sandyf

You are wrong. Consular services was the first role of the UK embassy, trade and diplomacy came later. The fact that the government has reduced the significance of consular services does not take away the importance of the role and people like you only contribute towards the demise.

How long ago? I got caught up in the passport fiasco in 2014 and had to turn to the embassy for help. They responded promptly and saved the day, but that was before the Consular Section was reduced in size.

The role of the UK Embassy Consular Section is to assist UK nationals in that particular country. "The Consular Service is the part of the UK Government to which British nationals turn when they encounter serious problems overseas: from lost passports to kidnapping, detention or death. The Consular Service also has a role in the event of a crisis abroad and may arrange evacuation “in extreme and rare circumstances” for British nationals." https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0075/#:~:text=The Consular Service is the,to kidnapping%2C detention or death.

That is a rubbish statement. The term "whiskey" should be used if produced in a column still, the term "whisky" should only be used if produced in a pot still in Scotland. Many countries make whiskey in column stills, including Scotland.

In 2018 the more experienced consular staff were transferred to India when they dispensed with visa processing at the embassy. From what I heard in the early days the majority of the remaining consular staff were Thai employees, not sure if that still the case.

The DWP use an intermediary bank to make the pension payments which are then done via an account with the BOT. The intermediary bank buys THB in bulk from the BOT which is then paid out to local accounts via Bahtnet. The bulk buying means you get a favourable rate on your pension.

When I got my card the procedure was to make a cash withdrawal at an ATM before the card could be used for anything else. Bit surprised they changed from that.

I think you would struggle to find them now. It is 15 years since I had my suspended ceiling done and they used sheet to do it, think it is 6mm. May well be cement board.

Yes, "easier" is a bit of an abstract. As an amateur I never had a great deal of success with plasterboard always ended up with ragged edges. i have found the cement board a lot more forgiving. I cut it with an angle grinder and ceramic disc. Normal hacksaw would be difficult but a jigsaw type with the round blade like a needle file may work. Dust is a bit of a problem but with you mentioning rewire, assumed a bit messy anyway. The 4mm could probably be cut by scoring and breaking, bit like a tile. If too thin can easily be bonded together with epoxy putty. Relatively easy to make shapes with the cement board. I am currently making a new cover arrangement for the septic tank just using scrap cement board. In case your wondering, the hole in the middle is for the float spigot to come up through, water level near the proximity switch at the moment.

I have only ever seen plasterboard as 8x4, easier than the metric. May be worth considering cement board, variety of sizes and thickness from various suppliers. I bought some that were 1000 x 600 and I think 4mm, normally used on eaves. Also used the 3m x 150mm x 8mm boards quite a bit. I am sure you would find cement board much easier to work with than plasterboard.

Yes, I have done it as has my friend. I did it on the computer and used the snipping tool to take the photo but my friend did actually hand write it. I only saw him briefly and being computer illiterate he had to get someone to actually complete the online form for him. There are 2 questions, one is looking at income and the the other money in the bank, optional if you answer both or not. With your Thai account that is the obvious one to address.

I assume you are going to do that. Occurred to me after that you may have meant a digital upload done some time ago, if that is the case it needs to within the time frame specified as a digital image carries a date stamp.

Enjoy the fantasy land, while it lasts. "But investors should be paying more attention because the U.S. won’t be able to sit back and let its debt soar to the levels seen in Japan. For one thing, Japan’s net debt is much lower than its gross debt-to-GDP ratio, meaning it holds more foreign assets than it owes to other countries — the exact opposite of the US. This makes it easier for Japan to manage its growing debt pile." https://cointelegraph.com/news/america-debt-out-control-japan-debt-isnt

Indeed. In which civilised society do people stand around and watch 2 opponents beat each other to death? About 80 years since the last major global conflict, lessons may have been learned by some but ignored by those in a position to bully their own agenda.

Regarding statement, I have like the other poster used a downloaded statement from my Thai account and that has been accepted without a problem, bit difficult to get signatures in the UK. I think by "screenshots" they mean copies/photos of the screen which can often be distorted by reflection or incomplete. I have done a great deal of visa applications to various places and found 3 months to be like a benchmark, but up to you. I think the invitation would be required. I knew about it and my wife did it before I left. However I helped a friend in the UK to do his and suggested he get his wife to just write a note with name and address and phone number to say she expected him to arrive in Thailand on such and such a date. She could then photo the note to him and just upload that. She did it in Thai and it was accepted no problem. The guidance says all documents should be in English but they do accept Thai. I have never used wife's Tabian Baan, only ID card and never been asked about the accommodation. I have never supplied flight booking, only flight No going into Bangkok but there has been reports of people being asked so probably prudent to have it available. I have only used the passport page as proof of residence and not been a problem. You need to upload something for each question, unless they have changed it recently there are 2 financial questions, Nos 4 and 10. I think 10 was the statement so for Q4 you can just make a note along the lines of referring to Q10, take a photo and upload it. Good luck.

You have lost the plot completely, the whole point is about Ukraine, not Russia. Ukraine used to be part of the USSR and when that came apart it wanted to be independent and why shouldn't it, doesn't any country have the right to independence without being invaded. There are 63 countries that have gained independence from the UK and as far as I can remember the only one that involved a war was Ireland. It seems that those with the tightest apron strings have the greatest difficulty in getting them cut. This is when international assistance should come into play before it gets out of hand.

There are 5 IMF Reserve Currencies that make up the SDR - USD, GBP, EUR, JPY and the Chinese RMB. In the 60s the Pound Sterling was the major currency but superseded by the USD. Just because the USD may be the most common doesn't make the only reserve currency. Countries will spread the load so to speak and are certainly open to movement based on political situations. At this point in time, with military unrest and trade wars, JPY certainly stands out from the others.

Get off the high horse. Your comment "They don't want to fight, I can't recall the last time Europe started a war." was deliberately derogatory. Since WW2 European policy has been to try and avoid war, unlike the US that will create confict at the drop of a hat in places they have no right to be. The greatest threat there is to world order. Trump has no interest in peace, anywhere, he justs wants the the country of his choosing to surrender.

The point in question is Ukranian independence. The quality of European politicians has no bearing on the actions taken by the USA. It may come as a surprise but history does have some bearing on Ukraine's right to independence. If the US population do not believe in a country's right to independence, they should say so rather than be hypocritical about it, it is not a pick and choose scenario. BTW. The UK are tarred with the same brush, the government threw their weight behind the Kosovo UDI and then kicked Scotland in the teeth. Like every other country, the Ukraine case should be heard by the ICJ. Russia is interfering with due process and not only getting away with it, supported by the US. I am really glad my time is nearly up, a very dark future ahead.

It has its roots in Ireland but there seems to be a trading arrangement in the US, Kerrygold USA. I have bought some at Siamburi but it was a one off, their products are a bit hirt and miss. What i bought had a UK barcode.

You need to remind me, when did Europe become a country?

I haven't tried to change anything, the topic is about Ukraine independence. For some reason you seem to think that by making derogatory comments about Europe will detract from the US failings on the issue, both current and historical. Fairly obvious from the threads on the forum, historical actions are irrelevant to many.

Delusional modern day thinking is that everything can happen overnight, Trump claimed he would end the war in 24 hours. The facts of life are that empire creation, or rebuilding, is a long term plan, the US started in the 1700s.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with resources, it is all about independence from the Soviet state. Gorbachev tried to reform Russia but it didn't go the way he envisaged and he was removed from power, the hard liners never went away and now Putin is trying to recover what he can of the Soviet Union. This is why Russia is so against any previous Soviet territory becoming part of NATO. Ironic that the US took credit for the breakup of the USSR but now want to help Russia. "By the time of the 1985 rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, the country was in a situation of severe stagnation, with deep economic and political problems which sorely needed to be addressed and overcome. Recognizing this, Gorbachev introduced a two-tiered policy of reform. On one level, he initiated a policy of glasnost, or freedom of speech. On the other level, he began a program of economic reform known as perestroika, or rebuilding. What Gorbachev did not realize was that by giving people complete freedom of expression, he was unwittingly unleashing emotions and political feelings that had been pent up for decades, and which proved to be extremely powerful when brought out into the open. Moreover, his policy of economic reform did not have the immediate results he had hoped for and had publicly predicted. The Soviet people consequently used their newly allotted freedom of speech to criticize Gorbachev for his failure to improve the economy. The disintegration of the Soviet Union began on the peripheries, in the non-Russian areas. The first region to produce mass, organized dissent was the Baltic region, where, in 1987, the government of Estonia demanded autonomy. This move was later followed by similar moves in Lithuania and Latvia, the other two Baltic republics. The nationalist movements in the Baltics constituted a strong challenge to Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost. He did not want to crack down too severely on the participants in these movements, yet at the same time, it became increasingly evident that allowing them to run their course would spell disaster for the Soviet Union, which would completely collapse if all of the periphery republics were to demand independence. After the initiative from Estonia, similar movements sprang up all over the former Soviet Union. In the Transcaucasus region (in the South of the Soviet Union), a movement developed inside the Armenian-populated autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabagh, in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Armenian population of this region demanded that they be granted the right to secede and join the Republic of Armenia, with whose population they were ethnically linked. Massive demonstrations were held in Armenia in solidarity with the secessionists in Nagorno-Karabagh. The Gorbachev government refused to allow the population of Nagorno-Karabagh to secede, and the situation developed into a violent territorial dispute, eventually degenerating into an all-out war that continues unabated until the present day. Once this “Pandora’s box” had been opened, nationalist movements emerged in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Byelorussia, and the Central Asian republics. The power of the Central Government was considerably weakened by these movements; they could no longer rely on the cooperation of Government figures in the republics. Finally, the situation came to a head in August of 1991. In a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union, which was floundering under the impact of the political movements which had emerged since the implementation of Gorbachev’s glasnost, a group of “hard-line” Communists organized a coup d’etat." https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/fall-soviet-union-in-pictures-1991/

I didn't see any facts only delusional perception. The real fact is that neither the US or Russia were happy with what Reagan and Gorbachev did, with the old guard looking to go back to the old ways. Trumps interest however probably has more to do with the Leo Wanta story. https://www.amazon.com/Wanta-Black-Swan-White-Hat-ebook/dp/B00ZVH4FCQ