Uk Visa; To Avoid Disappointment

[Dutchy2]

The Bangkok Post Classifieds friday July 2:

BRITISH EMBASSY BANGKOK; VISA SECTION ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to unprecendented demand; with effect from Monday 5th July as a temporary measure the Visa Section will only be accepting a limited number of callers on a daily basis.

Very urgent and compassionate cases will be decided on an exceptional and individual basis by the Entry Clearance Manager.

So as to avoid disapointment applicants are requested to submit applications by post wherever possible and to make use of the Embassy's drop box facility. You must include full supporting documentation with your application. It may cause some delay or affect the outcome of your application if you do not.

Further information can be found on the embassy website. www.britishembassy.go.uk/Thailand

Typos are mine, not the embassy's. I found this pretty amazing, it seems that loads of Thais want to leave Thailand for whatever reason and duration.. It might be good to know for brits that their case will have to be pretty urgent and compassionate when they want their girlfriend/wife to be in the UK in a timely fashion..

Dutchy

[Martin]

I went there last Tuesday to put in for a visa for my wife to come with me this Autumn for my annual trip to UK. There was quite a queue outside in Wireless Road before they opened at 07.30. And inside was a real crowded, stuffy feeling. I counted 50 people in a U-shaped line in the room, which I estimated at 10 foot by 50 foot. It was as if we were cattle in a crush. I was going to raise this with the Desk Officer in London, as (if it is normal) Britain is giving a very poor impression of its regard for those who wish to visit, but can't meet the postal application criteria.

Later, I happened to be walking past the main gates in Ploenchit, when a farang in a Range Rover was coming out, and I saw the peaceful vista of lovely lawns that was being enjoyed by the Embassy staff's parked cars. The contrast with how the public were being herded was graphic. The words "Institutionalised snobbery" sprang to mind, but I won't mention that to London.

However I do feel that the forward planning by the FCO should be questioned. The British Airports Authority has detailed estimates of the expected increase in numbers of air travellers. I would like to be assured that the FCO has looked at what those forecasts mean for its Bangkok visa-issuance facilities in the future.

Anybody know a Professor of Architecture who would give some students a project to come up with "An Embassy Layout---as if people mattered" ?.

[cutethaigirl]

What??????

[Digger]

I went there last Tuesday to put in for a visa for my wife to come with me this Autumn for my annual trip to UK. There was quite a queue outside in Wireless Road before they opened at 07.30. And inside was a real crowded, stuffy feeling. I counted 50 people in a U-shaped line in the room, which I estimated at 10 foot by 50 foot. It was as if we were cattle in a crush. I was going to raise this with the Desk Officer in London, as (if it is normal) Britain is giving a very poor impression of its regard for those who wish to visit, but can't meet the postal application criteria.

Later, I happened to be walking past the main gates in Ploenchit, when a farang in a Range Rover was coming out, and I saw the peaceful vista of lovely lawns that was being enjoyed by the Embassy staff's parked cars. The contrast with how the public were being herded was graphic. The words "Institutionalised snobbery" sprang to mind, but I won't mention that to London.

However I do feel that the forward planning by the FCO should be questioned. The British Airports Authority has detailed estimates of the expected increase in numbers of air travellers. I would like to be assured that the FCO has looked at what those forecasts mean for its Bangkok visa-issuance facilities in the future.

Anybody know a Professor of Architecture who would give some students a project to come up with "An Embassy Layout---as if people mattered" ?.

Martin - Your looking to deeply into this. Schools finished last week and all the expat ECO's are going back to Blighty for their holidays

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I went there last Tuesday to put in for a visa for my wife to come with me this Autumn for my annual trip to UK. There was quite a queue outside in Wireless Road before they opened at 07.30. And inside was a real crowded, stuffy feeling. I counted 50 people in a U-shaped line in the room, which I estimated at 10 foot by 50 foot. It was as if we were cattle in a crush. I was going to raise this with the Desk Officer in London, as (if it is normal) Britain is giving a very poor impression of its regard for those who wish to visit, but can't meet the postal application criteria.

Later, I happened to be walking past the main gates in Ploenchit, when a farang in a Range Rover was coming out, and I saw the peaceful vista of lovely lawns that was being enjoyed by the Embassy staff's parked cars. The contrast with how the public were being herded was graphic. The words "Institutionalised snobbery" sprang to mind, but I won't mention that to London.

However I do feel that the forward planning by the FCO should be questioned. The British Airports Authority has detailed estimates of the expected increase in numbers of air travellers. I would like to be assured that the FCO has looked at what those forecasts mean for its Bangkok visa-issuance facilities in the future.

Anybody know a Professor of Architecture who would give some students a project to come up with "An Embassy Layout---as if people mattered" ?.

They'd need to have the concept well marketed to them first. Care and consideration of people is not a high priority at any Embassy. Staff needs are first, second, and third.

[Martin]

If you are right, Dr PP, what we need to do is to get the Embassy monopoly broken!

If they were losing 'market share' in a big way, it would concentrate their minds on what they needed to do to become 'user friendly'.

No need to reply "And we need to get on with that as soon as we get the last pig airborne"!!!

[Martin]

P.S. All my criticisms are of the visa-issuance system on the ground floor.

Upstairs, in Consulate, I have always found it uncrowded, a not-unreasonable waiting time (sitting down with a ticket) and then service that is pleasant, helpful, efficient and effective.

I see a reference in an FCO document to 'UKvisas', as if this was somehow separate from other FCO organisation. Is this one of those 'hived-off' Agencies that seem to have become fashionable a few years ago?

The other end of the visa process also irks me. Why, having tramped for seemingly miles through corridors in Heathrow, do foreign visitors have to stand and shuffle through a queue to show their passports?. Why can't there be a 'sit and watch for your number' system?

[cutethaigirl]

Martin

Your comments are almost surreal!

Where do you think all the cash comes from for VIP waiting lounges all over the places you choose to frequent?

Why not get a job as a Diplomat for two reasons.

1. You can make all the changes you want.

2. If that fails travel as a Diplomat and avoid the queues.

[jayenram]

This post has now got me worried.

We applied in February for a visa for my FG to attend my daughter’s UK wedding in September this year. The Embassy contacted us and advised that the application was submitted too early and we should re-apply in July. All supporting documents (although not the application itself) were returned to us.

We applied again with updated supporting documents on 24th June.

On 29th June, I emailed the Embassy and asked for confirmation that the application had been received and requesting notification that the supporting documentation was sufficient for their needs. To date, I’ve not had a response.

Maybe they are too busy.

[Martin]

Dear cutethaigirl: Thank you for the compliment. Maybe I can sell my surreal postings to a Mr Saatchi, as a modern art form.

I can't get a job as a Diplomat. I was put on track for that 58 years ago, and failed miserably (or, as I now realise, luckily).

I will explain later, when time permits.

P.S. I have just discovered that UKvisas is 'a joint Home Office and FCO Unit'.

Sounds like a marriage made...........??

[Martin]

OK. The letter to London, asking how they got Bangkok UKvisas in such a mess, is done. So I'll tell how I didn't become a Diplomat.

As a lad, I happened to be good at sums and compositions.

Hence my parents put me in for a scholarship to one of those '<deleted> grammar schools' that Tony Crosland was later to be determined to get rid of.

We were taught French by the Head of Modern Languages, who mapped out for us in 1946, at age 11!!, how we should progress to Cambridge and thence to the Foreign Office (or to the Colonial Office, for the 'also rans').

It didn't work for me, because:

(1) I didn't have MLQs (mandarin-like qualities),

(2) that Head of Mod. Lang. and I had an almighty personality clash,

(3) French and German weren't my forte (very poor aural memory).

It was no good transferring to History, and thence to the Armed Forces, as I didn't have OLQs (officer-like qualities). To me, Authority was something to be questioned, not to take my place amongst.

Nor was it any good to transfer to Sciences, as I didn't have DrLQs. No way could I foresee lasting through a long and tedious medical 'apprenticeship'.

They must have been heartily relieved to be rid of me to Maths, more Maths, and Physics, and thence to that new-fangled thing of dubious respectability called Radio and Electronics.

Ironically, a few years later, when the future Docs were still only being allowed to practise on corpses, I was doing diagnosing, and nursing, of appendicitis and fractured coccyx cases, and assisting with midwifery. And when the future Diplomats were still awaiting their first overseas posting, I was further and deeper into a foreign and commonwealth setting than they would ever get. And, whilst those with OLQs were still yomping around the Brecon Beacons as trainee-Ruperts, I was on the coldest front of the Cold War. (Nothing noble---in fact I was a completely ignoble mercenary soldier of fortune: a Brit, in Canada, who had hired himself out to the Yanks, to represent them at their interface with possible Russkie bombers. If you want the full story of that, put 'Nineteen Months In Retrospect' into Google.)

So that is why I never became a Diplomat, or anything else respectable in the Establishment; for, as my late wife used to say "Nobody could ever accuse Martin of tact".

But 'surreality'?. Ah, that is something different!