[Registering A Baby At The British Embassy]

Reading through the thread it's apparent that you have pretty much decided not to get your children long birth certificates unless someone can come up with a specific reason, so don't do it. People have made suggestions as to why you might want to do it and you have replied that you don't see the point, which is fine. I doubt you will get any definite reasons forthcoming. People mainly do it for peace of mind. They know that their offspring has a UK birth certificate and their birth is registered in the UK and come a time in the future when their child has to produce a UK birth certificate for any reason, they will be able to. Who knows when you will be asked to produce a UK birth certificate for some reason or other, I certainly don't, but I'd rather my daughter was able to just produce her certificate that I had obtained for her and show it than have any kind of problems trying to prove that she is entitled to whatever it is she is applying for.

Personally, I'd rather my daughter have a birth certificate and passport in hand to prove her heritage than rely on UK government records. The other reason, as said before, you never know what crazy laws are going to be brought in by future governments. Until recently unmarried UK fathers couldn't pass on their nationality to their children, now they can. Immigration is a hot topic these days and it only takes a government passing a new law with some crazy anti-immigration slant to suddenly put anyone without a UK birth certificate at a disadvantage. I'd rather not chance any of this for the sake of £150.

No Charlie I have not decided one way or the other but I do not make decisions based on "no reason" and that is why I was asking peoples opinions and advice on this matter.Bkk_mikes suggestion about "next of kin" might well be good reason for some people but does not apply in my case. Knowing that quite a few people must have gone through the registration process I am asking them if they know something that I obviously don’t. I am not one of those people who do something merely because someone (in this case the B Emb) tell or advise me to without giving the reasons why.

You have in fact just raised another good point which is peoples fear of what the British government will or will not do in the future. Having to base one’s decisions on fear or worry alone is a sad situation but is an understandable one given the times that we live in .It’s difficult to imagine a Britain in the future with a two tier British citizen class system based on those that have or have not got a British birth certificate but as you say I guess anything is possible…..they may for example disadvantage any British citizen born outside of the UK irrespective of the "British style" of birth certificate (as the embassy puts it)…and there is nothing any of us could do about that. None of us can obtain total peace of mind in relation to such matters.

In reality of course I think as you say this would be a crazy thing to do as given the huge numbers involved in today’s Britain this would cause more problems than it solved with a large scale revolt on the Governments hands.

None the less what you seem to be saying is “you can only do what you can do” and provide what insurance you can for your child’s future and although like everyone else I hate having to base my decisions on future fears and worries rather than today’s facts you have a valid argument.

By the way the price has jumped somewhat since you applied for your registration. Here are the current prices for anyone else considering this option at this time:-

The fee for registration plus one certified copy of the entry is Baht 14,755. Additional copies of the entry can be obtained at a cost of Baht 3,835 per certificate.

[Chaingmai Hotels]

Hello

Sorry that I have not been able to reply but the need to earn a crust had taken me away.

Firstly at no time did we imply that the hotel is racist but that dose not stop the staff from having there own attitudes that is the same all over the world.

1. The incident referred to took place on the afternoon on the day before we were due to check out otherwise we would have moved hotels. Lawrence asked me for dates and I think that I gave him the wrong ones.

2. We did indeed meet with Miss Preeyanuch who is a credit to the hotel but she was not present when the incident happened.

3. This was not the first time that we had had reason to complain about the attitude of the counter staff to ward my wife and therefore myself we had already spoken to a junior manager. Miss Preeyanuch was unaware of this till we spoke with her. Therefore we were already known to the counter staff before the incident and had been in the hotel for seven days.

4. To quote my wife “I know what I heard I know what was said to me there is no mistake this is my language I had picked up the key two or three times every day and no body had asked for id before, this guy was looking at me as if I was some kind of idiot." Of course I was upset.

Why did we wait so long to post this well we had been away from our business for over a month and had a lot of catching up to do. I also had to get every body else away for holidays before the summer season started and I needed time to get my thoughts in order. You will note that at no time did we try to hide our identities and the email address is real. We appreciate Lawrence for trying to make some order out of this. For those of you who know the Mae Ping and chose to belive them well if it was my friend I would also be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt well we understand that.

I always knew about the power of the internet but I failed to realise exactly how much interest that this would create and I would like to thank every body who contributed to the debate whatever your point of view.

I do not intend to carry this any farther every one has had there say it was never our intention to run down the hotel just some of the staff who work there.

Due to the attention of the scum who take pleasure in sending viruses via email I shall be shutting down this email address

Rgds

Doug

[Chaingmai Hotels]

Thanks for all you interest i have emailed ajarn with details of the apology from the hotel management i trust that he will follow it up. as i said before it has never happened to us before in Thailand and we do not belive it to be the policy of the hotel. Just the bigotry of some of the individuals that they employ.

At 50 plus my wife is happy to be mistaken for an 18 year old

[Chaingmai Hotels]

Imperial Mae Ping

The racist attitude of the front desk staff of this hotel toward my wife

could have spoiled our holiday we are a mixed race couple and my wife was

told that she could not be staying there as she was not a European.

Complaints to the management resulted in a bowl of fruit and an invitation

to book directly with the manager the next time we are in Chaing Mai We left

and will not be going back. In the thirteen years that we have been together

we have traveled all over Thailand and Chaing Mai is one of our favourie

places and have never been treated with any thing less than traditional Thai

hospitality whether it was a 5* hotel or a room and fan up country.

Could it have been anything to do with the fact that my wife is Thai?

Rgds Doug