PeterRS

Khaosod English identifies the hotel as being on Sukhumvit 13 and the party comprised 28 Thai nationals and one Filipino.

One to add to my list. Never heard it before.

We were all somewhat aghast that @Olddaddy stayed at the Capella Hotel by the river. This has now been voted 3rd Best Hotel in the world by the official World’s 50 Best Hotel Academy, which is made up of 800 hotel industry experts, including hoteliers and travel journalists, spread across 13 destinations around the globe. No wonder he was a bit picky he saw my balcony . Some more for @Olddaddy to consider as he contemplates his next travels. The top ten list is - 1. The Rosewood, Hong Kong 2. Four Seasons, Bangkok 3. Capella, Bangkok 4. Passalacqua, Lake Como, Italy 5. Raffles, Singapore 6. Atlantis The Royal, Dubai 7. Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok 8. Chable Yucantan, Chochola, Mexico 9. Four Seasons, Florence, Italy 10. Upper House, Hong Kong The top three are all relatively new hotels. For long the traditional top hotels are either further down the list or have dropped off altogether. Hong Kong's flagship hotels, the Mandarin Oriental is at #41 and the venerable Peninsula has dropped off. Vienna's Sacher Hotel (where you have to have sachertorte mit shlag at a great price) is almost at the bottom at #49. Claridge's, the Connaught, Raffles OWO (what on earth does that mean?) and the Emory are the four to aim for in London, but the Savoy seems to have fallen into the river.

Are you sure you wanted to see him perform and not just to see him????

I tend to agree with @vinapu. I hasten to add I have no idea what the Magic Castle is or why it should interest you. Do they saw guys in half throughout and have rabbits runing around the place which have been pulled out of hats? Seriously, though, it sounds rather like a Club for professional magicians and therefore it would not be appropriate to solicit an invitation from someone you do not know or hardly know and just happen to meet casually at a party. Had I been there and in your shoes, as it were, I would probably have said something like, "I've heard of those amazing dinners you have at the Magic Castle. Do you know if there is any way non-magicians might be able to attend?" So even though I knew the answer, I'd throw the question over to him rather than specifically asking him to invite me.

Recently, and for a reason that defeats me, I have been getting regular emails from Quora. Today there is one rather nasty one about how narcissists age. But it is quite interesting, even though I doubt if it reflects the type of existence many narcissistic personalities have led.. 1. First, they spend their lives hurting others. After years of hurting others, all the guilt and shame add up, no matter how much they may deny it. To avoid this feeling, they continue to do bad things in order to protect their false identity — their “False Self.” Picture each cruel act as a brick. And by old age, they are carrying a huge mountain of bricks. 2. Second, they always see themselves as the victim. When people react to their bad behaviour, they twist it and believe they are the ones being treated badly. As time goes by this attitude isolates them. They drive everyone away but cannot understand why they are alone. My covert mother at the end of her life felt miserable and said that everyone had abused her. She had a good life and a husband that adored her, giving her every gift imaginable. 3. Third, the aging process works on their mind. They lose control and no longer can conceal their inner self. If they were covert, the mask drops. They become more rude, selfish and more bitter, exposing their real self. Now you know - or don't as the case may be!

Our @vinapu is now a certified STAR! Perhaps the TAT should create an Avenue of Gay Stars in Bangkok as a tourist attraction. After all, going back a century or so, we have Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Jim Thomson, the greatest male ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Gore Vidal, Marlon Brando, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, British Ambassador Brian Davidson, the murdered editor Daniel Berrigan, Sitthichai Chavanothai founder of HIM publications, gay activist, Natee Teerarojjanapongs, Mithuna Junior which was Thailand's first commerical gay magazine pubished wholly in Thai, Soi Twilight, Telephone Bar . . . Ideally King Vajiravudh Rama VI, assumed by all to be homosexual, should be included, but I expect lese majeste would prohibit that!

I have friends who a dozen or so years ago bought a beautiful small one-bedroom flat in Tokyo. But it was almost unique in my experience as it had a deck outside which could easily accommodate 50. The problem was the toilet. It was one of the then latest Japanese gadgets which do a great deal more than merely flush. There were instructions on the wall, but they were only in Japanese. Many at their first party were foreign friends who had little clue how to work them if they needed to poop. Most guys took so long trying to decipher the insructions, the end result was a long queue for peeing with many just going to the edge of the deck to water the garden below! I guess the Japanese couple below must have wondered how their flowers looked more lovely than usual!

No good either, in my view! I'm all for giving recognition to those who do good in their communities, but not for continuing to glorify centuries when the British Empire - as all such Empires did - resulted in great deal of harm.

Although I am reasonably certain there was no family living in any compound in Soi Twilight.

I have been in the front row for an Emirates economy flight to Hong Kong. The flight was overbooked and they offered me lounge access, priority boarding and a free biz class return for a later date if I just agreed to that one sector downgrade. It was a generous offer which I accepted and actually enjoyed the front row - even though then it was an economy seat and there was no partition in front. So I think Premium Economy on the A380 might certainly be worth trying.

The problem on the Emirates A380s is there is no bulkhead, only two half partitions. The first row has two seats each side with tons of legroom because they are in the open area at the downstairs entrance. The problem is that the toilets are up a few stairs at the front and the chances are you are going to have queues occasionally in front of you.

It seems slightly strange that one of the screen's major icons died 70 years ago just before his third and last movie appeared. I had never seen Rebel Without A Cause until this afternoon when it was shown on a True Visions channel. I had looked forward to it but was perhaps a bit disappointed, both with the movie and with James Dean. Natalie Wood's character also seemed to me two-dimensional and more than a little unbelievable. Inevitably it is dated and the post-war rebel image of the younger characters seemed tame - at least when you compare it with, for example, the gang warfare in the 1960s West Side Story. The concept of teenagers as a class of their own was still relatively new after the war. Teenagers were regarded as being filled with a restless angst and spirit of rebellion toward the social norms which they felt restricted by, and it is this that Rebel Without A Cause doesn't quite present on screen IMHO. The interesting character I think is Plato played by the cherubic 16-year old Sal Mineo. It was a role that earned him his first of two nominations for the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. It could never be said at the time but he admitted in a 1972 interview that he really had to be killled off. His character, he suggested, "was in a way the first gay teenager in films." For years Mineo denied he was gay, presumably to ensure he got parts. Later in his short life there was a spell when he said he was bisexual and had allegedly slept with some of the most powerful men and some women in Hollywood, including Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. Sadly for him, it did not do his career much good. the more so as his looks began to fade. In 1976 aged 37 he was brutally stabbed to death by a pizza delivery man during a random robbery outside his West Hollywood apartment. For his final six years he finally came out as gay and lived with an acting teacher Courtney Burr III. James Dean and Sal Mineo in a scene from Rebel Without A Cause

Just make sure the nephews dont get the lube! Oops!

You've let the cat out of the bag! I hadn't planned to let on about that!