Oxx

Not quite. The Thai Surname Act was in 1913 under King Rama VI. It applied to everyone - not just Thai-Chinese. Thai-Chinese surnames are often quite literal translations of their original Chinese names. The presence of Indic elements is simply because they used more formal language which (in the case of Thailand) is often derived from Pali and Sanskrit. Pali happens to be the language of Theravada Buddhism, so nothing to do with Hinduism.

Well, it's pretty much guaranteed that it's going to be imported. AFAIK, the only sheep farms in Thailand are small scale tourist attractions. And since it's imported from far away, it pretty much needs to be frozen and is bound to be expensive. I buy it from Makro. It's significantly cheaper than the likes of Villa and TOPS. If you have a Muslim market near you, that might be worth checking out, too. (Most Thai people don't eat lamb, but many Mohammedans here do.)

Why would Covid insurance cover it if you don't have Covid? Very few policies would cover you if you didn't have the disease.

They are not "hajjis pilgrims". The hajj this year was back in July. What they have almost certainly done is Umrah (also known as "Lesser Pilgrimage"). The religious bits in Mecca only take a few hours, unlike the hajj which involves six days of wearing a sheet, not bathing and not wearing scent. (The stench, apparently, is overwhelming after a couple of days.)

I know of only one IFA that will deal with non-residents of moderate wealth (less than a few million), and that's https://www.sovereigngroup.com/ However, I think you're going to have to start managing everything yourself. You're also probably going to have to start lying. Starting with your "regular" investments, if the account is in your name, then you can carry on as normal, with your managing the account. You won't be able to open a UK brokerage account to transfer them to unless when you open the account you lie about your residence status and give a UK address. (They're most unlikely to check.) You may then be able to transfer some of the investments in specie (i.e. without having to sell them). Others you may need to sell and transfer as cash. If your investments are over the IHT limit (GBP 325,000) you should probably take your money offshore. It's pretty straightforward to open an account with brokers used to dealing with expats such as Swissquote, Interactive Brokers, Saxo, &c.. Your range of investment options, however, will be much more limited than with a UK broker (probably no funds, just shares, ETFs, Investment Trusts). With the pensions, you've got more of a problem. Perhaps you could go down the lying route and open a SIPP? Do check on any requirement to have a meeting with an IFA before making the transfer, though. With the trusts, could you change trustees to ones with UK-residence so that advice could still be taken from your current IFA. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that if the IFA is your friend he can't lay out the available options, acting as a friend informally, not an IFA.

Should this go ahead, Thailand will receive information from home countries for people tax resident here. (The agreements are reciprocal.) This would make it much easier for them to identify pension income and tax it.

They are already sharing with the USA for American citizens under FATCA.

Four Seasons Restaurant, a London Chinese restaurant, has a few branches around Bangkok serving British-style Chinese food. The food is very good if you like that sort of thing (which I do). I go to the branches at Mega Bangna and Central Festival Eastville. I understand there are also branches at Siam Paragon and Centralplaza Grand Rama 9, and possibly elsewhere. The original restaurant in London became very popular with Thai tourists. It's particularly famed for its roast duck (not Peking duck or crispy aromatic duck).

Not really. Cute doggies really don't drink that much. Just make sure it's filled full enough.

Why can't you fill it up properly so the cute doggies can get a drink? They clearly want to.

Trust the Daily Mail to use an inaccurate, sensationalist headline over a factually accurate one. The headline begins (their caps.) "Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence" However, the body of the article states "Officials stress two doses should still offer high protection against severe illness". That's not "NO PROTECTION". Haven't been able to track down the original UKHSA publication.

I've used this lot before https://www.pathlab.co.th/ No complaints. Has several branches across Bangkok.

Why does it take so ridiculously long to load? Over 30 seconds on my PC with a fast broadband connection. To answer partially my own question: (1) It makes a ridiculous 55 requests to the server before it can display anything other than the annoying spinning thing. (2) It loads an enormous total of 3.9 MB. (3) The largest file is a photograph of a street scene at 575 kB. You can see it at http://entrythailand.go.th/logistic/images/counter-bg.jpg (4) The next three largest files are also images, at 541 kB, 416 kB & 295 kB. Totally unnecessarily enormous. (5) CSS totals 577 kB. In short, it seems the site was developed by inexperienced or incompetent programmers, and was probably only ever tested on a local network, so the performance might have appeared OK to them. Shockingly bad.

If money's no object, then consider Thailand Elite. They have a special option for family members of a main member. It will cut down on the Immigration department hassle significantly. https://www.thailandelite.com/at-your-service/card/elite-family-premium-membership

I thought the air pollution in Chiang Mai was bad enough already, without having the black smoke belching buses of Bangkok.

Not necessarly if you haven't had moderna before. The authorities both in the US and UK are recommending the half dose. Apparently the Moderna jab contains significantly more mRNA than Pfizer, so a full dose as a booster is more likely to produce side effects.

My thoughts: (1) The lights are only on for one hour. (2) Only a few central temples are lit up, plus one off the island. (3) If you don't have your own transport, you have to pay over the odds for a tuk-tuk, or take what I consider to be an exploitative ride on a samlor. (I pity the poor cyclist who has to cart two grossly obese tourists around.) (4) Apart from very occasionally (e.g. Loi Krathong at Wat Chai Watthanaram), the temples under the Fine Arts Department aren't open after sunset. The powers-that-be could do much more to make Ayutthaya at night a more attractive tourist attraction.

You are covered by the SSS. Its benefits are slightly better than UC (though not quite as good as CSMBS, which is the civil servants' scheme).

It's simply another name for "Universal Coverage", or as it's colloquially known, the "30 baht scheme". In short, all Thai citizens living here are covered.

I presume that the OP isn't some sad, pathetic individual who has zero friends and relations in the UK prepared to let them use their address.

You can't. However, my recommendation of a backup bank account was in response to the OP who is still in the UK.

So, this system doesn't cover Bangkok, and the Bangkok immigration website (bangkokimmigration.com) where for a few weeks last year one could book an appointment is unavailable. Is there any way to book for Chaengwattana?

But UK bank accounts are liable to be closed arbitrarily here in Thailand as this 6-month-old thread shows:- Which is precisely why I recommend having a second account as a backup. Surely not too difficult a concept to grasp.

Surely there is more chance of rehabilitation in two years than in one.

Whilst it's true that IBKR was fined, and not only by FINRA, US$38 million for weak money laundering controls, I personally have not had any problems with them, and my monthly cash transfers out go ahead without a hitch. https://www.investmentnews.com/interactive-brokers-finra-money-laundering-195922