Not looking good to extend visa - Richard Barrow

[Caldera]

I'm of two minds about the guy. His reporting is often excellent and he clearly fills a void as local journalism is in a really sad state. On the other hand, he often comes across as arrogant and attention seeking for nothing but his own gratification.

 

I'm not surprised that the Thai authorities see his shenanigans with suspicion, and again I'm of two minds about it. Sometimes I'm glad that he exposes the truth and we all know how much those in power despise that. On other occasions he picks silly little battles (double pricing) and effectively baits the authorities by saying he shouldn't really do that while his "visa" is up for extension. So his trouble is kind of self-inflicted, maybe he wants to get kicked out to secure a book deal or something.

 

Then there's the fact that he says blogging is his "hobby", when clearly it is a lot more than that. As he gets compensated with stays at hotels quite frequently, the question of illegal work might also be on immigration's mind.

 

My guess is that he will ultimately get his extension. But who knows!

[ChouDoufu]

34 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

That said, he has made friends with some higher-profile Thais, who may tell them to back off.  And they would be wise to do so, as he could say A LOT MORE about "how things work in Thailand," if not IN Thailand any more.  The UK isn't going to extradite him for some bull-charge for telling the truth about how Immigration really operates.  While I hope the best for him, I would love to see that BBC Expose he would star in; might actually get a lot fixed here, if he did.

 

that's the last thing he'd want, as it would be the end of his notoriety, and the end of any possible social media monetization.  who cares about thailand outside of thailand?  i can't picture masses of westernfolk taking any of thailand's internal problems seriously in normal times, much less in the midst of the coronademic.

 

"honey, come quick, that richard fellow is on the beebeecee!  there's bribery and dual-pricing in thailand!"

 

"egads! i'm shocked, shocked to find that corruption is endemic over there!"

[tribalfusion001]

1 minute ago, scubascuba3 said:

dual pricing is wrong, charging someone more for being foreign is just wrong. i find it hard to understand how people think it's ok

I agree, nothing to be proud of. Charge everyone the same price, fairness.

[mr mr]

56 minutes ago, anchadian said:

Yes, the poor guy died trying to get one.

i was thinking more of japanese hammers and the odd nail that sticks out sort of thing......

[anchadian]

165k follows on his twitter account.  Now that's a lot of followers.

 

Since RB posted on twitter 'not looking good.........there has been 3.8K retweets.

 

 

[ubonjoe]

It seems the topic can come to and ends since it is not directly visa related and the discussion is more about the person mentioned in the OP and bickering between members.

This topic now