Thanks Lee. Sunny's a real sweetheart and prayed at the pagoda this morning to ask her granddad to help uncle Martin get better after his fall down the mountainside(!) on Sunday's run with the Vung Tau Hash House Harriers. I'm hoping granddad will also use his heavenly influence to stop my nose dripping constantly now the VN rainy season has kicked into top gear - with temperatures down below 30C for the first time this year! I can only shudder when thinking about heading downunder next week in Oz midwinter! We'll hopefully catch up in Adelaide (Hilton, 30/6-4/7) but you might need x-ray vision to recognise us through all the gloves, beanies, scarves and overcoats - brrrrrrr! 

I see the warning in red at the top (interesting in itself - never seen it before), but I'm not so much replying to previous posts on this topic as reinstating it on page 1 - for no other reason than to see if/how it works, ie I'm taking advantage of the "experimental" phase we're currently going through!

That sounds like the infamous Ocker, Pam - insulting people was his role in life, so don't take it personally! I read an article about the 10 pound poms program and it seemed to focus on the multinational Aussies feeling that the poms were given an unfair advantage over migrants from other nations. The only bit that annoys me in retrospect is that I was so keen to get downunder for the good weather and skydiving that I sold my parachute and hopped on the first boat I could find, the SS Britannis - it cost me 237 quid from memory, and I never knew about the 10 quid program until I actually arrived in Australia. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Thanks Lee - and have to say it would be nice if it did get lost amongst so many other threads being started because that would indicate a return to normal after all the cc (covid cancellations) of the past few years! Fingers crossed...

Welcome Geoff - it's been quite a while "between drinks" but great to see the MB operating again as designed! Bit busy at the moment because we've just received the very welcome news that our 10yo niece Sunny has been granted another Oz tourist visa. They had quoted "about 3 months" for application results but ours came in 3 weeks so now it's "hurry up" to sort a million and one things before heading downunder to try and relax in the freezing cold for a month or so (it's roasting hot in VN at the mo', but much prefer to fry than freeze!) - but I'll hopefully remember to circulate an "all stations" email encouraging former regulars to surface again on this MB. Certa Cito - or as one comic captioned an ex Air Boon Choo photo in The Wire: "Certa SEATO"! 

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year 2023 to all ex-208'ers. Fingers crossed for peace, financial stability, no more covid and an end to political bullies and authoritarianism in all its forms!
Cheers
Scouse/MR/Martin, Linh & our niece/ward Sunny

Dunno about everyone else, Ken, but Pam and I worry about Lee and Margot's health situation - he's been off the air for a long time now. One option for resurrecting the MB activity is to acknowledge technological progress and use something that's very, very simple for everyone to access like a facebook group or page. But let's see if Lee can return and continue to rebuild the GB before we start talking about changing the MB.
I'm no expert, but seems to me that life has moved on for most people and many of the former MB users (including myself) are now either on facebook or away from social media altogether. I used to despise facebook until I started using it during the Covid lockdowns and realised it's all about the admins and moderators keeping a close eye on things to prevent the nutters out there from taking over our minds (a bit like left and right-wing politics!). 

Dunno how many Neighbours fans are on this MB (apart from Pam!), but this link answers the question about Kylie and Jason having such small speaking parts in the recently screened final episode: https://au.yahoo.com/lifestyle/truth-behind-baffling-neighbours-moment-revealed-232746870.html - I'm not sure, but the link didn't turn blue with underline, so you might have to copy and paste it into your browser...