carew66

Typical of Fly. Right in the middle of it. He'll be seriously pissed off. (I like the filing of allegations - quite rightly - at Jumsai for the incitement to bash.)

Okay - I'll have a stab at something. It's Sunday night here and half of my brain is already working on tomorrow's demands. And talking of brains - and how I nearly lost mine - makes a good enough short anecdote. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." Woody Allen said that (according to Google). True enough in my case. I had some plans when I arrived here in 2004 - nothing particularly concrete, definitely flexible, no hurry, no worry - but after just two weeks in Thailand a couple of guys tried to murder me. That was a novel experience. Somewhere in the archives i

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, Sayjann. I just haven't visited this board for a long time. Hell, I haven't even visited the UK since 2008. I have my own life in Thailand. When I get a holiday I'm where I want to be on holiday. Now that I've said 'hello' I feel somewhat duty bound to say something further. Hang on a minute, let me have a think.

Do you, darling? do you think it's bad manners? Bless!

Well, should you change your mind and move out of that comfort zone to check out the Eastern Seaboard, then I'm sure I could convert you at least a little. Was that the same Limbo that once sent me a rather threatening Private Message about 5 years ago? I do believe it was. I wasn't impressed. Come here - we aren't bothered by shithead gangsters like they are on Koh Samui! Anyway - I kid you not. As long as I am on free time I would love to show you some nice places. Yes, even in Pattaya. In fact, there are some really nice places in Pattaya.

Flashermac - that's you next door isn't it? Nice one! I'm a poor man. But even if I wasn't, I couldn't bring myself to live anywhere near the tourist towns. I really don't want to be anywhere near some dodgy fuckers trying to catapult themselves into an imagined higher social class with the aid of a Vigo, viagra and a threat of violence. I respect them nonetheless - I would just like that respect to be reciprocated. This is a nice town and I live in a nice neighbourhood. I don't want to see fat, aging, English skinheads wearing wifebeater vests when I go to the Mom and P

Thank you, Horneytorney. You are very kind. I'm a wee bit of a misanthrope and I get grumpier as I age. What works for me - works for me. I just treat farangs with a longer barge-pole than I would, say. in London. Here though, a friendly face and someone that speaks your language, someone with whom you may share common frames of reference and so on, means that it's easy to get conned. Happened to me a couple of times. Small beer. A few grand that's all. The language thing that you touch upon is an interesting point. Do you remember the story last week about the Cana

Sayjann - it would a great pleasure. The honour would be mine, sincerely. (I live a long way from Helltown and Pleasure City but near enough when needs must.) I always appreciate conversations in English despite my apparent disdain for it. You are more than welcome down here.

And you wonder why I rarely socialise? You just scraped the surface, Red. (I am assuming that you are referring to a small seaside town not a million miles away from where I am typing this!) Usually - but not always - meeting yet another farang fantasist can be a mild diversion and sometimes amusing. I get fond of some of them in the way that I view the street dogs in my soi. As long as they don't try to bite, then I'm just fine. These people are not your friends. Tell them nothing unless you are happy for it to be common knowledge among the Tribe of the Resentful. Never gi

I've met Belgian Boy. He's remarkably unlike his online persona. I was left with a positive impression.

^ Bloody hell - that's all over the place, sorry. I keep getting interrupted and losing my train of thought. Damn this age of 'communication'.

I thank you, Dave. A very gracious and thoughtful reply to my post last night which was, I assure you, in the spirit of debate and discussion as you've detected. Thanks for that! Foiled again! I was sensible to the fact that - as elef pointed out - the topic was dealing with the future and not the past. The thing is, I can't address one without reference to the other; perhaps a personal foible. It's like giving the punchline without hearing the joke. I found myself being drawn to that very foreign country where they do things differently. In my defence, surely a human enough weakness

Well, nobody is going to pay membership fees now are they? As an aside - isn't it strange that Google (Don't be Evil) is now the arbiter of what is or isn't morally acceptable and everybody shits themselves in case some kids in California don't like it? I have no ideas, elef. Seriously. I'm a user of websites same as every other person in the world, and I've never paid a penny to use any of 'em (except for $50 for nanaplaza.com a decade ago which was a purely techie problem as we needed a new server. Does not count. I wasn't appeasing the gods of Google.) I just see other s

How Can We (Re-)Activate The Board? I pop in only occasionally these days, but I've always thought the answer wasn't that difficult: change the bloody name. Thai360, my arse. That's where it all went wrong. Thai360 sounds like the sort of site I would go to if I wanted a 24-hour plumber in Banchang. The 'non-standard' forum format is off-putting. Cliques. The site might just be perceived as a closed club, with an elite who are allowed to do things that the hoi-polloi cannot. That sponsor crap? Lose it. It breaks my heart to see the once dominant nanaplaza.com reduce

Oh, Sayjann! I'm not in my dotage, you know! I mean that I live much the same as anyone else would do if they wished to keep their sanity. It's all about compartmentalisation (!) Or summat. There's 'normal' life - work, bills, Tesco Lotus, water the plants, cooking decent farang food, checking out the internet, watching TV, taking a walk in the early evening, chatting with the neighbours, acknowledging Christmas cards, cleaning the fishtank...normal shit, yeah? And then... And then there's that wee whisper in my ear; it's that little black monkey that I haven't fed for a wh