Good on the local boys, I'm sure their need was greater than the scarecrows'.

Asked my landlady a few days ago how best to safely dispose of old rechargeable batteries including a laptop battery. She told me just to dump them in the garbage bin. When I told her of the dangers associated with that she told me not to worry because the garbage is taken a long way from here before being burnt. Oh well....that's alright then.

During this pandemic my wife & I have been supporting a few families in a jungle village a few km from the house as many lost their jobs. Wife visits every couple of weeks with bags of food and stays for a few days. On my morning walks to the market while she is away friends of her ask where she is, so fed up explaining each time I just say she is spending the week with her boyfriend, well someone believed me and started the village rumour machine. Missus not happy so I am not allowed to say that any more. She then asked me what would I do if she did have a boyfriend there, I replied that I would kick her out of the house and give her pocket money to her boyfriend to keep her. It was not what I said but how quickly I replied that caused her to have a sense of humour failure. The dog's blanket is not that uncomfortable really.

I was going to start a thread 'In the Dog House' but I fear I would be the only contributor.

If you meant literally, perhaps. Otherwise, no.

In our Barangay they have been giving P3,000 to those who have been fully vaccinated, wife got hers so I asked the barangay captain where mine was, he said I was too rich, I did explain that I was married to his cousin and she had ensured that I was not rich. Much laughter but no P3,000.

An unnecessarily large inducement. Someone desperately wants to be re-elected. People who read about them making you infertile etc may think there must really be something in those claims, as they may see offering such a large amount as the only way people can be persuaded to get vaccinated.

We were out driving on the local six lane super highway a couple of days ago. As is normal all of the slow traffic was driving in the left lane being undertaken by the faster traffic and as is the norm totally ignoring the signs every couple of kilometres saying slow vehicles are to keep to the right, when we suddenly came across a student driver, you guessed it, driving slowly in the left lane. So what chance do we stand if the driving instructors don't even know the rules of the road.
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The instructor may well know, but when the vast majority of people do something like that in any area of life doing the right thing may end up with the individual being exposed to criticism, abuse or even danger. In this case to a student driver from fast moving vehicles flashing their lights and honking to get past.

Not really an inducement, as the seniors, who this was mainly aimed at, all had their injections months ago. I think it was to kick start the local economy after a bad year and the politician who suggested it is not from round here so the locals can not vote for him anyway.

when in Rome.........

Having served in Italy for 3 years and drove every day...I agree entirely. The Philippines is a piece of cake compared to the Italians who have GP mentality....

So when there you drove as the Italians?

Having only spent a week in Rome yes they drive fast but they appeared far more disciplined than here in the Philippines. So what you are all saying is that it's ok to instruct students badly rather than the correct way to drive. If they start off knowing the correct way to drive then it's at least up to them if they then go on to drive like a bunch of dickheads rather than not know the difference.

Maybe the instructor said to the student something like "if we move to the next undertaking lane we will be driving fast, you won't be comfortable with that (and nor will I !). We won't go to the real far right slow lane, trucks etc there..so we'll stay here. This slow moving traffic in the overtaking lane is not right though.

Actually G my post was about "when in Rome". So, for example, I've been driving here for 25 years. It's only recently that I've done one or two Filipino U turns ie in traffic, not look for a place to do one.

I don't think anyone can drive like the Italians.... but every time I jumped into my car the BBC F1 signature tune came into my head.