bkk_mike

If you look at the statistics, actual violent crime in the UK is way down. Stop getting your "news" from Facebook.

And add pictures that are completely unrelated. Picture of Clinton, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson with redacted pictures of children being a case in point. Picture had nothing to do with Epstein, and the redacted children... their own kids...

Those dates only make sense if you were with both women at the same time. A throuple? Was married at Bangrak personally, back in 1999. Anyway. Did all the running around (embassy, MFA, translation services, amphur in one day. Then did the monks, and wedding ceremony and reception the next.)

Just because you paid tax in the UK does not mean there isn't a tax liability in Thailand nowadays. There is a double taxation agreement so any tax paid in the UK will come off any tax due in Thailand, but it doesn't mean no taxes will be due (unless your pension is a Civil Service pension of some sort... Those are exempt in the DTA). Things to be particularly careful with are tax free lump sums, because being exempt from tax in the UK doesn't mean it's exempt in Thailand.

Until Brexit, we were part of the Dublin agreement, that meant we could send asylum seekers back to the first EU country they entered unless they had some sort of family ties to the UK. That we didn't do that is our own fault, not the EUs. Brexit means we exited from the Dublin agreement...

But the content is bad as well. I.e. there was an issue with the original dead-virus vaccine manufactured at one lab in California where they didn't kill the virus properly, so it got a bad reputation so the US switched to a live-virus vaccine for decades, which did have the issue that a tiny proportion of people could get the disease from the vaccine. But then they switched back to the dead-virus vaccine in the 90s to end that problem. I.e. It's talking about a problem that hasn't been a problem for 30 years...

Depends where the Brits are that you meet. If you spend your life in Pattaya, you're not exactly going to see the best of any country... Don't get me wrong. There are reasons for less seedy Brits to live in Pattaya - lots of English spoken and on the menus. Decent choice of food, cheaper than Bangkok, and some nice beaches. But it's where the seedy sort seem to flock to.

The Reform party activist got out of his padded cell. It's the reason they want to destroy the NHS so that anyone still in an asylum is let loose to join them

Actually, they probably won't. Last time the amounts went up, people who were already here were grandfathered in on the old amounts. But there are some nice bits of the Philippines, and you can join their universal healthcare system as a retiree, and if you're British your state pension doesn't get frozen. I think it's not as nice a place to live as Thailand, more dangerous, worse food, and hospitals are very much down to where you live. English is a lot more widely spoken as well. If I had been married to a Filipina for 26 years, rather than married to a Thai, I would seriously consider it.

Only by how low the fines are.

One thing. Diabetes is actually far more common in Thailand because white rice is really high on the glycemic index. Admittedly I greatly prefer a Massaman or a green curry over a phad Thai. With somtam as a starter. Doesn't mean I didn't pick up black pudding from Yorkies in Jomtien when we were near, before it closed, for cooking at home in Bangkok.

Pie and mash - yes. Jellied eels, not so much.

Said by someone who's almost certainly never eaten haggis, and has no clue how good it is.

Let the people who voted for the Tories who literally stopped processing asylum claims pay. They let the numbers in the system shoot up as nobody was either getting through and allowed in as a genuine asylum seeker (once you're through the process, you're allowed to work), or deported as a non-genuine asylum seeker. Putting up people while they're being processed is supposed to be temporary...

Great unless you're an identical twin... (And your twin is wanted for something). Or you have a doppelganger like Will Ferrell and the drummer from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Meanwhile, my Thai wife has significantly more money in her Thai bank accounts than I have in mine. (I have more abroad).

Bull<deleted> - Nobody waits a month for a GP appointment. Bull<deleted> - There's less than 1500 knife crimes a month which includes people caught carrying a knife (which is a lot more common than stabbing someone). Any free education in Thailand is in Thai. Pretty sure his kids wouldn't be eligible because who knows what sort of visa they'll be in the country on. I had the income (just) to pay for international school for my kids. But I'm not an HGV driver...

Why have the racists come out from under their rocks and started their usual rants about Islam - when the guy is supposedly a Sikh?

It was developed in the UK after all, so the UK will have the people who've received Viagra for the longest (since the initial trials happened there also). But yes any benefit is probably not restricted to Brits.

Preflight checks tends to be at airports in places like Ireland and Bermuda, where there tends to be no issues with immigration anyway. Has the advantage that it allows for flights into LaGuardia from Bermuda, for example, as LaGuardia doesn't have enough space for immigration.

It used to be the case that some embassies would just sign whatever income statement their citizen gave them, with no checks that it was actually true. Thailand asked the embassies to actually check, which is when letters from the UK, for example, stopped. But actually checking has a cost in staff time, and it's, as Norway has stated, not really the reason they have an embassy...

Rich Thais tend to stick their kids into International schools. It means they have good enough English to go to Universities in the UK, USA or Australia. It also means they have qualifications to enter without having to do a foundation year (required for students with a Thai education). Admittedly, it often means their Thai isn't always up to the standard required for the better Thai universities.

At least he's going to jail. Certain people in other countries get found guilty, then sentencing gets delayed until they're elected to a position where the Supreme Court says they can't be jailed.

Between? I've used Wise to transfer money TO Thailand (from UK and Hong Kong), but I don't think it lets you transfer FROM Thailand. As everyone else is saying... Small amounts, you use Wise as it's costs are based on the amount being transferred. For large amounts (somewhere north of $10K) it can be worth checking if Swift is cheaper, but you have to make 100% sure your home country bank doesn't do the FX conversion to Thai Baht. One thing, if you're transferring money to buy property, I think you have to use Swift, AND it has to enter Thailand in the foreign currency. Because you need the bank to sign off that the money was transferred from abroad.

No problem entering the UK. One thing nobody has mentioned... If you're on a non-direct flight double-check the rules of any place you're transiting through. (You're probably fine to transit with the Thai passport, but it might mean a stopover isn't allowed.) Remember not to apply before you land in the UK. You don't want the passport flagged in the computer system as surrendered when you're checking in.