PeterRS

Sunday marks the 21st anniversary of the horrific crash of an Air France supersonic Concorde just after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Not only were all 109 people on the aircraft killed, four employees of the hotel close to the airport also died. Arguably the most important result of the accident was that it created doubt about the integrity of the aircraft and its future. After all, Concorde had entered commercial service 25 years earlier, used 1950s and 60s technology, had a limited range mostly to the east coast of the United States and required an immense amount of increasingly expensive fuel. I have had a strange fascination with aircraft crashes ever since a Turkish Air DC10 crashed outside Paris in early 1974. I had known someone on that flight. She had been booked on a British European Airways flight to London that was cancelled due to a strike. Since the Turkish plane was usually pretty empty for its last sector, most of the BEA passengers were transferred on to the DC10. The aft cargo door had been badly designed and then badly closed by a ground handler in Paris. As the aircraft pressurised, the door was blown open, the floor of the passenger cabin collapsed and severed hydraulic lines. It crashed into a wood with the loss of 346 lives. Thereafter there was the dreadful series of errors that led to the collision of two 747s at Tenerife, the loss of a DC10 just after take-off at O’Hare when the left engine flew off, the Japan Airlines 747 which crashed into the woods following the aft bulkhead being blown out and taking the tail with it – the result of faulty maintenance 7 years earlier. But the crash the whole world remembers is surely that of the Air France Concorde. Although I only had one Concorde flight, I loved the entire experience. That and the AF crash have remained in my mind, the more so when I believe, as others appear to do, that the official French Accident Report contained major flaws, intent on ensuring as little blame as possible fell on then government-owned AF. Within minutes the crash became the subject of intense speculation. Even today, there remain several important unanswered questions. But let me start with a brief description of events. I apologise for the length but it is really not possible to explain even some of what happened without going into considerable detail. Background AF4590 had been chartered by a German tour company. The mostly German passengers would first fly to Paris where they would transfer to the Concorde lounge prior to a flight to New York. Once there they would be taken in coaches to a cruise terminal where they were to join a long cruise to the Caribbean and beyond starting that evening. The incoming flight from Dusseldorf was about 30 minutes late. Although this was not in itself an issue, any further major delay might create a problem in New York where their cruise liner had a specific departure time. But a last-minute technical fault was discovered on Concorde which had to be fixed. That resulted in yet another 30 – 40 minute delay. After the luggage and the passengers were on board, the aircraft taxied to the take-off runway. The captain started the take-off roll at 4:42pm local time. At some point roughly two thirds down the runway, air traffic control noticed heavy flames coming from the left side of the aircraft close to the No. 1 and No. 2 engines. Immediately the controller alerted the flight crew. They were then faced with two possibilities. The first was to abort take-off. But since the aircraft had already passed V1 - the point at which there would be no more runway left for a safe abort – the captain had no choice but to get the aircraft into the air. As was discovered by the official BEA Report, had take-off been aborted, it would have crashed through the end of the runway at approx. 78 knots. Given the fire at the back of the plane and all its 17 fuel tanks brimming with fuel, the resultant fireball would have killed everyone. The second was to get into the air and then find a way of getting back to a runway with emergency services as quickly as possible. As footage taken from the cabin of a truck passing near the airport shows, the Concorde never climbed higher than 60 meters. The pilots discussed going around to land back at Charles de Gaulle. ”No time” said the captain. They decided to try and land at the nearby Le Bourget airport. Within seconds, the same “no time” was repeated. Seconds later the aircraft became unflyable, pitched up and banked heavily to the left. It crashed into a nearby hotel. Photo:BEA/IGN/Fleximage The Official French Accident Report According to the January 2002 Report by the French Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA), the crash had a single cause. Concorde ran over a narrow strip of metal as it was about half way down the runway. This shredded the first inner tyre of the left-side undercarriage (each side had four wheels – two in front and two behind). A section of rubber was hurled at massive speed towards one of the 17 fuel tanks mounted in Concorde’s wings. These had been fuelled to the brim on the captain’s orders instead of, as was normal practice, leaving some air in each tank. The rubber did not puncture tank No. 5, but it set off a hydrodynamic surge inside that resulted in a shockwave and extreme pressure on the walls of the tank. With no air to absorb the shock, very quickly the fuel ruptured the tank outwards at its weakest point. The fuel quickly ignited. Concorde Fuel Tank Layout: BEA Report As a result, Engine No. 2 suffered an engine surge which reduced its efficiency. Around the same time, a similar surge resulted in a loss of efficiency in Engine No. 1. This required the captain to compensate for a leftwards droop. However, both engines quickly recovered, only for No. 2 to suffer a second surge during take off. Engines 3 and 4 operated normally. At the same time, the crew was unable to reduce drag when they could not retract the landing gear. Thus the aircraft suffered from insufficient power and a leftward yaw. The Metal Strip After investigating flights which had taken off prior to the Concorde, it was discovered that the strip came from a part of the engine cowling of a DC10 belonging to Continental Airlines. This had been replaced during a regular service in Houston on 9 July. But the mechanic had not replaced it with the part as specified in the maintenance manual. This required a steel strip to be affixed by a series of screws. Instead, the mechanic used a strip made mostly of titanium. Since the screw holes did not match, he drilled new holes. To further ensure the integrity of the new part, he glued it with a red glue prior to inserting the screws. It was this red glue on the strip found on the Paris runway that identified it as having come from the Continental flight. Over the next two weeks, the strip began to come loose, finally dropping off as the DC10 took-off from Paris. Alternative Theories I recall seeing a television documentary maybe two years or so after the crash which brought out a series of other causes which are either not included in the BEA Report or are dismissed as not material. I cannot find that particular video. But most of its conclusions were included in an investigation by The Observer newspaper and reported on 13 May 2001. It is important to realise that this news Report takes into account the views of seven Concorde pilots, six from BA and 1 from Air France, and one AF engineer, all with vast experience in flying the plane. One, John Hutchinson, had been piloting Concorde for 15 years. Their views are therefore more than important in trying to find the reasons for the crash. (I call this group the Expert Panel - EP). Delay in Departure Because the incoming flight from Dusseldorf had been delayed and the technical problem on the Concorde then had to be fixed, it was around 90 minutes behind schedule. Had it taken off even 10 minutes earlier, that Continental DC10 would likely still be at its gate and there would be no metal strip on the runway. Weight of the Aircraft The Observer EP agreed – as does the BEA Report – that the Concorde was overweight. 19 bags of luggage weighing 500 kgs had been added at the last minute and were not on the manifest that had been given to the cockpit crew. Although the baggage crew did not wish to load them, the captain ordered them to do so. With no room in the forward hold, they were crammed into the back hold. Earlier the captain had asked for extra fuel to be added beyond the usual limit for New York flights. Thus, this Concorde ended up six tonnes overweight. Flying just a tonne over maximum structural weight was theoretically illegal. With the addition of so much weight at the back, the plane’s centre of gravity had shifted “dangerously” towards the rear. The captain was pushing to the extreme the limits of safe flying as identified by the aircraft’s test pilots prior to the aircraft entering passenger service. Weather Between the time of their flight briefing and positioning the aircraft at the end of the runway, there had been a change from virtually no wind to an eight-knot wind. Instead of facing this wind, the captain had the wind behind him. That was a crucial error and as Hutchinson says ”an incredible revelation”. The captain now needed even more runway before he could get his aircraft into the air. Many Concorde pilots had found themselves in a similar situation. On those occasions they had insisted on taxiing back to take off from the other end of the runway to be against the wind. “They were already at the limits of the envelope. Once the wind changed, they were beyond it,” says Hutchinson Runway Inspection It was protocol at CFG airport for there always to be a full runway inspection prior to every Concorde departure. This was important because unlike conventional aircraft whose wing flaps and leading edge slats help to progressively reduce the weight of an aircraft as it speeds down the runway and the wings start to do their work, Concorde’s delta-shaped wings resulted in its extremely heavy weight remaining a constant until actually airborne. The stresses on its landing gear were therefore unusually severe. It was vital that any runway debris be cleared. Yet prior to the Concorde take-off roll on this afternoon, there had been no runway inspection. The Air France 747 As Concorde started its take-off roll, there was an AF Boeing 747 which had just arrived from Tokyo waiting on a taxi-way to the left of the runway and about three quarters of the way down. One of the passengers was the President of France returning from a G7 meeting. The pilots of the Concorde would have been well aware of this VVIP passenger. Also on that flight was a Japanese tourist who happened to have purchased an instant camera from a vending machine at the airport in Tokyo. The 747 captain had advised his passengers that a Concorde was about to take off. The Japanese had his camera at the ready. He had no idea his photo of Concorde taking off with a ball of fire behind it, would find its way on to the cover of many magazines around the world. Although lacking clarity, this photo shows that the source of the fire is not an engine but is located somewhere closer to the centre of the doomed aircraft. Concorde was veering to the left and getting close to the grass at the side of the runway. The co-pilot is then heard shouting, “Watch out!” No explanation has ever been put forward for this exclamation. The EP team believes it was to remind the captain that on its present track Concorde would come dangerously close to that 747. Also, if even one of its wheels was to hit the grass, the undercarriage would have been ripped off, Concorde would have flipped over and almost certainly ended up engulfing both planes in a fireball. In fact, the Concorde was even closer to the 747 than anyone believed. As it took off way left, the 747 captain would later say it soared above his stationary plane by less than 30 feet. It should have been nowhere near the 747. Another issue raised by the pilot of that 747 was his claim that there was smoke coming from the back of the Concorde before it reached the metal strip. This could have been a result of the wheels on the left undercarriage rubbing against each other. The Landing Gear Spacer Both BA and AF had very strict regulations for their ground crews when any work on the Concorde was required. One regular maintenance requirement was the time when various load-bearing components would have to be replaced. Given the stresses on the undercarriage, the “spacers” were one such component. These keep the two sets of tyres on each side of the landing gear in place to ensure there is always a fixed space between them. They are only 5 inches in diameter and 12 inches long. When this Concorde had had certain parts replaced a week prior to the accident, the mechanics had failed to replace the spacer in the left undercarriage. The aircraft then flew twice to and from New York. Each time it took off and the landing gear retracted, without the spacer two of the left wheels got closer to the other two. By 25 July there had been movement of about seven inches. As a result the ten wheels in the full undercarriage were out of alignment. The spacer was later discovered in the Air France Concorde workshop. As those on the EP claim, when Concorde started its take off roll it would have felt a little like a supermarket trolley with a slightly wobbly wheel. They further claim that the acceleration of the Concorde was slower than normal from the start as though something was holding the aircraft back. They suggest this was a result of friction from the undercarriage. Without that friction, they believe the plane should have taken off 1,694 meters from the start of the runway – before it had reached the metal strip. Take Off With the undercarriage out of alignment, it was inevitable that Concorde would veer to the left. The captain could only correct this to a certain extent by using the rudder. The EP believe that as this was happening, it hit a landing light. It adds this was rather like trying to take off in an exceptionally heavy cross-wind, a situation all Concorde pilots were trained to avoid at all costs. Should the captain have aborted take-off before reaching V1 to have this leftward movement checked? Almost certainly, yes. But he would have been aware of the resultant long delay and the relatively tight deadline for the passengers on arriving in New York. Might this have persuaded him that an abort was out of the question? We do not and cannot know. The BEA Report rejects this theory, suggesting instead that the leftward movement was a result of the failure of the engine, even though it accepts that the wheels were out of alignment. The EP then suggests that with the aircraft beyond V1 and veering very close to the grass on the left, the captain had no choice but to take off, even though he will have known he was well below the required 220-knot airspeed. Good Engine Shut Down after Take-off Having been told about the fire and as the aircraft had just left the ground, the two right engines were working as normal, the left side No. 2 was occasionally surging and the No. 1 also subject to surging. The flight engineer then inexplicably shut down the No. 2 engine. All experts agree this was a “disastrous mistake”. Only the captain can order an engine shut down. The engine was not on fire and standard engine fire procedures further mandated no engine should be shut down below 400 feet. As John Hutchinson says, “Discipline had broken down. The captain doesn’t know what’s happening; the co-pilot doesn’t know; it's a shambles. Once you deviate from procedures, it’s chaos.” Law Suits While acknowledging some of the above, the Final BEA Report all but dismissed them and placed the entire blame on Continental Airlines. This was perhaps inevitable. Air France and its insurers were facing a huge compensation bill. It had already offered each victim US$1 million. If their lawyers were to proceed with an action in New York, as was their right, this would be peanuts. Air France was initially successful in 2010 when a French Court ruled that Continental had been wholly responsible for manslaughter in respect of the crash. Continental was ordered to pay 70% of the damages to victims. But two years later a French Appeals Court overruled that judgement. Instead it ordered Continental to make a payment of around one million Euros to AF as civil damages. Conclusion John Hutchison believes the fire on its own should have been “eminently survivable: the pilot should have been able to fly himself out of trouble” as the fuel from that one tank would eventually have burned itself out. But the captain had broken rules one more time by giving an instruction to the engineer prior to take off to open Tank 11 by the tail so that it fed into Tank 5. This would ensure a constant supply of fuel to Tank 5 and help move the centre of gravity forward. But the effect was to make it impossible for him to fly himself out of trouble. Hutchinson believes the crash that resulted was a lethal combination of operational errors mostly by the cockpit crew and ‘negligence’ by the maintenance department of AF. 'Discipline had broken down, “says Hutchinson. Chillingly, he adds, “Most of the contributing factors were avoidable.” Sources https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/13/davidrose.focus BEA Accident Report - https://www.bea.aero/uploads/tx_elydbrapports/f-sc000725a.pdf Later TV Documentary by Captain Hutchinson About 15 years or so after the EP Report, this video was made of John Hutchinson in the captain’s seat of a Concorde. He explains in greater detail and with additional information, particularly about the Concorde being overweight, the distribution of the weight and the state of the runway. It is very clear from what he says that the AF captain, AF ground crew and AF maintenance were very much the primary causes of the accident.

Given the global extent of the pandemic and the spread of the Delta variant I wonder how easy it will be to get insurance for covid19. Those holding annual medical policies with worldwide or near worldwide cover may already find they are covered. I checked and my plan does cover the pandemic. Renewals of annual travel policies may also provide cover, although the one I used to have for several years had a pandemic exclusion clause. I wonder how many new policies will actually include cover and what the deductible will be in a pandemic. Merely curious.

I sometimes wonder who is to blame in such situations. If I as an individual post information about myself on Grindr or some other app, especially if there are photos or other information that could pinpoint me as the poster, I do not expect that to be kept a secret in this day and age. We have all seen plenty of examples where so called private information is revealed to others. There was one very similar situation 2 or 3 years back. Now 54, David Daniels was one of the finest opera singers in the world, having appeared in virtually all the major opera houses. He was a counter tenor with that high mostly developed falsetto range that has been coming back into fashion over the last 40 or so years, particularly in performance of barque operas. The US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had officiated when he married his partner. A tenured Professor of Vocal Studies at the University of Michigan, he was caught on one of the apps like Grindr where he had met up with several students who had each been asked to give him blow jobs for which they'd be paid something like $200. Sexual hook-ups with students is a no-no at almost all Universities. He was placed on Administrative leave. Soon he was being accused of drugging and raping of a young man whilst he was in Houston for a performance. That case is going to Court. Last year the University fired him. For anyone who does not know the counter tenor voice or David Daniels this is a short clip from a recording session about 10 years ago. A huge talent now all but destroyed, almost certainly through no one's fault but his own.

I wonder why? I doubt if any expat male could get into that dress. Maybe he likes the boys to dress up occasionally!

The "beginning" of the negotiation?? This third wave started in early April and was becoming serious in May. Why has the government sat on its collective ass and done nothing for more than two months? Oh, I forgot. "We have tried our hardest." When this government finally gets is comeuppance, I suspect that will be written on its gravestone.

This seems another case of bureaucratic madness. China already has 11 massive dams on its part of the Mekong river. According to a Bloomberg article in April last year, the effect of these dams is now being felt very seriously down stream in Laos and Cambodia. Although it refers primarily to China blocking water from flowing downstream, given the seemingly cavalier attitude of China to its neighbours, what if it suddenly let out a large amount of water which found its way to this new dam north of Luang Prabang? Could it withstand the increased pressure? What if this coincided with a period of massive flooding as seen recently in other countries, notably Germany? Luang Prabang is one of Asia's most beautiful old cities. It should be protected at all costs, not put a risk. "China considers water management data to be a state secret, and, barring new evidence, it has always been difficult to reach defensible conclusions about China’s management water levels in the Mekong River. That is, until this month, when remarkable new data became public. It shines a dramatic light on how much water China’s upstream dams have blocked—even as downstream countries suffered through unprecedented drought. "Every year, the Mekong River rises and falls in cycle with the rainy season, when a massive pulse of water driven by monsoon rains and Himalayan snow melt flows downstream. Yet along the Thai-Lao border between June and November of last year the mainstream of the Mekong ran dry, the river bed and shoals were exposed, and isolated pools of flopping fish were unable to reach their spawning grounds. "That July, as the mainstream’s level fell so far that irrigation pumps could not reach it, the Thai government mobilized its army to conduct relief efforts. In the fall, Tonle Sap Lake will typically fill with monsoon waters rushing in from the mainstream for five months, providing Cambodians with up to 70 percent of their protein. Last year, the expansion of the lake, often described as the Mekong’s heartbeat, lasted just five weeks, and reports suggest it produced a fraction of the normal 500,000 tons of food. "Observers, myself included, initially concluded that the abysmally low levels in the mainstream were due to low precipitation in the broad Mekong Basin. An El Niño weather pattern still today leaves most of the region suffering from its worst drought on record. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, millions of people are currently without access to freshwater. But a new study from the U.S-.based climate consultant Eyes on Earth provides us with a different reason: For six months in 2019, China’s dams blocked an unprecedented amount of water from entering the lower Mekong. The amount of water withheld was so large that, for the first time since modern records have been kept, there was no monsoon-driven rise in water levels just over the Chinese border in Chiang Saen, Thailand. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/22/science-shows-chinese-dams-devastating-mekong-river/ Note: Underlining is in the original article. Boldface is my addition.

Just out of curiosity, is there now much of a market for a website named "gaythailand"? I can understand that before the apps took off, domain names could have been extremely valuable. Has it now changed?

Apologies! An honest mistake due to a misunderstanding.

I may also have been less than 100% correct but all reports I have seen state that the first production roll out was on June 2. https://apnews.com/article/thailand-coronavirus-vaccine-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-2bf0cf9f527908b214d32db3092edf89 Other reports indicate the number of doses was below the contracted amount. Yet another report states that 50,000 doses of the AZ vaccine arrived from overseas in February. Another 150,000 doses from overseas were due to arrive in March and April. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2054799/astrazeneca-vaccine-approved-50-000-doses-due-in-february Then AZ itself said on its website on 28 April that the first batches would be ready for delivery "in June this year." https://www.astrazeneca.com/country-sites/thailand/press-release/thai20210428.html I have no idea how long it takes to produce a vaccine. The key issue for me is when it was rolled out as a finished product.

In the last sentence of the first link - immediately following what I wrote. https://london.thaiembassy.org/en/content/thailand-and-uk-signed-a-landmark-agreement-for-co?cate=5d6636c215e39c3bd0006cb5

For years Thailand has mandated a transmission delay of around 5 minutes for news programmes on CNN, BBC World News and presumably other channels. This is to give the censors time to blank screens whenever any issue about Thailand embarrassing to the government is aired. Today, though, the BBC News at 08:00 and 09:00 carried a reasonably long piece on the Bangkok protests yesterday which saw the police use of water canons, rubber bullets and tear gas. The demonstration was to protest the government's disastrous covid19 response and to seek the resignation of the Prime Minister. The rally was held despite the ban on assemblies of more than 5 people in Bangkok. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/2150783/police-fire-water-cannon-rubber-bullets-tear-gas-at-protesters I can't imagine that anyone seeing these scenes will be considering returning for visits to Thailand any time soon.

Damn it! I knew his name began with 'B'

When the deal with Astra Zeneca was first announced by the Thai Embassy in London, the Embassy's official report states, "It is expected that the manufacturing process in Thailand can start within the first quarter in 2021." This did not happen. https://london.thaiembassy.org/en/content/thailand-and-uk-signed-a-landmark-agreement-for-co?cate=5d6636c215e39c3bd0006cb5 A month later the Prime Minister reported that the contract was for the purchase of 26 million doses largely for over 60s. Given that Thailand still had not started its second small wave and had only had 3,961 confirmed cases, being fair this must have seemed a not unreasonable supply at that time. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2026547/thailand-signs-deal-with-astrazeneca-for-covid-vaccine Then in March this year, before the massive third wave and a time when the country had still recorded a total on only 26,500 infections, the Health Ministry announced a delay because there had been reports of blood clots in some European countries. https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/suspension-of-astrazeneca-jab-delays-thailands-planned-vaccination-drive As a result the Prime Minister and his cabinet delayed getting their vaccinations but quickly did so with doses from overseas. Since then, the entire situation has been a disaster. The PM went against all medical advice by allowing Songkran to go ahead with millions travelling around the country. By early June (at the latest) it was announced that the number of doses had been upped to 61 million. Then the local manufacturer of AZ announced production delays. Then just a few days ago it was finally announced that up to 60% of those 61 million doses are earmarked for other countries. The whole process is a disaster, clouded in the usual Thai secrecy and made worse by the ownership of the company which is the local AZ manufacturer - an issue the law does not allow us to discuss in this forum.

And that is surely a big, big problem for Thailand, especially with the local Astra Zeneca manufacturer having once again reduced the supply it was contracted to provide. Instead of 61 million doses by the end of this year, the company needs another 5 months until May before it fulfils its contractual commitment. But even at 61 million doses, that still only vaccinates 30.5 million people - less than half the country. Now the government is panicking and buying up as much Sinovac as it can while a charity is buying Sinopharm. Yet we know from the last few days that some people having had two Sinovac vaccinations now have tested positive for the virus again, including one medical professional who has died. With calls for those given Sinovac to be given a booster shot, the government is yet again in total disarray. Private hospitals are also waiting for approval for the numbers of Moderna vaccine they can purchase with planned commencement of vaccinations in October. i wish that everyone could be vaccinated by the end of the year. With less than 5% presently having been given the required two doses, my gut tells me getting anywhere near 50% by year end will be a massive exercise. Will the gates open in time for the main tourist season in the first six months of next year? My guess is as good as anyone's.

I am sure that is correct. And your overview is excellent. However, whilst there will always be gay men and the apps (and whatever succeeds them) will be there perhaps even in more abundance, I can not agree that change will not happen. It always does. Cities constantly change. But whereas the cities of the world know what made them successful in the past and will want to revert to something like that model, it absolutely does not follow that the commercial gay scene will remain as it was. The foreigner commercial gay scene is just a minuscule speck in the overall economy of Thailand. It's disappearance - or reappearance in an even more reduced form - will do virtually nothing for the overall economy. We know from other posters in this new Gay Guides forum that the commercial gay scenes in some European cities like Prague, Amsterdam and London are nothing like what they used to be some years ago. We know that here in Thailand Chiang Mai was once a gay haven. It certainly was in the mid-1980s and 1990s. But it has been dying for years with more than 50 gay venues of all kinds closed. I remember when Phuket was fun for gay men with lots of great times with the boys from Young Sharks, My Way and other gogo and beer bars. Now Phuket's gay scene is on life support. I remember having good times at gay saunas in Ubon Ratchanthani and Khon Kaen in the early 2000s. Are they still there? Even if they are, how many gay tourists primarily seeking sex venture out that far? As we know from past posts in other threads, there is an entire world of gay bars and places of gay entertainment for Thai gays of which western expats and tourists know nothing. And even if we did know about it, we would not be permitted to enter. So as far as gays not suddenly becoming non-gays, @readeris certainly correct. But this thread is primarily about western tourists. That is a very different kettle of tom yum goong! The fact is that almost all gay tourists will continue to seek happiness in Bangkok and Pattaya. So many of the gay venues have closed over the years and there are fewer and fewer in Bangkok's central tourist area. As mentioned in other threads, land in Bangkok's central area is becoming too expensive. In both cities many bars have closed. Some will hope to reopen eventually, perhaps a new one or two may appear, but others will be closed for good. In my thinking, the essential question that needs to be addressed is less how many will reopen and much more will a flood of new western visitors anxious to visit gay gogo bars, saunas, discos etc. arrive in time to make those who do actually reopen commercially viable? The gay tourist trade will certainly not return overnight. It may take some years before it returns even to 2019 levels. Can it ever return to 2000 levels? No! We know that the supply of western gay tourists has been drying up over the last dozen and more years. We know that the new breed of Asian gay tourist has more or less different ideas of fun compared to the westerners of old (many of whom are indeed now older) for whom gogo bars were vital to enjoyment. I know I will continue to be called a glass half empty type of guy. But I have witnessed the gay scene for four decades. In that time I have seen its steady and continuing decline. The decline is not merely limited to Thailand. Something is happening to change the commercial gay scene in other cities. Quite probably it is due to the rise in the popularity of the apps. In Tokyo we know that the area for gay bars in the Shinjuku-ni-chome area has been significantly reduced and something like a quarter of the bars (mostly those only for Japanese customers) have died. Bars in the next most popular district of Ueno are for Japanese only and so I have no information on that. Within Asia the one gay market that continues to expand is Taipei. Again, though, this is fed almost exclusively by locals and other Asians because westerners rarely consider Taiwan a vacation destination. When @readersays "Count on it", I believe he is correct in one respect. The commercial straight scene with the girlie bars, ping pong shows (do they still have these?) and nearly nude young ladies will still be around and is unlikely to change much. Sadly the commercial gay scene as we all used to know it will continue to decline. What remains will be geared very much to local Thais and Asian tourists.

In the video in my second post there is a short clip from a longer documentary about Visconti's year-long search for the perfect Tadzio. When informed Andrésen is 15 he comments something like "a bit old". In fact he had 'auditioned' Andrésen quite early in the search but decided to wait until he had visited several other countries and seen many hundreds of other boys as possible for the part. This is the Italian Television documentary In Search of Tadzio (subtitles in English) which also includes narration of parts of the text of Mann's novella. There is another long two-part documentary on youtube on the life of Dirk Bogarde who played Aschenbach in the movie. In itself this is also fascinating for it reveals a lot about this very private actor and the 40-year relationship with his "manager", Tony Forwood. Bogarde describes going with Visconti to Los Angeles to show the completed movie to some of its financial backers. At the end of the screening there was nothing but silence. Clearly there was more than a degree of shock at the subject matter (these being the start of the 19070s). To break the silence, one of the finance guys asked Visconti who had composed the music. When told Gustav Mahler, this innocent said, "He's great. Let's sign him up for more movies!"

No! But he was comparing the natural in-built anti-gay feeling amongst the vast majority of Thais – that feeling that renders it extremely difficult for the tens of millions of professional young men and women to come out for fear of discrimination at work and reduced promotion prospects, as just one example - with a similar anti-homophobia amongst the Nazis which quickly resulted in the closure of Berlin's gay venues. The Thai elite want rid of the "sex capital of Asia" sub-text for its country. They usually get what they want! Those of us who just visit Thailand see one small sliver of the country on visits to Bangkok and Pattaya. Of course there are many gay guys in both cities as in the rest of the country. We see just the very few that participate in the commercial gay sex business and are happy doing so. Some have noticed that the gay sex business has changed quite considerably over the years - with an increasing 'few' being replaced quite significantly by those from neighbouring countries. I do not think it is going to cease altogether. But when a gay writer who has lived in the country for close on a quarter of a century, a writer with a vast knowledge of the country and most elements of Thai society considers that the commercial sex industry's days are numbered, I'll take his word for it rather than those of any short time visitor or even expat living here.

Any examples? Is there anything in the book about the gay scene in Bangkok, even fictional?

The claims adjusters clearly got their sums woefully wrong, no doubt lulled into a false sense of security that they could make big profits because when these policies were marketed the numbers of covid cases in Thailand was so low. Perhaps this company did not even bother placing all or part of the risk with the re-insurance giants. Who knows? Forcing it to pay out on legitimate policies is the obvious course of action. But what if a large number of payouts puts it into bankruptcy? Then many policy holders are well and truly f**ked, and no doubt not just those covered against covid. It makes one wonder what might happen with the government insisting on medical insurance from Thai insurance companies for certain retirees. How solid are these companies? Before I took out my Thai policy some years ago I checked with the issuer that they used one of the major international re-insurance companies. That made me feel a lot better about the policy.

The photograph certainly doesn’t tell us much. An old man, his soulful eyes staring forward, wrapped up against the cold walking on the rocks by the sea, his beard and full head of very long white hair draped over his shoulders. He could be anyone in his mid-60s. Could he really have been a movie star, one of the most talked about on the planet? Copyright: MantarayFIlm2021 For those who were not born by about 1960 and so know little of his history, they soon will. For decades this elderly man despised the title “most beautiful boy in the world.” Yet he is happy with a new film and its identical title that will hit the screens at the end of the month. For its subject, that description is now no longer a heavy millstone around his neck. As he tells us in a fascinating article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, back in 1992 he finally got rid of all his demons - his mother’s suicide, the death of a daughter which almost ruined his marriage, the grandmother who brought him up and dispatched him to all manner of auditions single-mindedly determined that her grandson would become a star. A recap. Out of the early morning darkness a steamer slowly emerges from the mist, its single chimney belching out black smoke. On the soundtrack we hear the start of the hauntingly beautiful Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. In a long opening shot, the camera follows the steamer as the sky gently lightens. Eventually the film cuts to a fifty-ish figure sitting wrapped up on deck seemingly unsure of what the he is doing and what the future will bring. Soon we realise he is sailing into the fabled city of Venice. This successful, widowed and disciplined composer whose life has been a constant search for the expression of beauty in music, has lost his muse. He has come to the Lido in Venice to re-find both himself and rediscover that beauty. As the film unfolds, he does indeed find both, but in such an unexpected manner it will so change and unbalance his life that reason abandons him. On a lonely beach in front of his hotel on Venice’s Lido, hideously made-up to appear more youthful, he eases into a deckchair, before him the vision that embodies the beauty he has discovered. He tries to reach forward, but his heart gives out and he slumps on his side. He dies alone in the shimmering heat, dressed in his three-piece white suit, his lips painted red, black hair dye streaking down his cheek as the strains of the lovely Adagietto come to an end. By now, many will have recognised the film as the 1970 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella, Death in Venice, by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti. The lead role of the composer, Gustav von Aschenbach, is played by British actor, Dirk Bogarde. The vision he has seen, that essence of beauty, is in the form of a tall, slim mid-teens beautiful boy with flowing golden hair named Tadzio. When the film was released, many gays had gasped at the sight of the 15-year old Swedish actor, Björn Andrésen. Was it any wonder that Aschenbach was smitten by him? Who wouldn’t be? Copyright: Warner Bros Death in Venice was soon being screened around the world. In Japan, Andrésen was sought after for television commercials and was mobbed almost as the Beatles had been mobbed just a few years earlier. It is claimed that he was one reason why many anime artists changed their depictions of effeminate young men Most assumed Andrésen had to be gay. After all, for years it had been known that Visconti was gay. Within the business, the rumours were that the unmarried Dirk Bogarde was gay (after his death it was revealed he was indeed gay and had a life partner). Most of the crew working on the movie were gay. During the year’s search to find the right actor to play the role, surely Visconti would lean towards a young gay man. In the Thomas Mann original, Tadzio represents merely a Platonic ideal of beauty. Visconti changes that in his movie. He makes Tadzio such a beautiful boy it is as though he has just walked out of a Botticelli painting. Aschenbach clearly looks at Tadzio with an increasingly intense, if initially misunderstood, passion. The camera lingers as he first sees Tadzio join his aristocratic Polish family in the hotel dining room. Eventually, Tadzio looks back at him, the look extending a little too long. Several times during the film Tadzio has a habit of placing one hand on a hip that has just a hint of camp about it. The hints seem just a little too obvious. Eventually Achenbach cannot avoid close contact with the boy when they walk towards each other in the hotel corridor. As they pass, Tadzio turns to the older man. Here and in other scenes there is the faint glimpse of a “come hither” look. After deciding not to leave Venice in the face of a growing cholera epidemic, Aschenbach returns to the hotel. He meets Tadzio again on the beach when the boy is swinging between the poles of an awning. Yet again Visconti has Tadzio pause and look directly, almost knowingly, at Achenbach who in turn cannot draw himself away. But this most beautiful boy was confused when making the movie, for Andrésen was not and never has been gay. He often said that Death in Venice destroyed his film career, so identified had be become as a homosexual youth. He talked of his discomfort at the looks he got from older men when Visconti took him and the film crew to a gay bar. “The waiters at the club made me feel very uncomfortable. They looked at me uncompromisingly as if I was a nice meaty dish.” What would he say if he was to meet Visconti today? He is uncompromising. “Fuck off!” Being immortalised as a beautiful boy was not a blessing, but a curse. "I felt like an exotic animal in a cage," he says. And because it happened so early in his life, it distorted all his experience for years afterwards. After Death in Venice his career as a young actor declined, partly through mismanagement by his agent and perhaps through bad choices. His desire had always been to become a musician. Classically trained when younger he could play a piano concerto when required but rock music was his love. For decades he struggled in a rock band and playing occasional parts on stage. He lived in Stockholm with his wife and daughter, but tragedy dogged him. He lost a child to illness. As a result his happy marriage broke up. Eventually he was reunited with his wife and daughter. In 2003, though, he was particularly incensed when the feminist author Germaine Greer published a book titled The Beautiful Boy with his photo on the front without first obtaining his permission. She had, however, obtained approval from the photographer who owned the copyright. It was as though he was doomed forever to remain “the beautiful boy”. Perhaps surprisingly, Andrésen allowed the directors of the new documentary film to follow him around for six years. As they say in The Guardian interview, “After being a public figure for so long, I think it was nice for him to take back the story of his life. We didn’t want Visconti experts or other talking heads discussing him. I think Björn also liked that we wanted to do a cinematic film, and to do it beautifully, like Death in Venice.” The Most Beautiful Boy in the World opens in UK cinemas on 30 July. Part of the above post includes excerpts from The Guardian article – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jul/15/death-in-venice-screwed-my-life-tragic-visconti-beautiful-boy-bjorn-andresen

That's excellent news as it is a very good book and seemed to get lost only being available mostly in Thailand. I understand Penguin is also printing editions in several European languages. I wonder what the new edition says about gay Bangkok. The first edition compared the development of Bangkok's gay scene to that in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, suggesting it would not last much longer - and he gave reasons.

This is utter madness!

I can understand that view. On the other hand, I think it is important not to think of activism as being related only to one country and one period of time. After he came out I believe he did lose what would have been his first major film role in a Hollywood movie being written by Harold Pinter who had specifically asked for him. The offer was rescinded when he came out. Hollywood still did not like openly gay activists in leading roles! 30 years later he finally received an apology! The fact is he has been an activist for nearly three and a half decades. I believe activists at any time are worthy of praise, rather like Lord John Browne even though he did not come out until he was 60. McKellen has been especially idolised as a gay icon here in Asia, a continent where activism only started much later than in the west. I have never met McKellen, but we had a close mutual friend in New York. Around 1990 Charlie founded an organisation to persuade the world's top artists and musicians to take part in events to raise money for AIDS charities in the USA. Charlie had headed a major artists' agency and so he had a direct line to many of those he requested to help. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS gave Charlie an office and singlehandedly he raised many, many millions for local AIDS charities all over the USA. Much of the fund raising was persuading the rich and famous in each city to host $1,000 a head dinners in their homes at which artists like Renee Fleming, James Galway and ian McKellen would take part and donate their services. Charlie said McKellen could not have been kinder or more willing to help when he was in the USA. But let's not quibble. He may have been blind to what he might have achieved had he come out earlier. But I believe he has rather made up for it since then.

Let me just add that in no way did my reply intend to be against gay activism. Far from it. I admire @msclelovrfor hi activism in the 1970s. Unquestionably that made it a lot easier for me and vast numbers of others eventually to come out. I just believe everyone then had a choice. McKellen made his and I can certainly understand why.