OJAS

I suppose that we can but dream of the day when similar treatment is meted out to multi-megawatt sound systems seized from pickups.

Wonder what Basil Fawlty would have made of such an offer?

Agree 100%. My existing passport, like the OP's, is also due to expire next September, and I've already set in motion its replacement (with fingers firmly crossed that I'll receive the new one before my current permission to stay expires next August????). And, with civil servants' strikes thrown into the mix on top of inherent HMPO bungling incompetence and ineptitude, we shall probably be in for even longer waits than this for our new passports in the New Year.

Whereas in the case of Western countries which require similar proof of finances for foreigners who wish to set foot on their hallowed turf, it is, on the other hand, an ultra-progressive rule which, in your eyes, should be applied with zeal and gusto by local immigration officers in each and every case without exception, right?

Strikes me as yet another pointless so-called "security" measure which banks, government bodies, etc are increasingly taking great delight in gleefully inflicting on us with the sole and avowed aim of making life for us just as difficult as is humanly possible..????

And there was I, thinking that we were now in the dry season, supposedly! There was certainly quite a heavy downpour in our neck of woods in Rayong Province last night.

Join slow-moving queues for Baggage Drop-Off, Security, his re-entry permit and Immigration in that order - followed by a long walk to the departure gate.

You and @andycan both thank your lucky stars that you're not Brits! Those unfortunates on here who, like myself, are have been told to expect a wait of at least 11 weeks for our new passports from the UK (like I am doing at the moment)! While we are allowed to retain our old passports for ID purposes, we are unable to use them for foreign travel in the meantime.

Whereas: The husband A arrived on the scene and helped his wife and stopped another motorist so that the police and rescue services could be called. Not that the wife will in any way be grateful, of course.

Do you mean the traffic lights just before the turn-off to the left for the immigration office? There are a few sets of lights in Maptaput!

Agreed. While all the rage 20 years or so ago, the concept of "joined-up government" - which IMHO would be a fundamental prerequisite to any systemic integration across Whitehall - is now completely dead in the water, As a result, each component part of the "great" UK government machine is, these days, required to confine its operations to issues which fall strictly within the purview of its particular silo, with blinkers firmly attached so as to avoid any "undesirable" external sideways glances.

Same here, but I suppose that it all depends on the particular immigration office in question. I gather from various reports on here that obtaining a re-entry permit at Chaengwattana, for instance, can be quite a tortuous process!

Can he not check in online before setting off to the airport or even (as I have done on a few occasions) at a self-service kiosk there if he arrives more than 3 hours early? In my experience it has subsequently proved possible to drop off baggage for the aircraft hold up to 5 hours before the scheduled flight departure time, and this should provide him with more than adequate breathing space for clearing Security and then obtaining a re-entry permit prior to clearing Immigration.

Whoever completed the TM30 form which has presumably been filed with Immigration in this instance, I would have thought.

And the slight inconvenience resulting from an extra trip to Immigration should, of course, be more than offset by the considerably greater inconvenience you would otherwise have been faced with when next renewing your British passport (assuming, of course, that renewing NZ passports is not a similarly tedious, protracted and cumbersomely bureaucratic process)!????

Looks like one of the first things the OP will need to do upon his return to Thailand with a visa exemption stamp (assuming that he has not obtained a re-entry permit) will be to leg it down to his local immigration office clutching an application for a non-o visa conversion - provided, of course, that he can meet all relevant requirements: https://www.immigration.go.th/en/?page_id=2537

IMHO the blame for this would be more appropriately laid at the door of the unnamed pal whom the BIB quizzed about the guy's behaviour rather than the TPN. The article includes a disclaimer stating that this particular individual was expressing a personal opinion and not providing a licensed medical diagnosis.

But I do just wonder whether the member of the UK Border Force who advised you to renew your passport because your picture was not representative of your current facial look would now be of that particular opinion as a result of the stresses and strains which you subsequently had to endure in getting your new passport!????

Quite likely I do!

So a couple of days less than the 11 weeks being officially advised then. That said, though, front-line civil servants have now voted to strike, which looks like having an adverse impact on processing times, so I'm not holding my breath that my new passport, applied for on 18 Oct, will be available for collection this side of 1 Jan 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/10/uk-civil-servants-whitehall-frontline-services-vote-strike

In any event, in the case of applications submitted in person, the VFS clerk with whom you interract on a 1-to-1 basis would presumably do rather more than raise an eyebrow by less than a millimetre if the individual sat in front of them bore little resemblance facially to any uncountersigned mug shots provided!

According to Laura Kuenssberg at the BBC, it is rumoured that personal allowance and higher rate threshold freezes could last until 2028: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63599465 As regards scrapping the personal allowance for expats, this was the subject of a consultation exercise following the 2014 Budget, as a result of which this proposal was, thankfully for us, booted into the long grass on that particular occasion: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/restricting-non-residents-entitlement-to-the-uk-personal-allowance So while I would have thought it highly unlikely that the scrapping of the personal allowance for UK tax non-residents from the get-go will be announced as part of Thursday's Autumn Statement, I strongly suspect that we could find ourselves ruling out at our peril the possibility of Jeremy Hunt using this opportunity, just as George Osborn did in 2014, to launch a further consultation exercise on this doomsday scenario.

But no thanks to the lord that he is my UK MP (I am registered as an overseas voter in his constituency)! His enthusiasm for the additional monthly £300 payments to which you referred is in stark contrast to his apparent "couldn't care less" attitude on frozen State Pensions, for instance, judging from the complete walls of silence which I have met from him on both this and, for that matter, all other issues which I have raised with him over the years as a disgruntled constituent, both when living in the UK and subsequently after moving to Thailand!

And might these "strict requirements" include the provision of well-stuffed brown envelopes??

So all those amphurs who place roadblocks in the way of obtaining yellow books are bosum pals of yours, then, are they, as they provide you with a golden opportunity to gleefully slag off the likes of myself and @nigelforbes on here in a sneeringly patronisingly sarcastically arrogant manner?