briley

It is always a problem dealing with a country with and an apparent infinite number of names:

England

UK

Britain

Great Britain

not counting

Wales

Scotland

Northern Ireland

But the correct name is

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

So if you put that on your parcel (space permitting) there should be no complaints!

I always put UK, think your PO is being awkward.

Simple question,

When you renew a retirement visa does it run for 12 months from the date it was due to expire or the date you renew it?

ie - if your visa has to be renewed on the 1st Feb so you go in on the 10th January to renew it. Is the next renewal date the 10th Jan or the 1st Feb?

Thanks, I don't want to get renewal creep!

Is this assertion true?

AFAIK UK airport tax is £25 per passenger (international) and LHR charges the airline, think it is about £12 per passenger - this may be for both departing and arriving passengers. LGW is cheaper. But you also pay airport tax en route. The airline pays tax to land and take off from BKK and at all airports that you stop at, so flights via Qatar cost different to flight via Dubai as they have different taxes - and don't forget you might have 4 landings/ take offs in Qatar on the outward and return flight so pay 4 lots of tax.

The tax situation is highly complex and highly variable - just look at, say, www.lastminute.com and see how the tax vaires on a flight LHR to BKK - on my last look from £35 to £113, all for a final airline fare of around £450-£500 - ie up to over 20% of the fare.

Hospitals are not good places - lots of people die there.

But seriously, medicine is an art form not a science so diagnosing is all too often a matter of luck - both on your part and the doctors.

Prescribing should be more accurate, but anyone, anywhere, who does not read the leaflet that comes with all medicines is asking for trouble.

The best advice came from my father who said go away, if it is still bad in 24 hours I'll look at it. Normally it was better in 24 hours (or I'd forgotten about the problem!)

Interesting - I did have the same problem that proxy4free was blocked, and asked TOT about it. They denied it was blocked and it started working again.

Or you can google for the site and look at the cache version!

Sounds like Nok,

However I agree with Tywais that it was much noisier and longer lasting than normal, but that might just be because one is more sensitive to sound in the middle of the night.

Roll on the 5th!

Thanks

Has this anything to do with the Sony copy protection debacle? Is so the sony web site has some information, as has Microsoft, on how to remove it.

I got offered windows media player 10 (refused it) plus a number of hardware updates that loaded no problems.

I did wonder, if you do a check to see if you have genuine windows does that raise a flag that causes problems later even if you disable windows genuine advantage?

Early this morning (Friday 30th) a very noisy plane landed or took off at about 2.30am - not sure which as I was a little sleepy.

This is the second flight at about the same time this week.

Anyone awake enough to say who, what or why there seem to be night flights from Chiang Mai? (And where they are going to/coming from?)

Thanks Guardian, works a treat, except

You must first have updated install shield or whatever it is called. Run windows update and agree to what it asks then you have to restart computer. Next try and update and it asks to check you have genuine windows.

Now when you follow guardian's advice you will find the windows genuine advantage on the list, but only using guardian's method and not using IE - Tools - manage add ons.

I can't find information on 009 for internatinal calls - any enlightenment?

i do not recommend this because you are putting yourself at the mercy of a third party which may modify the windows update or include virus and other spyware at their freewill. Use internet explorer its the best!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

62nds web site gives you the actual link to the Microsoft update file. Very nice when you want to download the file and use it to update a number of machines that are not net connected or store the updates for a re-install.

Admittedly you can't use IE but every cloud has a silver lining (mind, looking out of the Chiang Mai window today I'm not so sure ....................)

Maejo Man - I posted as there seems to be some dispute on this, especially the medical. Last Tuesday they had printed paper saying you had to have medical and the girl said I had to have medical (I went without one) for renewal. She also said the law had changed in October?

You could easily be correct about photocopy of old licence. The expired bit seems to be important for your first 5 year licence as if the 1 year licence hasn't expired you can't get a 5 year licence since you have to have had a licence for 1 full year - Makes sense????

As an extra when does your expire? Ours (mine and my wifes) expire in 5 years and a bit, the bit being from now until our next birthday. Seems odd.

Having just renewed my license I find a few changes from last year - all for the better So a simple (??) update.

Driving license place has a list in English of requirements and you go to counter 21 upstairs for a very good English speaker to do everything (except sign the form) for you.

You need:

Residence certificate from Embassy (expensive), Consulate (ditto), Immigration office (see below note 3), Work Permit with Chiang Mai Address or Residence Book

Copy of passport pages: Non-immigrant visa extensions, Passport photo page and last entry stamp (and the passport of course!)

Medical certificate (within 1 month) for driver's license - some people say you do not need this but I did, the list says you do, a friend of mine did - so take your choice!)

2 photos 1 inch by 1 inch taken within 6 months.

Old EXPIRED licence and photocopy - has to expire to be renewed!

505 baht for a car, 255 baht for a bike paid to the nice lady PLUS 10 baht a licence to be plastified (paid as you get the licence). Add 50 Baht per licence if also a change of address.

Notes:

1. Photos and photocopies are now over the other side of Hang Dong road (allow an hour to cross) and costly - 90 bhat for 4 photos and 2 baht a sheet photocopy. The photo's from the pretty booths all over town are acceptable, 40 baht for an A5 sheet with 16 photo's.

2 If you go for both bike and car license you need two sets of papers, but a photocopy of originals (residence and medical) are OK for the second license.

3 The letter of guarantee of residence from immigration is now free , you need:

2 colour photo's, it says 1.5inch by 2inch but around that size is OK

Passport and copies of Picture page, most recent entry, arrival/departure card, original non-imm visa and visa extension page.

As proof of address your rental contract or ownership documents of the house (photocopy that big thing but have it reduced to A4 size!)

Either TM47 (90 day reporting certificate) or TM28 (notification of place of residence) but if you have neither as you haven't yet needed to do either then this is ignored.

4 Don't forget to sign all photocopies.

Allow an hour in immigration and about the same at Licensing.

And US$5 for Burma - can get for 250 Baht at the border or cheaper at the bank before you go.

What is wrong with File sharing?

It is the fact that too many people associate file share with sharing copyrite material the makes things like Bit Torrent get a bad name. As a programmer I often file share and use bit torrent as an efficient means of legally distributing programs and other files.

Don't worry I do understand the change but do get annoyed that something is banned because it "can" be used for illegal purposes.

As a curiosity an expired UK passport is always valid for entry to and leaving from the UK.

Virtual dub will not edit AC3 files. But thanks!

VideoReDo is working excellently - and it is a 30 day free trial.

MarkUK - the OP did state he would be in the UK next year so the air fare does not need to come into the equation

- when is Thai visa going to add a speel cheker?

The OP will of course know that:

1 UK passports are cheaper in the UK (no consulate fee)

2 Prices go up, quite a lot, is it in Januaray?

3 If you have time left on your old passport it can be transfered to your new passport, up to 9 months, ie your new passport runs for 10 yrs and 9 months.

Nice list, couple there I hadn't tried.

Having spent all day on the net I found VideoReDo Plus - does just what I want. Was initially detered by reports that it would not do AC3 but that has been proved wrong and it has a 15 day free trial with all facilities - just enough for the current job.

I've got a number of MPEG2 files with AC3 (Dolby) audio that I want to cut up into a number of small pieces.

I do NOT want to re-compress them, just cut them up - this is partially to save time (hours!) but also to stop any quality loss.

Virtual Dub, a program I normally use, can't cut up if you have AC3 audio Shame as it splits file very fast and efficiently if not dolby sound - ie in minutes.

Anyone know any software that can do the job. Google has proved not to be my friend, nor Tocows etc.

The userid for a goldcyber (1 meg?) connection is <phonenumber>@goldcyber

for the supercyber people it is <phonenumber>@supercyber (256 kbs connections)

What's the middle one, silver cyber?

Ah - suppose the point is the slip I signed said I was withdrawing 55,000 Baht.

If I had asked for GBP750 then probably they would have gone

750 * 72 (exchange rate) and ask their little machine for 54,000 baht.

There seems to be a lot of interest so I'll give you my full details.

On 10 Nov I went to Bangkok bank and had 55,000 baht credited to my savings account with FTT in the code column. No fees, no 100 baht, nothing. My Nationwide account was debited with GBP767.39p. No other debits. Thats 71.671Baht to 1GBP.

Went outside to the ATM took 5000 baht in crisp notes and got debited GBP69.88 from my Nationwide acount - 71.551 to 1GBP

Using Bangkok banks historic rates page the rates for TT buying (they buy, I sell) were

10 Nov 71.55750 baht=1GBP (update 2, I did it late in the day)

11 Nov 71.33500 baht=1GBP

I let you figure this out, I got better than the Bangkok bank rate.

I do not know if Bangkok bank ask nationwide for 55,000 baht or the pounds, but the rate I got was not the rate the cashier quoted. I think they ask for 55,000 so you get the Nationwide rate (or visa rate or what) but that opens a whole new topic.

Suspect Nationwide will stick with their policy as it gives them a lot of good publicity for little cost, we are the exception not the rule!