Eff1n2ret

I agree - to be telling an applicant that their Emergency application may take several weeks makes a total mockery of the word emergency. I greatly sympathise with the OP. If he could be sure of his lad getting a visa in time for his trip I would recommend him to go for it, although as has already been pointed out an Immigration or Visa Officer has no authority to place entry restrictions on a British Citizen, and should therefore not issue a visa. The great irony is that if the lad could present himself at passport control in the UK with the document registering him as a british citizen they'd have to let him in - but of course no airline would take the risk of boarding him. If I were the OP I would be inclined to ignore the instructions not to contact the Embassy, and create merry hell until they get off their backsides and issue him with a travel doc. They really don't care about us, witness the moribund Consular Forum where they haven't posted for a month or more, and their stock response to most queries is "not me guv" and a link to another department.

Is that a discreet way of saying agents aren't all they're cracked up to be?

That's disgraceful. They only have to look through the paperwork and stick it in the envelope for DHL, there is no other "processing". Any explanation from VFS why it took over a month?

I found the actual experience at Trendy pretty straightforward, having done it twice in the last few years, once for my wife and again for myself. The irritation stems, for those of us not resident in Bangkok (or Chiang Mai) from having to go there twice or pay an agent or somebody to go for you, when residents in the Philippines, South Africa or Brazil, to name three countries at random, can apply online as they do in the UK and get their new passports posted to them.

I recently re-read '1984'. It was quite spooky reading about a guy in the Ministry of Truth whose job was to produce a new dictionary shorn of all words that were deemed "unnecessary" - on the same day that I'd read a news article about Google vastly increasing the number of "inappropriate" or "potentially offensive" words that would trigger a warning. Devotees of Le Carre might like "Slow Horses" by Mick Herron, the first of a series about MI 5 and the downmarket end of national security.

Strictly speaking, maybe you should have. Mostly I don't bother to print out the 90-day receipt, I keep a screenshot on my phone, but it does say "Keep in Passport" even on the online receipts. I'm going for a re-entry permit as soon as I get some ink for my printer, and as well as the TM form I will knock off the last 90-day receipt just in case I encounter some jobsworth having a bad day as you seem to have done.

The news article purports to pass on new advice from UK Embassies stating their inability to pay for repatriation or hospital costs, but I can't see anything on the Bangkok Embassy website or on the moribund Consular Forum on Asean Now. It seems to be just Barry Kenyon sounding off about the plight of his old pal. I knew John Humphreys a few years back, nice chap, he worked at a well-known visa agent on Soi Post Office. I think he was there for many years, perhaps his employers would like to pick up the tab for his treatment and accommodation.

How will that work? I am "self-insured", i.e. have a pot of money reserved for my healthcare which I've never touched and have always managed to pay out of current income. I keep that in the UK. As mentioned in another thread, the authorities have shot themselves in the foot by insisting on the 800k you have to show for retirement extension remaining in your bank, so it can't be used to pay a hospital bill, and if you die your inheritor can spend the dosh how they want.

The time is rarely of importance to me, but I like to have something to remind me what day it is, and, as you say, that phone does that fine.

How did faith in Boris Johnson’s premiership crumble in less than three years? Because people who thought they were electing a Conservative government have discovered that it's led by a green socialist.

They'll be all right. When did you ever see the police out after dark, unless attending an accident?

Yup, they've found a whole new way of irritating us.

Rayong 0 cases, Hooray! It's a funny thing about Covid, that whilst it raged during the last two years I didn't hear of anyone that I knew personally catching it. There was one occasion when the local Tesco closed for several days, but that was it. Then in the last four weeks four people whom I do know have been infected, none of them seriously ill - and I guess none of them appeared in the official statistics.

Ah, now I understand what happened in Chachoengsao. The original report spoke of "workers who had come in a cement mixer", which put me off reading the rest of it.

Surely it's a scam?

You need a letter from your local Immigration Office.

Good point. They've shot themselves in the foot. To combat the fraudsters who only have 800k to show on the day they apply, they say it's got to stay in the bank for 5 months of the year, and half of it for the other 7, so the funds can't be used for hospital bills or anything else unless they can quickly be replaced, and, as you say, whoever gets the money when you die can spend it how they want.

Add the total collapse, in some areas, of the Thai Postal Service on top of the Civil Service pretending to work from home, you may have retired long before you receive your letter, if ever. Best to get on the dog and bone.

It's preferable that they do so, as you can then arrange a secure way of sending them to Thailand. Last year First Direct chose to issue new Mastercard debit cards in place of Visa. Around the same time my HSBC credit card was used for unauthorised payments in US grocery stores. Both replacement cards went astray (I've only had one item of post in almost a year and that was part eaten by mice). My son sent the further replacements via DHL inside books that I wanted - an expensive way of doing things, but sometimes the best way to solve a problem is by throwing money at it.

I opened an account with Skipton Building Society in Guernsey, Thai address no problem, all correspondence etc is done online. But it's linked to my First Direct UK account, and I don't think I can transfer the money from Guernsey anywhere else, not that I need to. I only opened it because FD wouldn't let me open a new savings product. I can keep my existing account, but no new ones. If you have a UK bank account, keep it active and hang on to it.

Immigration won't grant an extension on an expired passport, even as a temporary arrangement pending arrival of your new passport. As others have said, you'll have to go back to MiseryLand and sort it out there. The lengthy times for obtaining a new passport have been in the news for months.

If that is 3 days from applying at VFS, then at least you have the assurance that the application is not sitting in a pile waiting to be looked at.

It's not a limit, it's a minimum balance.

That's interesting. Last year when the postal service in Thailand didn't seem able to deliver me a replacement UK credit card, I started to despair of ever getting one and enquired with Bangkok Bank, where I keep well above the 800k required for my retirement extension. They said I would need a credit balance of at least 1 million Baht, they would refer my request to Head Office and get back to me. They never did, and I didn't pursue it because I finally managed to arrange for collection of the UK card from an HSBC branch and delivery here by DHL. I would be interested to learn how you get on in UK with a Kasikorn debit card. I also have one, but don't intend to use it there because I also have a UK debit card.

Any pools not "disinfected" by maintaining the correct Chlorine and pH levels very quickly and obviously become unfit to swim in. If the OP's pool has regular maintenance and he fancies a swim he should go for it.