taxexile

That's the logic and numbers.

Import value is then set at 300 GBP by the commerce dept.

but the sensible way is.

1. use the thaivisa search visa to research this subject.

2. hastily abandon idea before starting to dig yourself into a bottomless pit of misery , frustration , expense and bureaucracy from which escape is impossible.

3. live happily ever after.

must be hundreds of empty properties in hua hin , new shophouses , offices etc.

why cant one of the local or foreign developers who are always mouthing off about community involvement and public spiritedness offer immigration a decent , above board rental deal on a local property.

stick immigration in the middle of one of your empty rows of 3 story shophouses and see how quickly your other shophouses get taken by a photocopy shop , a photo booth , a noodle shop , a coffee shop ,

<H1 class=heading>The baby shambles of Alfie Patten and Chantelle Steadman</H1><H2 class="sub-heading padding-top-5 padding-bottom-15">The case of the 13-year-old father is a classic tabloid tale that has much wider implications</H2>Daniel Foggo and Chris Gourlay div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;}When Eddy Powell looks out of his window at night and sees his hedge shaking to the accompanying sound of childish giggles, he knows exactly what it means.

“They are having sex behind it, out in the open, knowing full well I can see them,” he said.

“They do it deliberately. They are making some kind of statement. Sometimes you find the condom in the morning, sometimes you don’t.”

Powell, a 55-year-old former soldier, is not talking about twenty-somethings behaving badly after being turned out of the pubs at closing time.

<H3 class=section-heading>Related Links</H3>

• Alfie Patten: the 13-year-old father
  

• Hope for father who just lost his childhood
  

Those engaging in sexual liaisons behind his shrubbery in Hailsham, East Sussex, are children, many barely into their teens. He knows their ages and he knows their faces: some of them are his neighbours.

“They are so blatant these days, they think it’s a big joke to lift up their skirts and have sex,” said Powell.

Last week the consequences of such adolescent fumblings was laid bare to the nation.

One of the houses in Powell’s road is home to the Patten family. Alfie Patten, a tiny, cherubic-faced 13-year-old boy who looks far younger than his age, was named on Friday as the father of Maisie, who was born four days earlier.

The baby’s mother, Chantelle Steadman, was just 14 when she became pregnant; Alfie was 12.

When their bemused faces were plastered across tabloid newspapers, it prompted an outcry from politicians and social commentators dismayed at the latest example of “broken Britain”.

Although Alfie is not the youngest boy to have fathered a child, the extreme youth of his appearance coupled with his blatant immaturity made the photographs of him next to his new daughter seem all the more incongruous and shocking.

In video footage placed online by The Sun newspaper, Alfie made it clear he did not even understand the question when asked how he would provide for his child financially. “What’s ‘financially’?” he asked, cluelessly.

Chantelle could not hide her scorn at his answer.

The cries of condemnation crossed the political spectrum. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader and now chairman of the Centre for Social Justice think tank, said: “The case exemplifies the breakdown in British society. The problem of family breakdown has sadly become deeply inter-generational.”

Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, said: “It’s not right – it looks so terrible. It has got to be sorted out. I want us to do everything we can as a society to make sure we keep teenage pregnancies down.”

Accomplishing that is no easy task. Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in western Europe, and although the rate has been dropping in recent years, in 2006 a total of 7,826 girls under the age of 16 became pregnant, with 3,148 going on to have their babies.

Linda Blair, child psychologist at Bath University, said: “We’ve moved ahead much faster technologically than morally and we need to slow down. It sounds simple but there isn’t the willpower.

“We have to teach kids more about relationships. It’s a pity we have to do this but in modern Britain but the truth is we just don't live in strong family units any more.”

Alfie’s family would seem to fit the template of a broken home.

Despite the fact that they live in an attractive double-fronted house with a front garden dotted with palms, the household is far from peaceful, according to neighbours.

Two years ago his father Dennis, 45, who works for a vehicle recovery agency, moved out of the home he had shared with his wife Nicola, 43, their three children – Joe, 16, Alfie and Isabella, 11 – and a bull terrier called Winnie.

Both Pattens also have children by other partners; Dennis is a father to 10, one of whom, Jayde, is said to have become a mother at 13.

Since Dennis moved out, neighbours say the family has increasingly become a problem. “At five or six in the morning you hear music blaring out of their house, they are having parties,” said Powell.

“Alfie himself never seemed to go to school. To look at him you would think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth until he starts talking and answering you back.”

Another neighbour, Grace Cameron, 78, said she has had trouble with Alfie throwing bricks in her pond. “I did have a lot of trouble with him, but that was a little while ago. I feel a bit sorry for him though. It’s obviously the way he’s been brought up. I was really shocked to find out he has become a father.”

Another female neighbour said of the Pattens: “I was not surprised knowing that family. Mind you, is he really the father? At 12 years of age, is it really feasible? Has she got pregnant by someone else and then just blamed Alfie?”

That possibility was given some credence by suggestions, aired in the media yesterday, that Alfie may not have been Chantelle’s only sexual partner, which her family denies.

Alfie’s family have apparently considered taking a DNA test to determine Maisie’s paternity, but with the possibility of large amounts of money being offered for all those involved to speak to the tabloid press, this is unlikely to happen soon.

Visually at least, the baby girl’s parents make an unlikely match. Chantelle, who lives in nearby Eastbourne with her mother Penny, 38, father Steven, 43, and five siblings, looks like a fairly typical 15-year-old. Sitting next to Alfie on a bed to pose with Maisie for photographs she dwarfed him.

While her parents are still together, neither works and, according to The Sun, they survive on state benefits. One estimate put their potential hand-outs, including income support, housing benefit, child tax credits and child benefit, at £30,000 a year. Once she turns 16, Chantelle will be eligible for benefits too.

Both sets of parents apparently knew about their children’s relationship and Alfie was allowed to stay at the Steadmans’, where, in a sign of how welcome he was, he kept a spare school uniform.

Yesterday, while the new parents pondered how to couple playing on their PlayStations with feeding and winding a newborn – Chantelle reported that Alfie had been “very helpful” in their first night at home – debate raged about how to address the issues raised by their case.

Duncan Smith espouses a policy, backed by David Cameron, the Tory leader, of “early intervention” to break the cycle of dysfunctional families begetting further misfits.

He said: “We are convinced that it is cheaper and more sensible to tackle problems before they begin, rather than spend ever greater sums on ineffective remedial policies, whether they take the form of more prisons, police, drug rehabilitation or supporting longer and more costly lifetimes on benefits.”

However, David Laws, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for children, schools and families, said: “Where the Tories go off the rails is in thinking that this is a problem with all of society. It’s clearly not the case that all of Britain is broken. That just doesn’t resonate with people.

“Because of their poor backgrounds we have a significant segment brought up in chaotic and unloving situations. Unsurprisingly, they often become chaotic and unloving themselves.”

Others say that it is particular policies rather than parts of society that need to be fixed.

Tony Kerridge, of the sexual health group Marie Stopes International, said sex education, or the lack of it, was to blame for situations such as that of Alfie and Chantelle.

“Who can blame young kids when they get it wrong when sex education is so poor in this country?” he said Both he and Duncan Smith pointed to the sex education model used in schools in Holland, which has one of the world’s lowest birth rates among teenagers.

Their children are taught to respect and value their own bodies, as opposed to the more perfunctory approach in British schools which some critics compare to a “how-to-do-it guide”.

Being nonjudgmental about sex is all well and good, runs the argument, but how will children become aware of the consequences of their actions?

Family campaigners say that such morals must ultimately come from parents, as they provide the real role models that their children follow.

Norman Wells, director of the charity Family and Yuoth Concern, said: “We need to challenge the common perception of sex as a recreational activity and present it rather as an expression of the total self-giving of a husband and wife to each other in marriage.”

Given the many children by different partners they will have seen all around them, Alfie and Chantelle could hardly be expected to break the mould.

The teenagers are still riding the tabloid whirlwind. Both of Maisie’s parents were this weekend negotiating large sums to further spill the stories of their short lives.

Having had a pack of journalists planted outside their house for two days, Nicola Patten was showing the strain.

“I’m not used to this kind of attention,” she said. “I’m very upset about this. I’m very distressed, and Alfie is very upset.”

Dennis Patten’s mother Susan said she was loath to talk about her new granddaughter – because she did not want to “interfere with my son’s business interests”.

Additional reporting: Abul Taher, Kevin Dowling

enterprising and TRUSTWORTHY person(s) .. probably pub owners?

thats a joke , right?

They are looking for a place in Market Village......

if they are short of money then why would they be looking in a place with such high rents ?

hi i am seriously thinking of moving to los for good,well at least untill y money lasts,im no millionaire and ive no pension or any other money from home to fall back on.....

....i have no choice as this country is driving me nuts,,everyday i dream oof living in los,,i like to wake in the morning with the sun on my face etc etc......

i have 70,000 uk pounds to invest

forget the bar , try to get your other brain cell working properly and then go into stand up comedy , you'll make a fortune.

Thong Krueng - on Thonglor

and service is decidedly average

service decidedly lazy there last time i went , about 2 months ago , sadly this is another place that is becoming too popular for its own good.

I will probably give the Longnecks a miss

a wise decision if i may say so.

There are plenty of bottom of the barrel looking farangs

..... and most of them are exactly that , bottom of the barrel ; in mind , in action , in morals , and in appearance.

the thais that heng talks about conduct their lives with an understated quiet dignity that exudes class, depth of character and a life well lived.

some of the foreign rubbish that litter the towns and resorts here are a waste of space, losers to a man, and a perfect example of the level to which western society is rapidly falling to. losers back home and losers here.

out of shape , overweight , lazy , unkempt , ill mannered and disrespectful. this rabble of human flotsam and jetsam should be put on a plane with all the estate agents , pretend lawyers , scamsters and fraudsters and sent back to wherever they came from. thailand would be better off without them.

Kindly nominate a few of your favorites.

well , there are none around the sukhumvit area , if we want to eat in sukhumvit we ususally go to small no name thai shops down the sois or into the emporium , for something more upmarket we go to the bigger hotels for the buffet lunches.

specifically for seafood , we go out on rama 2 just past bang kradi (about 15 minutes once you are over the river) , turn left out towards the coast where there are many large seafood places , most of them on stilts over lagoons , great food but very crowded at weekends.

if you like gawking at people who have been mutilated for the express purpose of attracting gawking tourists , then by all means go.

just be aware that you will be encouraging this barbaric practice , and encouraging the people traffiking these burmese hill tribe people to continue doing so.

there is nothing cultural about this , it is purely a money making operation run by thais that exploits a disadvantaged group for the benefit of gullible tourists.

roll up roll up , come and see the amazing two headed baby , the bearded lady , the playful dwarves , the man with the pointed head and the thai longnecks.

where is your land ?

Isn't this the place the Tuk Tuk and Taxies take tourists to be fleeced?

this is the place where you go of your own free will to be fleeced.

i took some visitors to this restaurant a couple of years ago and found the whole experience a bit demoralising , the business of wheeling a supermarket trolley around choosing the food , the annoyance of lining up and paying for it , and then having to arrange for it to be cooked and then having to pay again , and pay we certainly did , every last item is charged for , even the cold towels.

reminded me of eating at one of the service areas on the M1 in england.

the food was good enough , but certainly no better or worse than could be obtained at any one of a hundred seafood places around town for a third of the price and three times the ambience.

the supermarket experience there is what i found so off putting , supermarket shopping is a horrible experience at the best of times , but to be given a trolley and pointed to a food counter when you walk into a restaurant and then be instructed into the procedures that operate there and at every point along the way be reminded or told of the cost just took all the pleasure out of the dining experience.

large falang presence there , with a helpful and professional staff helping to relieve us of our money. it was a bit like being in a production line cleverly designed to trick tourists and the unwary into thinking they have had a great meal and experience but in reality have been seamlessly relieved of a thick wad of cash by a bunch of very smooth operators.

this was 2 years ago , so i dont know if it has changed there , i certainly wouldnt rush back there to find out , unless someone else was footing the bill , but the whole experience was disappointing.

i couldnt recommend this place to anyone , but the bright lights and imposing facade of this place will attract enough customers without having to rely on repeat business.

The Beckhams bought their three-storey hillside home on the island in 2007 for 4.5 million Euros [201,162,277 Thai Baht], but the full cost of the home after renovations is believed to be closer to 10 million Euros [447,027,282 Thai Baht].

a fool and his money are soon parted .................

The house is also partly environmentally friendly,

doubt very much if a 500 million baht 3 story home on a hillside on a tropical island is going to be environmentally friendly.

“The Beckhams were very keen to keep the mosquitoes out because they can carry disease, as well as being annoying.

i hear that the mosquitoes would like to keep the beckhams out because they also can be annoying

fish lipped freak spotted in chiang mai

hundreds of pathetic retired expats in the smog choked northern thailand city of chiang mai experienced waves of trouser tingling excitement and unexpected dampness yesterday when ageing flap shot queen and one time slapper angelina jolie arrived there on a combined publicity seeking junket and shopping trip for new children to add to her already burgeoning collection of third world toddlers.

web forums were overloaded with fantasy postings from limp dicked lotharios describing what they would like to do with her if only they were 50 years younger or 50 times richer.

one poster, more in touch with reality than most , said "i couldnt give a brad pitt about her"

mabe they where informed?

look at his photo.

he's got shifty eyes.

guilty as charged.

next case please.

but insiders say the police are paid to turn a blind eye

...... or paid to turn a japs eye!

I have gotten phone calls on all locations in the last week, so there must be some thing going on up in HH because this is more action than i have had in 6mos.

...... and just how many of those phone calls do you honestly think will result in sales.

with asking prices of 5 mill to 10 mill a rai for average plots in the bo fai between the railway and the hills i honestly cant see lots of action coming anybodies way.

it

there must not have been much left over for the organizers.

just sloppy seconds.

13 foreign men, seven Thai women and three foreign women.

must have been a big room.

stiff sentences , going down for a long time etc.etc.

Oh please surely in the 21st century people can't take offence at a gay pride event?

It is a party, a celebration of life, tolerance and community. If more people celebrated these values more regularly then perhaps there would be a lot less strife and misery in the world.

Live and let live and the world might become a better place.

if its truly a celebration of community then why this overpowering need to advertise your differences to those of other sexual persuasions.

just get on and enjoy your lives as part of the community as everybody else does and less have lets of this setting yourselves apart as some persecuted minority.

nobody is really interested in your sexual preferences or anybody elses for that matter.

thais generally accept gays , transvestites , transgenders and those of all other sexual preferences , as part of societies , communities and workplaces and have done for a long time without the need or desire to have western style gay pride parades.

perhaps gays should be tolerant of the views of a lot of thais when it comes to sexuality , and that is to live and let live but keep it low key.

Is there anyone in the Hua Hin real estate business that can give us an honest view

seeing the words real estate and honest in the same sentence always makes me laugh.

the falang walled ghettos seem to be suffering badly , most of the half finished bungalow villages that have spread like a pox around the periphery of the town over the past few years look forlorn and empty , and with the economic situation getting worse in europe i expect the tumbleweed look to spread.

with the recent firebombing and then shooting of an owner (who dared to complain about his house and its polluted water supply) making the news i think buyers are becoming very aware of just how careful they have to be before buying a house or bungalow here , and that is before having to deal with the agents and lawyers and ownership requirements.

there are one or two agents here who distance themselves from the rest , and maybe they do offer quality in their service and in the products they sell ,and if so i hope they are successful.

the 30 page argument / discussion between the victim , other owners , developers and agents and the accused that ran on the monsters and critics blog for months until the victim was shot told readers a lot about the kind of people operating in the business here. despicable doesnt even come close to describing the situation here.

a local thai lawyer told me that he refuses to do any property work for foreigners here , in spite of the money to be made from such work. he feels sorry for foreigners buying into the wrong project here and wishes the authorities could do something about it. but , he said , it is all controlled by important people that are too powerful to cross , even powerful falangs he said.

he would not give details and would not discuss it further when i asked more questions. he went all quiet and started to shuffle the papers on his desk.

there are many high end footballer style homes with big for sale or rent notices pinned on the gates , those that have been completed that is. ridiculously priced by greedy owners or developers they will surely remain empty for some time to come.

the falang market seems to be dying on its knees , and about time too. too many developments , too many pointy roofs and too many midget sized swimming pools. enough is enough. hopefully many of the foreign developers will go under and be forced to give up their cocktail parties and their tooth whitening and their self congratulating junkets that are so well reported in the local news sheets. they may have made money for themselves and their thai partners , but they are ruining the town with their awful handiwork and false promises.

just like they have done everywhere else they wash up in thailand. i just wish they would take their money and GO.

thais buyers of course would not be seen dead in any of these developments , unless they happen to be the wives of foreigners.

the middle class thais who want a weekend retreat or second home in hua hin will have more sense than to buy into these poorly set up , poorly managed , disneyland designed ghettos mostly run by foreign sharks in league with local sharks whose only aim is to maximise profits and provide minimal return.

thais know how things work in this country and they stay clear.

they buy condos , usually off plan , and if any foreigner wants to buy safely and securely in hua hin , then buy into a thai condo built by a thai company with a good history that has a majority of thai owners .... and stay away from the foreigners here involved in the business.

i'm sure there are some happy buyers in hua hin , and it would be nice to hear from them and hear which developments they have bought into.

heres hoping for a partial collapse and complete shakeout of the housing market and those who run it in hua hin.

how about this one then , i saw it parked in hua hin this evening , it looks like a 57 or 58 desoto fireflite , that has had the roof lowered and the fins raised.

there is a for sale sign in the rear window, it needs some tidying up , but looks magnificent in red with the white roof.

i recently renewed my 5 year dl at pranburi transport department and was pleasantly surprised at the ease of the procedure and the fun i had.

the office is up a narrow lane behind the police station , which is opposite the new tesco lotus in pranburi.

the driving licence department is on the first floor of the building.

when i arrived i went to one of the windows and my paperwork was quickly checked and i was given a colour blindness test immediately. the paperwork necessary consisted of copies of passport relevent pages , letter confirming my address from immigration ( 4 months old) and my old thai 5 year license.

i was told to come back in an hour for some tests and to watch an hour of instructional video after which i would be tested on it. the video would be in thai , but i could have a translator with me if i wanted to bring one.

an hour later i returned and along with 6 or 7 others , all thai , had to do various tests on machines set up in the general waiting area. the test consisted of a reaction time test (a small accelerator and brake pedal set up connected to green and red lights , when the ligh changed to red i had to brake within a certain time , as shown by flashing lights. as each person took the test , the many onlookers cheered and clapped as we all passed or failed , those who couldnt get it right within 3 goes were just told to keep trying until they passed , one woman took about 10 minutes before she finally managed to hit the brake pedal correctly.

next up was an alignment test , with a hand held control unit you had to move an object back and forth until it was aligned next to a stationary object , again people were helped along until they got it right along with much cheering and cajoling from the onlookers.

the third test was for peripheral vision , coloured lights were lit up randomly and had to be identified correctly.

nobody was allowed to fail , even the lady who just could not brake came away with her licence

when we had all passed these tests , we were herded into a small room and had to watch a training video in thai.

it was a bit like a thai soap , boring , badly acted and over the top.

a thai family , consisting of mr and mrs horribly perfect and their perfect daughter lived next door to mr nasty and his unhappy son.

mr perfect drove a shiny new fortuner , mr angry drove a beat up old nissan with racing add ons and a noisy smoky exhaust.

mr angry knocked down cyclists , used his mobile whilst driving , threw cigarettes out of the window , spat a lot , and got pulled over by the police.

mr perfect drove well , always wore his seat belt and checked his tyre pressures before each journey.

eventually mr nasty crashed his car , leaving his poor son brain damaged and ended up being consoled by mr. and mrs. horribly nice before undergoing a total personality change and becoming another mr. horribly perfect , to the extent of stopping to let pedestrians cross the road.

i couldnt really see the point of having to sit through this bilge , but judging by all the sniggering and comments coming from the thais , they must have thought the same.

at the end of the film , thinking we would be asked questions about the film , we were just photographed and presented with new style smart card driving licences. no test.

the staff there could not have been more friendly , polite and easy going , laughing along with us during the tests and the film , and there was a pleasing sense of cameraderie between all of us applicants.

a great day out.

to be recommended.

(I hope they get the joke !?! )

dont hold your breath.