages. Good point you raise Christian and excellent advise from FH. Planning my recent trip to Burma, my travel agent is very experienced and foresaw my problem. My problem was the passport was with the Embassy for 3 days whilst I was going to Hua Hin. I wasn't simply holed-up in my hotel room all that time! He photocopied all the relevant pages of my passport including the page with the entry visa and also a copy of the immigration document that is stapled into the passport by the immigration officer. I also had a receipt from the travel agent to say the passport was with the Myanmar Embassy. As it happened I wasn't stopped by the police in any spot checks (we were driving) - that was my main worry, although I also had my British driving licence and International Driving Permit. I wasn't asked for my passport at the resort (run by a Dutchman), or the hotel, but had I been I did not envisage any problems.

Yikes! Now we're on to saving the planet! Now, that is scary - I agree with FH I don't want to be around! This is a really interesting topic for the Beer Bar but it has such monumental significance and touches on so many wide-ranging aspects. Rather like the Russian dolls, take one out and another one appears, but unlike the dolls which get smaller and smaller, a great many of the problems the world is facing are huge. There aren't many 'small' problems. We'd need a whole conference with all the world's experts gathered together to address all the issues and even then that's all they'd do, they still wouldn't have all the answers, and even if they did have all the answers they wouldn't be able to implement them. Closer to home (Thailand) Baht Stop has an excellent thread tracing the on-going histrionics over the plans to build the Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong. http://www.baht-stop...pic=10610&st=25

In many countries, yes I quite agree, those where a link between an unsustainable increase in population and poverty is established. Part of me, the 'concerned' side, would like to see poverty go away. I hate to see beggars on the streets. I mean true beggars, those genuinely in desperate need, and not the sort manipulated by a sort of latter-day Fagin. The other part of me, the nonchalant side, pretends it couldn't care less how many people there are in the world. Too big an issue for me to address I'm afraid, so under the carpet it gets swept. When people start talking about the ways and means to combat population growth it becomes frightening, assuming such a gigantic spectre that some very unsavoury methods are touted. At the end of the day, or even until the end of time, there's no easy answer and it scares me a lot to be honest, and that's why I blithely wrote "Absolute numbers of people is of less concern to me . . ."

Yes it surely must be. I am far less concerned with whether any particular young cosseted middle-class Chinese male turns into a spoiled brat than the situation the world faces with regard to poverty. The very opposite of the spoiled brat in fact. It is very easy to get a little hysterical bemoaning the fate of some people subject to conditions out of their own control. One thinks here of drought, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, civil war, killer illnesses (eg. untreated malaria) and no doubt a few others. However, on a daily basis, where there is no immediate danger to a county's inhabitants from any of nature's or mankind's more extreme factors, life has to go on. IMO we should be more concerned with the quality of life from cradle to grave of children born today. Absolute numbers of people is of less concern to me than whether they are living above or below the 'poverty line', however you may wish to define that. Here is an interesting yardstick that attempts to measure poverty I came across on the Wikipedia site. It seems to me a more useful index than picking an arbitrary limit of US$1.25 a day for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

That is so. I am not sure why there should be fewer 50's than other denominations. ATM's seem only to be stocked with 100, 500 and 1000 bills, and 20's seem to be far more common, so perhaps, short of hoarding any you receive in your change, a visit to any bank during opening hours is the answer.