Bolt from the blue
Re: "Safety first in golf", (PostBag, Sept 25) & "Caddie dies after being hit by lightning on golf course", (BP, Sept 23).
About 50 years ago I was playing at a course in outer Bangkok, and there was some lightning in the near vicinity. The caddies looked a bit apprehensive, and a couple of holes later we decided to return to the clubhouse.
Speaking to the caddies on the return journey they were relieved, and told us that a few months earlier a caddie had been killed by lightning, but it hadn't been reported. The golf course owners had given every caddie 1,500 baht to keep quiet about the incident and not publicise it.
As I have found at many courses in Thailand, big paying customers are always right, and caddies are dispensable.
Michael Sim
Help for farmers
Re: "Government outlines co-payment plan", (BP, Sept 27) & "Harvesting change", (PostBag, Sept 27).
As regular contributor Burin Kantabutra says regarding the co-payment plan Khon La Krueng, the government should use the subsidy to spur more purchases, scale-up production capacity and encourage reinvestment in supply chain.
Enlist professional agricultural specialists to teach farmers new ways of farming. Set up community centres where modern machinery can be rented to farmers, and back them initially in buying new seed strains to increase yields.
That is more attractive to the young sons and daughters of farmers who are not prepared to spend back-breaking hours in the fields. To quote Winston Churchill, "Give us the tools and we will finish the job".
Ron Martin
An eager nose
Re: "Weed hurts tourism", (PostBag, Sept 27) & "Tourist numbers tumble as Asian markets decline", (BP, Sept 25).
Regular PostBag contributor Jason A Jellison's claim that "families apparently prefer to travel to places where they don't have to push their toddler's stroller through clouds of stinky weed" implies there are crowds of ne'er-do-wells on every Thailand street corner blowing clouds of smoke in all directions.
Obviously this is just illogical, as you have to go out of your way to find places that allow marijuana smoking (something Mr Jellison no doubt does regularly so that he can point and scream in anguish).
Mr Jellison's guesswork is along the lines of "Most people who drown have eaten ice cream, therefore ice cream causes drowning".
I regularly roam the streets of Chiang Mai, day and night, and I can't remember detecting even a mild whiff of the stuff in weeks, and I don't like the smell either.
You don't like weed, Mr Jellison. We get it.
Tarquin Chufflebottom
