atlas2

I may have left the country more than 4x just once. Usually I waste money... but not more time or pages. Also it gives me the peace of mind that if I need to leave for a family emergency I can be on a plane straight away.

I can only give positive reports regarding Immigration over the last few years. They try hard to make the onerous, 'bits-and-pieces-paperwork'......work. 90 day reporting is almost a pleasure these days. I did my yearly extension on Christmas morning..Smooth sailing....The staff all wore red Superman 'T' Shirts...And big smiles. In and out in 20 mins. But I hadn't gotten around to completing my yearly cycle by adding a multi entry visa until this morning. I'd had all the paperwork ready apart from dates...But with no plans to leave soon ........ it was just a, 'why not do it today?' whim that took me along to Soi 5. Two things irked me.....(I'm at the easily irked age)...... If you're unlucky (and I was), someone can appear in front of you carrying lots of passports and papers. Now I thought these multi-entry stamps had to be applied for in person....But a smartly dressed lady took up about 6 of the queue numbers ahead of me....... and so I would wait to be seen six numbers later than I would otherwise have been. The other thing that irked was again dependent on luck. And as the song goes...."If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all' Waiting you'll notice the numbers seem to freeze for 5 or 6 minutes and then resume counting on ....until finally my number.......My blessed number flashes. Pushing old ladies out of the way and trampling over gout-ridden feet and cripples, I'm there in an instant.The forms are checked and kept......3800 baht is handed over, and the blessed number is handed back to me....All within a minute. And I'm told to, 'Wait back over there' with the recently trampled and disgruntled masses. After about 40 minutes of observing, a pattern becomes discernible and the reason for the regular hiatus' made clear...... Passports collected are piled and passed in order, for scrutiny and a flurry of stampings by a succession of staff....Ending up at the desk of a remarkable woman who handles Multi-entry and another section's piles. Here's the irk! In order for her not to be inundated passports are processed in batches that are denoted by each hiatus. Your position in that batch is all important. Your position can mean that as well as waiting for the people in-front to be seen....... depending on which batch you squeeze into you can also wait for the people behind you to be processed. I think all told I was there an hour and a half.......Can't really complain. I get a multi-entry purely to save on passport pages and further trips to Immigration. I can now relax for another year. Unless a vengeful cripple, or old lady have me cornered and want to settle the account.

Just browsing the 'Hoy thread' and it seems to me that Idefix obviously has exceptionally high, quality control standards.... and must be a dammed fine looking fellow. Congratulations to him on his matinee idol good looks! The thought crossed my mind that he must apply the B52's famous nickname of.... 'BUFF'.......(Big Ugly Fat Fucker).... to most of the girls in Pattaya. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing? I suppose it could also be applied to the role that girls like 'Hoy' fore-fill. I'd love to see a B52 close up.........Hoy too.

Perhaps a re-calibration of your moral compass is in order Wac.

Last time I licked a Pole I got the strong flavour of Borscht and Kapusta.....Her name was Zofia.

Deserved a greenie for wit. But from my old school science I recall chrome isn't magnetic at room temperature ............It only transforms into a paramagnetic elemental solid when, (as you suggest), Hoy and her sisters are attached to it...... Amazing Thailand. I could add that some of the bigger women in the old, 'Hot and Cold' agogo...... had there own gravitational fields.

That is very witty.

This thread can be summarised so: 'Thoughts on swimming in the Water' ..........Don't think about it!

Pedants are important........ 'Let's eat Hoy.' 'Let's eat, Hoy.' Correct punctuation could save Hoy's life.

'Could not care less' means to me that logically you don't care at all...... 'I could care less' suggests you care 'somewhat' already. Whatever? I'm guessing you, 'don't give a toss'........or should that be, 'Don't give a fuck'?.......... This could go on a long time.........nkped !

I must accept the criticism .......... I hadn't thought the accent was that impenetrable. In my defence up until adulthood my life was spent in the area of Marylebone that had previously been known for the, 'fever dens' of Charles Street... (33 houses with single room tenements and a population of 423 )......Apparently numbers 1..2....3 and others had 'Soil' (ie shit) 5 feet in depth under the floors of the overcrowded addresses... A feared source for Typhus outbreaks. Charles Street was also where Eliza Armstrong a 13 year old girl was sold for a, 'deep sea diver'...(fiver), to a brothel keeper. .....George Bernard Shaw used the public outcry as a recognisably depraved and squalid home for Eliza Doolittle in his stage play Pygmalion.....('My Fair Lady' to Americans and Aussies)....Making the challenge of her transition to 'duchess' all the more bleeding remarkable. Giving the neighbourhood a bad reputation and smell.....'Charles Street' changed it's name to Ranston Street. My Nan lived there from the turn of the century...... Although not so bad an area in the 50s and 60s......I come from a place originally known for crime, moral degradation, drunkenness and prostitution. ......How I ended up in Pattaya I'll never know! The element of my part of London that, despite some changes for the better had hardly altered since the 1880s was the local accent I grew-up imbibing. This is a long-winded way of saying.....that to me Mike Reid's accent seems, if a little over pronounced....(pun intended) not so odd. Perhaps if I'd found a good joke told by Dick van Dyke in an authentic cockney accent it might not have garnered such criticism. Consider it a lesson learned.......I can tell you that for nuffink nothing. I shall try to do better.

Now that's 'Tragic'.......

Great voice.....great songwriter, singer and guitarist......Looks like a Nordic God.....I hate this bastard What a performance!!

I believe 75,000 French were rescued and gotten out to England and about 40,000 had to surrender. Can't blame the French resentment, or Churchill prioritising his own. Might have to be handled differently in today's PC climate. Watched 'Blade Runner II.' Not having seen the first one I hadn't a clue what was going on. I got the 'miracle birth'...the 'garden of Eden' and 'makes the best dreams'.....But what the 'Peter and the wolf' music was about? Anyway I found it over long and turgid. I'm sure loads reckon it was one of the best of the year.

Great for folks like me.......But I thought you always turned left.

A huge new pipe has been embedded under Soi Watboon in Jomtien. It runs from a sewage plant somewhere and the out about 100m into the sea. The road was dug up and closed for months....... and the dredgers and pipe layers visible in the bay opposite for almost as long. During instillation in the rainy season raw sewage flooded Jomtien beach road from traffic calming bump to bump. Bricks and slabs were laid by local shops so that people could cross beach road. But baht buses would just stop wherever and the passengers took their chances sploshing down into the stuff. When the waters receded crews were out with disinfectant sprays to clean up. Then the rains would come again and so would last night's 'gang kee lek' Thankfully we've gotten past all that ...However my point. I'm informed by a know-it-all, well-connected local that many of the new builds feed into pipes that feed directly into this main pipe and just mingles in with the treated sewage on it's journey to the sea. I'm not 100% sure that's true .......but I wouldn't put it past them. Would you?

Despite the numbers I see on the beaches and in the water....(Most of them having anyway gone in for a piss).....I keep away from the polluted stuff. When it rains like it did yesterday, with all the street grime and shit washed into the mix......You're not swimming.....You're going through the motions.

Good one. I liked the inconclusive and ambiguous cartoon I saw of a chicken and egg in bed together.......enjoying a post-coital smoke. No expression drawn on their faces other than agreement. A simple line below........ 'I guess that solves that'

Although I've booked Nam on numerous occasions for the pick-up of friends arriving/leaving, today was a first. My son flew in at 6 am and I didn't fancy a 3.30 am, (to be safe), drive up to the airport. I told Nam this was a VIP pick-up...... She reassured me all of her drivers are safe but I asked for the one with the Fortuna as it's high ride and sturdy.......and brand new. Swopped all the numbers and the usual prep' was thoroughly done..........But you still consider what can go wrong. As usual I worried for nothing..... everything went perfectly. I was very impressed when I asked the driver what time she'd had to leave Pattaya to be sure of the pick up? And she said she'd slept over at the airport from 8 the previous night......'Easier and safer..can be no problem.' I liked her thinking. Well done her! Well done Nam's Taxis.

I didn't comment earlier because I try hard not to submit to the elaborate ocular phobic school which treat works of art like this as unclarified faulty texts and it becomes so hard to 'unpick the 'I' and 'eye' This is a wonderful example of early 'Flemish Bond'

I was up-graded to BA Business Sydney/London...........It was heaven.

Thanks.

I always made Flipper a part of my earliest holidays........Nice pool on the roof. Can sit out with the girl from the night before and have a bite.... watching the para-gliders in the Bay get their 90 seconds in the air. Right in the middle of loads of bars I used to go out have fun but not get serious about choosing a girl until I was practically back in Flipper. Have a great time and let us know how it goes.

Scary stuff......... Recent stats show that 25% of women are being treated for mental disorders.........That means 75% are walking round untreated.