grahambkk

Hi, I am considering soundproofing for a party wall of my condo main bedroom. I have already sealed the walls up to the concrete floor above! I can still hear the sound of slamming doors and my neighbour's young sons' running around late at night. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I called 7-Eleven today and after a long delay being pushed around their switchboard they said I should try again to get my 7-Eleven Card at a shop. It seems the Pink Card does not have the SMART chip that the normal Thai ID-Card has, so they could not enrol me! You would have thought that after the rigmarole getting the Pink Card, they could at least have incorporated a chip in it!!

I now have my Pink Card after getting my Yellow Book organised. What benefits does this Card bring? For example, will it enable foreigners to enjoy the benefits of getting the 7-Eleven Card that is available to Thais? I do not suppose it will bring BTS in line with state-owned MRT regarding Elder discount cards for trips made?

Thanks Andrew. I will have a go myself despite my lawyer suggesting it could take up to 3 visits to get the translation agreed! He would like me to pay 4K for him to handle that part...

Hi again, I read on the British Embassy website that " AFTER YOUR APPOINTMENT4.You may need to get your certified copytranslated into ThaiThe authority that has requested the certified copywill inform you if your affirmation needs to be translatedin to Thai. Go to any translation agency. There are translation services available at the Legalisation Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see next step 5) "

The next step is just the address of the MOFA at Chaaeng Wattana. I am happy to go there myself since I am free in the next few weeks and will get my lawyer to do the translation beforehand. He wants 4K to go to MOFA... Would you recommend I pay him to go to MOFA or do that part myself? I'm used to standing in queues at the Imiigration Department:)

Thank you for this link. I now have an appointment next week at the British Embassy. The Thailand MOFA to follow it seems, for a Thai translation...

Hi, I am British, have owned my condo 15 years in Bangkok and have a Work Permit. I am now starting the process of getting a Yellow Book and then Pink Card. The first hurdle is that my local District Office want me to attend the British Embassy and get the Embassy to validate my British Passport. I can see no way to contact the Embassy to make an appointment for this. Has anyone else tried to do this with the British Embassy? Any advice on how to move forward would be much appreciated thanks.

I used to be very critical of True Visions but since their upgrade to MPEG4 and HD last year picture and sound quality are now equal to the best - the likes of BSkYB and Astro. They have several good quality programmes with the notable additions of H2 and Life Inspired this year. I have to admit to preferring tennis and golf to soccer so the loss of EPL is no deal breaker for me. I do wish True would add Sky News HD though which I used to watch on Astro.

As regards CTH, 900 Baht/ month is expensive for a programme package that has little more to offer than EPL (for footy followers) even if it does also have Sky News HD:) Otherwise, the rest of their sole package comprises some second tier offshoots of main brands which are shown on True Visions (e.g. National Geographic Wild rather than National Geographic) and programmes that are already available free-to-air with C-Band dishes (e.g. Australia Network, France 24, Euronews). There is no History Channel or Discovery Channel; also none of the BBC Enterprises programmes such BBC Entertainment and Lifestyle.

I was in Kuala Lumpur last weekend and saw that ASTRO in Malaysia is going HD now with 4 channels, claiming they are the first in Asia to do so.

Vietnam last week said they would launch 30 HD channels early this year on Asiasat 5 satellite.

It would be great if Thailand could at least keep pace with its neighbours and not repeat what is happening in the 3G arena with mobile phones!

As for possible new programmes, how about BBC Knowledge (available already in Indonesia) and BBC Lifestyle, as well as the return of BBC Entertainment...

By the way, during the changes made last night, True did not even properly reassign programme names to some channels. That is why some programmes appear to have disappeared. For example, BBC World is now called CNBC while CNBC is called the Phoenix Channel and Bloomberg is called CCTV

It is much better not to use True's satellite receivers. I have a Dreambox and have used a very handy free utility to change the programme names and the order of programmes from my laptop. Much better and quicker than using the remote control....

Graham