I reached the stage of asking for a change of room and was given one!
The new room was on the 6th or 7th floor which meant that I got a really good shake up when there was an earthquake that was felt in Chiang Mai. The quake was in Burma but was felt at varying strengths as far afield as India and much of SE Asia. Chiang Mai was quite close to the epicentre and I found it very disorientating!
I spent several weeks living in an hotel in Chiang Mai in Thailand. For about a week the people in the room adjoining mine were Americans who seemed to need to conduct business with the US day and night. Obviously, since the US is a loooooong way from Thailand they had to shout during EVERY SINGLE conversation to make sure their correspondent could hear them!
'Ouate' is cotton wool and 'phoque' is pronounced fock not fuck
Yes but unelected Brussels eurocrats...
In Luxembourg where I live, tax evasion is a civil matter. If you get caught the civil penalties are quite severe and the taxman can take out a remortgage on any property you own and oblige you to pay it but they cannot send you to jail unless they can pin a fraud charge on you.
HRMC are according to friends of mine in the accountancy business, absolutely irrational and utterly stupid. The often opt to bankrupt or prosecute people who 'owe' tax when they would be far better off waiting to let a business get back on its feet.
I fell foul of them when I left the UK to move to Belgium. They came after me for £50,000 in unpaid tax but my accountant said he reckoned I owed them about £5000 but that it could cost as much as £10,000 to prove that to them. He said "do you have £15,000 kicking about in your bank account, looking for a home?" to which I replied "no" and he said "then bankrupt yourself then you won't owe them a penny!". The bankruptcy authorities have no jurisdiction outside the UK unless they engage in lengthy and horrendously expensive action through foreign courts which they won't attempt for a debt as relatively small as yours so...
After a day at the high courts of justice in London I was declared bankrupt. We saw the official receiver the same day and that was pretty much the end of the matter except that HMRC decided they weren't going to accept my bankruptcy - until I had a word with the official receiver who read the Riot Act to the jumped up civil servant from the collections office who was chasing me, then they shut the fuck up!
Chasing a bankrupt for a debt that precedes the bankruptcy is a very serious matter and certainly not something that a civil servant should be doing!
@ChrisMayLA6 @TCatInReality I have said this many times. This destruction of the NHS began in the 70’s, I witnessed it first hand. The Torys never play a short game. What we see now is the culmination of planning since 1948. The damage may be irreversible, but we have to fight for the survival of the NHS. Our lives literally depend on it.
We asked NASA why they were so determined to travel through space.
They replied that travelling through anything else damaged the front of the rockets.
I think the question should be
"If the UK expressed a desire to rejoin the EU, would there be a consensus amongst the present membership to say 'yes' to that. I'm pretty certain the answer to that is a resounding 'NO!'".
All existing members of the EU have to affirm their support for applicant countries joining and I think it likely that the tories have fucked that up!
@mattsheffield
Yes but she's black so therefore automatically guilty of something utterly horrendous and unforgivable!
Personally, I think it's a good idea as most carnivores will not eat the flesh of other carnivores, probably because they carry diseases that might infect or kill them.
I suspect that eating the flesh of dogs or cats is, therefore, a rather bad idea!
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.