1 January 2024
Headache.
7 March 2024
Headache gone!! This page is not getting much attention. Sorry.
The red carpet is being rolled out….”Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra can request to travel to Chiang Mai while he is out on parole in home detention, said the Department of Probation.” (source: Thai Enquirer on X/Twitter).
Maybe he can help rid the north of thailand of the foul smog which has returned with a vengeance this week.
In other news from the last two months:
Alex came to visit – joined by Katie for one week. He is very good company.
17 March 2024
I should be celebrating that CMFC look certain to make the League 2 playoffs this year – and are still just about in touch with the top two with five games to play.
But: on Facebook Thai League Online with 40,000+ followers is reporting that:
“Chiang Mai FC players’ team spirit is still good, overcoming PM 2.5 dust and winning 3 straight matches. Playoff tickets are within reach. But the rumors are heavy. It’s very serious that it has become another team that is facing financial problems right now. Foreign players have not been paid for 3 months. Thai players still have outstanding balance from February. If it goes to next month or during the playoffs Still can’t solve the financial problem. There may be no main players, both foreigners. and may include Thai people some compete at the end of the season.”
All this on top of the mystery of the missing 25th anniversary shirts.
14 May 2024
Malaysian Airlines is returning to Chiang Mai on Aug. 15 with five flights per week. Very useful for affordable onward connections to Europe and Australia.
21 May 2024
Severe turbulence on an SQ flight from London to Singapore today. The airliner made an emergency landing in Bangkok. One fatality – British – and some thirty injured pax.
It sound as if the airplane hit a pocket of CAT and fell 6,000 feet down to 31,000.
A passenger onboard the Singapore Airlines flight that had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok has recounted the terrifying descent.
Dzafran Azmir, 28, told Reuters:
Suddenly the aircraft starts tilting up and there was shaking so I started bracing for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling.
Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it.
Pictures from inside the cabin are dramatic – you can search for them.
27 May 2024
My birthday. Feeling old.
What are the lingering effects of Covid?
Neurological symptoms or mental health conditions, including difficulty thinking or concentrating, headache, sleep problems, dizziness when you stand, pins-and-needles feeling, loss of smell or taste, and depression or anxiety. More here.
That is where I am right now – nothing too serious – except for the fact that I walk like a drunk and cannot walk for too long – very weird.
8 June 2024
The British paranoia about any warm day is always entertaining – headline today in the UK’s Daily Mirror: This striking weather map is a blistering red as temperatures are set to reach at least 25C amid an imminent “super heatwave”.
9 June 2024
Guardian: “After five years of planning, eight months spent nurturing four pitches which then had to be transported from Australia to the US, six months of construction work on $30m worth of temporary stadium, including the installation of 34,000 seats and 100 hospitality boxes, the organisation of a security operation that involved seven agencies, including the police forces of three counties and the FBI, the deployment of snipers, Swat teams, roadblocks, a helicopter, a 50-person video surveillance team, hundreds of buses, and the closure of 1,000 acres of public park, the biggest game ever played in the US was finally ready to get under way.
And then it started raining.”
20 July 2024
Too tired to update this page recently – plenty of news but most of it has been beaten to death in the media. The quick summary:
England made the final of the 2024 Euros before losing to a vibrant Spain team that were playing with fun and energy.
Joe Biden floundered horribly in his live CNN tv debate with Trump. Age catches up with us all and does so in different ways. This has led to widespread calls for Biden to step down in favour of an alternate candidate before the November Presidential election.
Mor recently a lone 20 year old gun man tried to assassinate former President Trump while he was giving one of his rally speeches. The bullet appears to have grazed Trump’s right ear.
Yesterday (19/7) a global technology outage grounded flights, disrupted health services, crashed payment systems and blocked access to Microsoft services in what experts believe is one of the largest IT failures in history. Globally.
The cause of the disruptions originated from a cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike, which provides software to a wide range of industries. An update to one of CrowdStrike’s pieces of software, Falcon Sensor, malfunctioned, throwing a wrench into computers running Windows, leading to major tech failures around the world, the company said.
Cloudstrike employs thousands of workers and services businesses in countries across the globe, boasting on its website that it protects 538 out of the Fortune 1000 companies. Our vulnerability to technology failures is alarming – as is the fact that many companies seem to have untested contingency plans.
28 November 2024
Sorry – hard to find anything fun to write about – I really should try and keep this page active:
News from Etihad who have announced new flights for 2025 including:
Daily Abu Dhabi-Krabi flights from October 9, using A321-200NX(LR)s;
Four times per week Abu Dhabi-Chiang Mai flights from November 3, using A321-200NX(LR)s.
9 December
More upheaval in the Middle East. Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria for nearly 25 years, has left the country after giving orders there be a peaceful handover of power, according to Russia’s foreign ministry. It is unclear where he is. The ministry said that Moscow has not taken part in the talks around his departure.
Try looking in Dubai!
Russia, along with Iran, had been a key ally of Assad, having provided him military assistance to remain in power despite widespread unpopularity.
French president Emmanuel Macron welcomed news of the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Sunday and said France will remain committed to the security of all in the Middle East.
“The barbaric state has fallen. Finally. I pay tribute to the Syrian people, to their courage, to their patience. In this moment of uncertainty, I wish them peace, freedom and unity,” Macron said in a post on X. “France will remain committed to the security of all in the Middle East.”