PeterRS

This has been a fairly regular topic in this foum and I could not agree more. Didn't we read relatively recently that all the TM6 arrival/departure forms had been moved to warehouses because there was nowhere to store them? When I go to Immigration in that vast barn of unused hideously expensive air-conditioned space at Chaengwattana, I see mountains of paperwork at every officers' desks. Because Thailand insists on pasports being carried at all time (although some use photocopies or laminated copies), the UK government is little better because to renew a 48-page passport it now insists that I have to copy every single page, have them couriered at my expense to the UK and have the new passport couried back again at my expense about 3 months later. But we are advised we can not use the passport during that 3-month waiting period. As one who usually travels vidtually every month, this is ridicuouos. About 10 years ago, all I had to do was take the passport to the Consulate in Wittayu and the new one would be ready at a fraction of the cost in a week. Our bureacratic world is going mad!

I am even more blown away. 13.1 billion light years away. Only 700 million years after the Big Bang? How does one actually measure that? How long has that light taken to reach the telescope? What was the Big Bang? I was always taught that if something inflates then it must do so into something - like a balloon inflating into the air around it or a ship displacing the water it sails in? What existed prior to the Big Bang? Into what did that monster explosion of matter expand? Try as I have, I just cannot get my mind around it!

I am totally blown away when I try to think of space, the big bang and how it is that we come to be living in such a vast universe. I simply cannot comprehend what happened and continues to happen 'out there'. So I am staggered by the early photos from the Webb telescope. That these images were taken just a few hundred million years after the big bang is to me just unbelievable. Images: NASA, BBC, CNN

Since you specifically mention Iraq, I assume you are referring to the USSR's assistance to the Iranians in its 8-year war against Iraq in the 1980s. But that was nowhere near the Putin era. For the period of most of that assistance Gorbachev was in charge of the USSR. Putin was not to appear of the horizon until Yeltsin picked him as his Deputy in 1999. Prior to the present war in Ukraine, Putin has been responsible for 3 wars - the second Chechen war, the war in Georgia and the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014/5. We should also remember that the ghastly Iran-Iraq war was started by Iraq when Hussein invaded Iran believing it to have been severaly weakened after the fall of the Shah. There was no love lost between the USSR and Iraq. Then again, this became all but a proxy war during the Cold War with the west supplying vast quatitites of armaments to Iraq. After all, there was no love lost between the west and Khomeini. If this is the wrong war, perhaps @tassojunior can let us know to which one he is referring amd provide a documentary source.

That glut is going to continue. We were told some years ago that the new mega-construction project 'One Bangkok' covering a large part of Rama 4 (and which has resulted in the demise of the old Dusit Thani Hotel) will include five luxury hotels!

I must admit I read only recent pages of the thread and then got caught up in the Taiwan/Ukraine discussion. I have no desire to read the rest of such a long thread and accept other readers comments. All I will add is that a previous owner also incurred the wrath of quite a few members. If you own a chat room Board, I guess you have the right to put forward your own views whenever you want. I only know that Moses lives in Moscow. It's his Board. He bought it. In my view he has the right to promote whatever views he holds just as others have every right to abandon it if they are unhappy with those views. Surely they can turn to the other two Boards or even start up their own if they wish.

I agree totally with @thaiophilus. That is a particularly long thread and basically compares parts of Ukraine with Taiwan. I don't see any proselytsing for Putin, merely what it is like to live in Russia and the various benefits citizens get from the state compared to Taiwan. Interestingly, though, Moses' main discussion seems to be with Dragonman, a poster who in one thread gets his history entirely wrong. He writes - "Taiwan (officially the Republic of China according to my passport) is not under the same pressure from the Mainland as Donetsk is under pressure from Ukraine. Like Donetsk, however, parts of the ROC were under bombing from the Mainland for years - look up the attacks on Quemoy and Matsu known as the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises (the second was in 1958). Despite the claims of the PRC, it has never ruled Taiwan and the so-called "One China Consensus" is a lie. Until 1971 the Republic of China was a member of the UN and held a Security Council seat." He is certainly correct that after Mao took over China Taiwan was frequently attacked by the People's Republic. But his suggestion that China has never ruled Taiwan is nonsense. Naturally he will argue that he does not mention China - only the PRC and the Republic of China. But if he bothered to look into history, it is clear that at the 1943 Cairo Declaration with Roosevelt and Churchill in attendance and ratified under the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, it was agreed that all Japanese colonies would be returned to their original rulers. Imperial China had ruled Taiwan for almost 250 years prior to the Japanese invasion. It was therefore to a China ruled after the war by the murdering, thieving Chiang Kai-shek who had managed to take over the Kuomintang on the mainland after the death of Sun Yat-sen that Taiwan was returned. After Mao had won the civil war in China, Chiang and 2 million of his followers fled to Taiwan and took the "name" Republic of China with them. But Chiang never intended to remain in Taiwan. His followers committed many atrocities against the native Taiwanese. Probably he did not care because his attention, with the help of his fluent English-speaking Christian wife, Sung Mei-ling, who was particularly popular in Washington, was to reconquer mainland China. When Mao had won th civil war, those in the corridors of power in Washington were horrified. For years the question continued to be posed - "Who lost China?" Even so, Washington continued to recognise Chiang as the legitimate ruler of China, almost exclusively because they wanted a buffer in the South China Sea against a hated communist China - hence his party getting the seat at the UN. Washington also tried to overturn the Cairo and Potsdam agreements at a special Conference held in San Francisco around 1952. Neither Mao nor Chiang were invited. Some countries, notably Britain, were totally against what the US was planning to try to achieve. Britain had no intention of recognising a Taiwan under any sovereignty other than the rulers in Beijing. Chiang retained his vain hopes of returning to take over Beijing until Nixon decided that the US and China would mend fences and become friends in 1971. Chiang died in 1975. The one complicating factor in international law is that at the 1952 Conference when the Japanese officially handed over their colonial territories, they agreed to hand the Taiwan back to China but someone ensured that the document includes the term in use when they colonised it - the Republic of China rather than just China. Yet, when countries change their names, do the sovereign powers automatically change? Of course not! Much as I loathe to repeat it, Taiwan is irrevocably, officially and almost certainly in international law, a part of mainland China.

I also agree there seems quite a difference between the two sites. Sawatdee is definitely more Pattaya-centric. With respect I think that is just not true. So what if the owner of that board lives in Moscow? He took over the Board when it seemed it would bound to close. The owner, Moses, has been particularly helpful to both this Board and gaybuttonthai when each has had technical issues. Although i don't often read either much, I do look at them occasionally and I doubt it gaybuttonthai would exist without Moses' considerable help. As for sawatdee having a Putin bias, I doubt if any of the members of that site would agree. And I wonder where you got the idea that some posters stopped contributing for that particular reason? Again, I find that extremely difficult to believe - where is the proof? From what i see, Moses makes almost no contributions, so how can the Board have a Putin bias?

If that video rams home one point it is how disastrous the effects of covid and the tourism decline has been on the ordinary Thais who were barely able to scrape by without their usual sources of income. As for as those heading the tourism drive, without 16+ million Chinese tourists they probably have no alternative but to try and attract high spenders. Without them the industry and the economy as a whole has no chance of getting back to where it was in 2019. Then again Thais rarely admit they are wrong and so they will push on with the high-end tourism drive until either it's a success or they quietly and without publicity open the doors to far more lower-end tourists and backpackers. But the tourism industry is not doing itself much good the way prices for items like hotel rooms have been hiked. Hotels are never going to get back to anything near capacity when prices for many have been jacked up by 100%. We were thinking of a short staycation just in Bangkok. For August the price of the hotel we stayed in for a long week-end in February is now about 120% of the earlier rate we paid. To raise all prices and not have a menu of different prices to suit different budgets seems counter intuitive. The much smaller numbers of high-end tourists will pay for higher end rooms. So why not have a smallish number at lower rates? We've just abandoned our staycation

A little anecdote about the perfectly lovely Luang Prabang. I was there in 2003 and stayed in a newly opened small guest house on the banks of the Mekong run by a Lao who had spent many years sudying and working in Australia. I adored the short trip. One afternoon, I returned to the guest house to be told by the owner that I had just missed Mick Jagger sitting having a coffee with his daughter by the river. The Rolling Stones had had a concert in Mumbai cancelled and so Jagger had flown to Bangkok where he chartered a Bangkok Airways plane to visit Luang Prabang. The owner had actually met Jagger in Australia. He had often worked as a security guard at large-scale pop concerts. While on duty at a Stones Sydney concert, at one point Jagger went up to him, asked about his nationality and if he could get some marijuana. No problem said the Lao. I have a friend in the Embassy and he will get some sent down in the diplomatic bag overnight. Jagger recalled the unusual event and spent about 20 minutes withe the guest house owner. And I missed it!!!

I always wonder why so many people - even hotels - use the term "high tea" when it should be "afternoon tea". High tea is a totally separate meal that always includes one cooked dish and is generally taken around 6:00 pm. That said, i agree afternoon tea in the Mandarin-Oriental's Author's Lounge is a wonderully extravagant experience. But check beforehand if it will actually be served in the Lounge as that is frequently booked up for weddings. The last time I was there, afternoon tea was being served in the lobby. But the thread is about Sunday brunch. I have no hesitation of nominating the Sukhothai on Sathorn. It offers so much and an amazing variety you really should starve for days beforehand. But like all hotel Sunday brunches, it is really expensive. I also dislike the live jazz offered in many hotel Sunday bruch offerings. On the few occasions I go for Sunday brunch, I hate live music. I go with friends and want to chat without having to shout!

I did- twice. I saw one who looked Asian but was from Ecuador. Apart from the one identified as coming from indonesia there was one other not identified who could have been Asia. But no idea if he could be first or second generation Asian living in a South American country.

Anyone planning to fly from Heathrow over the summer should be aware that in addition to the cancellation of flights by carriers, Heathrow has informed airlines that it will fly a maximum of 100,000 passengers per day until Spetember 11. It has also advised airlines to stop selling seats for the peak season. This is in addition to the thousands of flights already withdrawn from the schedules. In summer 2019 Heathrow was handling around 125,000 passngers daily. One of those hardest hit will be Emirates even though it owns its own ground-handling and catering services. It flies 6 daily A380s from Heathrow to Dubai and is therefore able to get many more passengers out of the airport that those operating much smaller aircraft. That airline has slammed Heathrow for its inabiility to gear up as some of the airlilnes have done. Ridicuously it was given just 36 hours to comply wth capacity restrictions. When I go back to the UK, thankfully I elect to use smaller airports far from London. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/14/heathrow-emirates-airmageddon-summer-flights-disruption

What on earth is this 'contest'? It seems geared almost exclusively to guys from Central and South America. As far as I can see, no candidates from Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, India and so many other countries. It seems similar to a couple of other 'contests' mentioned in this forum over the years - and they were pretty dodgy in terms of their titles matching the nationalities of the contestants. Interestingly, at least to me, winners of the much older Mister International in recent years included guys from England, India, Denmark, Columbia, Ireland, Spain and Brazil. Mistra-International only started in 2016 - but why so few candidates from around the world?

I have in the past railed against parts of the so-called democratic system as practised in the USA. Let me now redress the blaance a little by looking at the present disastrous situation that exists in the UK. For those who do not know much about the UK policial system, it is largely dependent on a series of constituencies, each of which eoects a Member of Parliament. Although there are more than two parties at Westminster, as in the USA there are two dominant ones - the Conservatives (often called the Tories) and Labour. Members of Parliament are elected on a first past the post system. So it can happen that the governing party has a minority of all votes cast. The outgoing Prime Minster Boris Johnson frequently boasted about he had created his party's large majority at the last election. If he were being truthful, he would admit that less than 30% of the electorate actually voted for that party. There was a very perceptive article in the Sunday edition of the Observer newspaper. Titled "The lesson from Johnson's tenure - British politics needs dragging into the 21st century", John Harris writes of the country's various crises - "One of our crises goes back centuries. The UK’s structures of government are based around an antiquated and centralised state, much of which was built during the distant days of empire, and that now barely functions. Swollen Whitehall departments cannot possibly do what ministers and civil servants claim. The Houses of Parliament are a shabby symbol of institutional decay. Thanks to the continued existence of the House of Lords, our legislators include a Russian-British newspaper proprietor, Ian Botham and 92 hereditary peers. And the way we elect the Commons is a creaking joke: the 'personal mandate' Johnson recently cited to try to keep himself in office amounted to the support of less than 30% of the electorate. "Worse still, there is a deep, symbiotic connection between the institutions of Westminster and Whitehall and the structures of privilege centred on a handful of private schools, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Together, they have churned out people trained in the arcane ways of the establishment and how to network their way into power, but who usually turn out to be dangerous bullshitters and chancers. Johnson, obviously, was all this incarnate: once he had got to the top of a system that grants prime ministers mind-boggling levels of power, he could trample over constitutional conventions, push through legislation nullifying basic civil rights, and champion the breaking of international law . . . "Drastically altering our systems of power – and, via radical thinking about private education and Oxbridge, breaking up ancient networks of privilege and influence – would open the way to changes that would start to pull us out of our endless malaise: a huge housing drive, a basic income, security both within and without work, the kind of moves towards a closer relationship with Europe that the stupidities of current politics rule out. It would also quash the chances of another entitled would-be Tory autocrat wheedling their way into power. This is surely the lesson of the past three torrid years – that if Johnson’s time in power demonstrates one thing beyond question, it is the fact that British politics has to finally leave the 20th century." Johnson had been widely reviled virtually before he became Prime Minister. Like Trump in the USA whom he often resembles, he has lied, cheated, been beset by scandal, broken his own government's covid isolation rules, not once but several times, and was felled by his major character flaws. He is the first Prime Minster in history to have been fined by the police whilst in office. Two of his party members had recently to resign in disgrace, one for sexual offences against a teenage boy and another for watching porn on his mobile phone in parliament. Johnson was also caught changing his story on the way he handled allegations of sexual misconduct by a senior member of his government. Long seen as a redeemer, his own party has now dropped him like a stone. It was unfortunate for the UK that his Labour party opponent in the last general election was regarded as weak and unelectable because of his strong left-wing and other less than savoury views. Inmore countries, democracy without strong democratic institutions seems in serious danger of becoming close to some form of autocracy. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/10/lesson-boris-johnson-british-politics-21st-century-democracy

Fortunately this did not have the result of the tyre blowout on the ill-fated Air France Concorde. From the position of that gaping hole, it is clear the tyre issue was not on take-off for I cannot see how rubber could have been blown around the side of that large aircraft and then created an inward puncture. And since both Emirates and a passenger stated the incident occurred during the cruise level, something must have happened in the wheel well. Odd, though, how that had enough force to puncture the outer skin but not tear a hole in the lower deck.

I don't think anyone wants to know more. Put it to bed!

Earlier @kjun12 sugested that this thread might be reposted to the Cambodia forum. This was shot down and the post ws deleted. However, @Min has made so many excellent points about Phnom Penh and Vietnam, might the moderstor consider linking this topic in the Cambodia and Vietnam fora?

While this site may seem purely based on sex hookups for money either in the bars or on the apps, the fact is there are lots of guys in Thailand perfectly happy to meet up for sex without a cash payment - other perhaps than money for transport in Bangkok. It is after all a very spread out city. The problem for tourists visiting for a short time is that it is less easy to find these boys. Most will be either studying or working and so not always avaiable. But around the turn of the century there certainly used to be an internet site primarily for Thai boys looking for hook ups with absolutely no mention of or requirement for a cash transaction. Much of it was in English. I know, because I met a few guys from that site. I cannot now recall the site name, but i am sure it no longer exists, at least in English. There may well be one in Thai for Thai guys looking for Thai company.

Sorry @kjun12 I just don't agree. There is a very good search engine. Anyone wanting information particularly about Pattaya can get most of it by merely typing in Pattaya. Besides, many posters are visitors who, on the basis on a number of posts in recent months, wish to visit more than one location. Having to fiddle between two or more threads is basically a waste of time. The other issue is: where does a split like this end? Should the Board spit Europe into specific desintations. In recent months there have been threads about Barcelona, Istanbul, Salzburg, Prague, Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Spain, Portugal, Vienna, Brno, London, Lison and Rome. These have had more than 75k views. Should they all be separated, perhaps just into countries? Granted, the gaythailand forum is the most heavily read. On the other hand, the European Men & Destinations forum has many more 'reads' than the those for Gay Bangkok, Gay Pattaya and Gay Chiang Mai businesses put together. Since these cover a lot of information about bars and ther gay venues, is there a need for yet more forums?

I'm not sure now what the regulation is re heavily peopled places like th Skytrain and MRT. The Skytrain still has notices that masks must be worn at all times in the Skytrain system. Yet the other day I was on a near packed train on the Sukhumvit Line. Everyone that I could see was wearing masks except three burly tourists all of whom were speaking German. Sure they had masks, but they had them around their throats. When Thais see tourists getting away with flouting the Skytrain rules, I wonder how long it will be before local residents start taking off masks.

Ron Howard seems to love real life stories now. Problem is: he's not very good at it! His bio movie about the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti was a sham puff piece that revealed only what the financiers wanted seen. Not surprising given that these included his recording and video companies and his second wife. Pavarotti was a great singer with a great personality, but he was a pain in the neck for many. As early as 1989 the Chicago Lyric Opera banned him from future appearances because he had cancelled 26 of 41 scheduled performances, most at the last minute. I had friends who paid almost $2,000 to see his Farewell performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera. There's an excellent and amusing book titled "The King and I" written by the manager who made him a world star and whom he fired after 36 years. Almost every chapter starts with a phrase similar to "Luciano Pavarotti was the greatest singer the world has seen - but . . ."

I must have flown well over 2 million miles on CX and like the biz class product. But the rules for mileage tickets were changed a couple of years ago. Since I am not going to London but another UK city that is served by QR, I now would have to use one set of miles for one ticket BKK/HKG, another for BKK/LHR and then a third from LHR to my final destination. This would be a complete waste of the first and third sector miles since short distance flights proportionately require many more miles. I could of course purchase economy tickets for those two sectors, but that would set me back around 18,000 baht plus the extra charges for going through Heathrow on QR. That plus the hassle of two plane changes make the whole route not worth it.

The headline may be a little over the top, but the fact that Boris Johnson's government has had 40 resignations and the sacking of another all virtually in the last 24 hours is the worst in British history. Many have occupied the most senior cabinet posts in government. It is a truly damning indictment of the man and his leadership. Yet there were more than a few who realised at the outset that this is almost precisely how a Johnson administration would bite the dust. Indeed, I am reminded of what I wrote on this Board some years ago when Johnson was running for the position of Prime Minister. Earlier in his career he had been a journalist for the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper. His highly respected editor at the time, Max Hastings, wrote on June 24 2019 about the prospect of his becoming PM in what was a disastrous article for Johnson but one whose predictions, rather as those of the witches at the start of Shakespeare's Scottish play which we cannot name, have come spectacularly to fruition. Hastings wrote - "I have known Johnson since the 1980s, when I edited the Daily Telegraph and he was our flamboyant Brussels correspondent. I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification . . . We can’t predict what a Johnson government will do, because its prospective leader has not got around to thinking about this. But his premiership will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability. "Dignity still matters in public office, and Johnson will never have it. Yet his graver vice is cowardice, reflected in a willingness to tell any audience, whatever he thinks most likely to please, heedless of the inevitability of its contradiction an hour later. "Like many showy personalities, he is of weak character . . . Johnson would not recognise truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade. In a commonplace book the other day, I came across an observation made in 1750 by a contemporary savant, Bishop Berkeley: 'It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.' Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him." Johnson clearly cannot survive more than a few days - a week or two at most. Like the character in Shakespeare's Scottish play, his elevation will prove to have been his undoing. No doubt thereafter as he ponders what had happened to him, he will think of himself as another Shakesperean king whose weaknesses resulted in his downfall - "I am more sinn'd against the sinning." (King Lear Act 3, Sc. 2)

Anyone done any checking on mileage tickets from/to BKK to/from UK recently? My miles are always put into the Cathay Pacific programme, Asia Miles, which also includes Qatar Airlines. 3 weeks ago I tried to book a biz class mileage ticket on QR to the UK and back for next March. When told nothing on my preferred flights, I gave the operator a selection of other dates. Again nothing available. Merely to check, I then asked for any flight to Doha during a two week period. Although there are scheduled to be more than 50 flights during this period (and all QR flights seem to be operating), allegedly not one flight had even one biz class seat available. I found this totally unbelievable. Asia Miles could provide no explanation. But I do recall that when Qantas used to service BKK as a stop on its London/Sydney route, it had a policy of mileage tickets only being avaiable first to its loyalty members until about 6 months prior to flights. When then made available to others, there were never any seats avaiable. Anyone had a similar experience with QR 9 months in advance?