JohnC

i would suggest a medical check up in case there is an underlying cause, if he gets the all clear then at least he will have peace of mind.

Got a postcard from Ireland last week that took four days, normally anything I send takes between four and seven days, coming here from UK averages four days. Always get anything important sent registered.

When you renew your car tax (compulsory) you will also be asked for the tear of slip from your insurers which show you have at the minimum the Government Insurance this is not optional it is law. I cant believe anyone would drive here without insurance (except the locals of course) If you have an accident it will be your fault and you will have to pay!

Interesting, in Pattaya the consul ( British) just provides a letter confirming the amount in sterling it's the immigration officer that does the conversion and I am not sure what rate they use. One year I noticed it was 83 baht to the £ yes 83! do not know where that came from, this year it was the low 60s. The plus side (for me anyway) is that they show the gross income and not the net which makes a difference if you are paying tax in your home country.

Yes I won a free draw at an expats club which was a 500baht voucher for this place, same experience, food was awful and I will never returen, if I am unlucky enough to win this prize again I will give it to someone I dont like :D

Does this mean his holiness the Pope is stranded in France?

my initial reaction is why has he gone down this path? what triggered it of? new school? is he being bullied? can he not cope with the work maybe dyxlesic? hearing problem? Many things affect young people when they reach adolescence I note from your post their is no male influence in his family so he may just be confused about how his body is developing. A friendly male adult needs to try and get him alone and justy chat, mainly listen and see what comes out, a chat with the school is also top of the list to try and identify problems there. I could go on but thats enough to start with.

I have a samsung d900 and just used the samsung studio to connect to dtac (*99#) i dont have a package as I only use dtac as a fall back therefore nothing needed activated, it works fine.

Take it out of word and put it into excel with a simple + - formula

You don't say what programme you are using therefore I cannot download your balance sheet, however, your balance should show income on one side (bank loan etc) and ALL outgoings on the other. A loan of 5mill would attract interest charges and presumably have a set repayment rate each month and it is this repayment rate grossed up for twelve months that should appear on the outgoings. A simple excel sheet would do this for you.

My Non/Imm 'O' visa with RTX expires on 19th April 2009 and my passport in August 2010, so it's better for me to get a new passport early in 2009.

??? why? your passport will be valid for 16 months when you renew your extension so not a problem, what you will have to do is renew your passport in early 2010 ready for your next rtx in April 2010 . Plus i believe that there is a maximum they will carry forward from old passport I believe its 10 months but not certain so worth checking.

What is not publicised is that people from P.A.D. are actively recruiting for people to join the demonstration by offering 1000 baht a day.

Not so!!!!

For example, I have just received the renewal of my daughter's British Passport (issued in Bangkok) and the validity date is two days after I submitted the application. The original passport expiry date is October 18th, 2008. So the period between validation of the new passport and the expiry of the old has been lost. Passports are not post-dated.

My retirement extension was due to expire in April last year and my Passport the following January, the embassy advised i would not get a twelve month extension with only 10 months left on my passport so i renewed it, on receipt I noted that my new passport is valid for 10 years and 10 months so yes they do carry forward the unused months on an old passport which is not the same as saying it is post dated ! So my new passport now says on the main page : Date of Issue 18Apr 2007 Date of Expiry 18Jan 2018 which on my calender is 10 years and nine months.

Information from the British Embassy is that it is very expensive to repatriate a body (around 200,000 baht) The best format would be a cremation at a temple preceded by a simple service by a Pastor/Priest of the religion of choice then after cremation the ashes could be shipped to UK for interment. I was told by a local pastor that the normal donation to a temple for cremation is 5000 baht.

there are many wrought iron workers around, a number of houses in my village have had decorative scroll security grills fitted, best on the inside so they cannot be removed which I have seen happen.

It would be more useful if people waited until the full and true story comes out instead of jumping on the blame bandwagon, I made one call to clarify what had happened and it appears that the guy was snorkling not diving and had a heart attack not the bends. two first aiders (staff) administered cpr but it was no good. They are awaiting a full report from the hospital & police.

Yes there is a scholls dealer in the outlet mall nest to Tesco south, there is also a hush puppies dealer and a Doc Martens

Having brought up 5 kids of my own I know that when it comes to birthdays they know what they want, its down to peer pressure or "face" in thailand. The op is to be applauded for supporting this young lady all these years. At the Mercy Centre we have been trying to get 100 sponsors at 1000 baht per month for over a year now and have fell far short of this target. I would suggest that if anyone wants to help children in Thailand then 1000 baht is a small amount to give and I know Father Mike at pattaya orphanage and Pastor Fred at mercy would appreciate any support given. I hope your young lady has a great birthday and a bright future these children do not ask to be abandoned or to be orphans so any help given has to be for the better.

Did my 90 day reporting as normal in Jomtien today and went armed with various documents such as copy of UBC bill, copy of driving licence, copy of blue company book plus map showing village. I did this as I wanted to get a diffinitive answer to what was actually required. I was No. 64 and the lady was dealing with No. 50 so I stood near her desk to find out what everyone was being told, without exception they were all told "next time bring copy address". My turn gave her the usual form and passport then offered copy of my Thai driving Licence, she asked me to sign this copy and that was it, no other documents I asked, no this OK and same same next time which I take to mean I need to take a copy of my driving licence with me again. Now I have an old paper style licence and understand the new one does not show address so that may be where people are asked for different documents, also it is an offence not to report change of address to the driving licence centre as it is in my home country (UK) !

So all in all a quick in and out as it has always been with only one small addition.

have used them personally and have had many clients use their services over the last 10 years. We have never had any issue with them at all. They are slightly more expensive than many of the Pattaya lawyers but I think for peace of mind they are great value for money. I always like it when a prospective purchaser or seller is using them as I know the real estate transaction will be headache free...

David

I used them three years ago for company purchase and found them very efficient, they sent the agents away with things that they said were unacceptable to me (their client) I was very happy with the service and yes it cost me 20,000 baht as opposed to the 5000 for the estate agents to do the transfer etc but as A.C.E.S. uncovered a number of irregularities I felt it was money well spent as I have peace of mind. I have since changed to another company as A.C.E.S. audit fees were extremely high and my new lawyer checked out my company transfer etc and said everything was in order no problem. If you want an alternative quote pm and I will pass on details of my current lawyer who is also very good. In answer to your question yes, a very good company and highly recommended.

Did you examine the receipt from Bangkok Bank? There is a charge for all SWIFT incoming transfers in the range of 200-500 baht. That receipt will also show the amount remitted and I suspect it will be less than sent as the intermediate bank will have deducted there charge from it. If you do not check the receipt you may just assume an exchange rate hit

I did not do a swift transfer therefore there was no charges, in fact when i got my next N/w statement I had been debited with £992 as by they allowed a higher exchange rate, the Bangkok Bank just gave me a slip (like a credit card receipt) for I think it was 65000 baht which at the time was £1000 according to their exchange rate, no charges. I must emphasise this is a debit againts the visa card not a swift transfer which is something completely different. i was also told by Nationwide that to do a swift transfer I had to be present in a branch! Abbey on the other hand allow you to fax them the swift form along with copy of you passport and uk driving licence and they will authorise the transfer for the usual £20. I no longer use swift transfers as my Nationwide Flexi Account comes with a visa card so its either atm with its £300 a day limit or the debit as described as above.

before retiring here I did many swift transfers from my Nationwide Felxi A/C to my Bangkok A/C and was never charged by Bangkok Bank but did pay the £20 swift transfer fee, however now I live here I just take my flexi card into BB and ask for £xxx to be debited and its done, they tell me the exhange rate they will give me and there are no charges either end. I have drawn a £1000 using this method with no charges and no limit as it is a debit card, does not work at the atm though you have to do it oevr the counter.

If you cannot go in person to the embassy contact your local British Consul, as you do not say where you are living unable to point you in the right direction.

As i mentioned on another thread, i tried once, had my request refused and haven,t had the bottle to try it again out of fear of losing my card.

I got caught out like this a couple of months ago after years with no problem and couldnt work out what I did wrong, then it came to me! the exchange rate had dropped so as I was asking for more than the daily limit I was refused! Once I reduced the amount asked for to £300 in baht then everything was back to normal. Incidently I have never been charged for using my Nationwide Card here plus the exchange rate is very good and no fees. I tend to draw my monthly "alowance" out over a number of days and deposit it in my Bangkok Bank for use during the month. I only use the lcoal bangkok Bank branches and again never get charged any fees, the plus side to this is I have a clear trail on my passbook of depositing and withdrawing money and every year when I renew my retirement extension they take copies of the previous four or five pages. The fact that i have deposited cash with no evidence of where it came from has never been questioned! although I could produce the atm slips from my N/W acc if asked.

Yes no problem just inform the insurance company of change of owner, I did this two years ago when I sold my car as the new car had free insurance I just signed to confirm sale to new owner.