Dear Hillary!
Thanks for your reply! It was a funny and good read as always. I have now dismissed the Honorable Dr. Iain from being your alias. But I have a new theory , you are an Irish expat, named Anne Oด Nymous (say it quickly).

I fully respect your wish to not show your photo, but if you change your mind in future, there are some creative solutions.

You can for example show a photo from the back, or a silhouette photo, or wear a veil or a burqa. Just some friendly hints. But I go down on my knees and apologize for my bad spelling of the word “grapevine” but it could have been worse, how about “grejpvajn”? Am I forgiven? About photo under the pillow, I do not put any woman’s photo there, my extremely beautiful Thai wife would hunt me with a sledgehammer. I am glad that I am not Hercule P. In Agatha Christies books, he was born in 1864, 148 years ago. My friends tell me that I do not look a day older than 140!

I am sure you can find some wrong spellings in my letter, but can you forgive me in advance?

Written with humbleness and friendliness. God bless you!
Sincerely yours,
Lelle Poirot

Dear Lelle (AKA Hercule Poirot’s brother),
I am glad you took my reply with a “good heart”, and I look forward to meeting someone who is almost 150 years old. What is the secret? A glass of “grejpvajn” every night perhaps? I can forgive your spelling, my Petal, because you are obviously not a native English speaker (at least I hope so), but your punctuation is amazing. You seem to have an endless supply of spaces which you throw at the page, all of which I have to laboriously remove with my special space rubber (eraser, so don’t smirk). Thank you for your creative answers to my photograph, but I think the easiest will be to use Angelina Jolie, as long as the intellectual property police don’t find out that the photograph came from Google. You just have to be so careful these days.

Dear Hillary
I came back (not to Brylcream, some of your older readers might remember that old advert), I came back to Thailand and I am so happy to be back.

I was in England for eight months getting one new heart valve put in and another repaired, the trouble all resulted from that accident I had the January before last which took all my savings!

Anyway back to the reason for writing, after being away from England for 42 years I was still able to get free treatment and medication from the good old National Health Service, so just to let any UK Ex-Pats know if they are short of funds for any medical problems they can, as long as they have the air fare and accommodation in the UK, get the same treatment I got (that’s free treatment).

Oh, one last thing Hillary, on the BBC overseas network I get on my TV here there is an advert about every 15 minutes for “Amazing Thailand” and its “Miracle Year” I was wondering what the miracle was when I noticed a lot more motorcycle riders wearing helmets, so I guessed that was what the miracle was! But I have since found out that the fine for not wearing a helmet has now doubled and is 400 baht. So bang goes my theory about the miracle Hillary. So I thought I would ask you what this miracle might be? Great to write to you again Hillary, all the very best to you and all at the Mail.
Delboy...

Welcome back Delboy,
I wondered where you had been, it was so quiet from up north, and we at the Mail are all glad that your operation was a success. And such a bargain too! But as you say, this is only for British ex-pats, so the nationals here can’t avail themselves of this bargain basement surgery. Did they remove your appendix at the same time while they were “in there”? Would save another air fare.

Now the, the “Miracle Year” - unfortunately, the Tourism Authority of Thailand did not ask me before they splashed out on ads on the British telly, so I’m only guessing here, my Petal. It might be the fact that nobody has been run over on the pedestrian crossings this week (the ones with traffic lights to be ignored), or it might have been that there were no police checks on the highway last Wednesday, or even that all the taxi motorcycles had registration and insurance.

Dear Hillary,
I wonder if you could advise me what documents I need to take a Thai registered vehicle from Thailand to Singapore and from where would I obtain them. Similarly, what body and where, issues an International Driving license against a Thai driving license.
Roger

Dear Roger,
Are you pulling my leg, Petal? (My legs are still quite nice and shapely, actually.) This column is for the lovelorn, not the car registration office. I did ask around the office for you and they said contact the Royal Automobile Association of Thailand in Bangkok.