PeterRS

If the boy has come from an agency, the chance of his stealng from you is zero. If through the apps, perhaps 1% at most. Like most cities, you have to beware of pickpockets but theft generally is very uncommon in Japan. I read somewhere that the most likely items to be stolen are umbrellas left at the entrance to restaurants - and that is mostly because someone picks up the wrong umbrella!

Assuming that perhaps the customer had purchased a bottle of whisky and was sharing that with the boys, that scenario happened back in the days of Solid Bar, a small unassuming bar down from the Mango Tree Restaurant with no shows but very willing mostly twink-type guys. It never had many customers but I used to go occasionally with a friend on a Sunday after a nice dinner somewhere close by. One evening we entered to find the five cutest boys sitting sharing a bottle of Scotch with a farang. All were smoking, despite the fact there were three large "no smoking" signs on the walls. My friend and I were pissed off that he had the cutest boys at his table, but more that all were smoking. As @vinapu has pointed out elsewhere, audacity is my middle name. So I went over to ask very politely if those at that table refrain from smoking. Without any seeming bad feeling, they all stubbed out their cigarettes. A few minutes later the farang came over to our table. I was slightly apprehensive that we were about to enter a verbal sparring match, but no. He merely politely pointed out that he was the co-owner of the bar. If, he said, he enforced the law about no smoking in bars, he would be out of business. Fair point, and I did not bother to ask why he had the five best-looking guys at his table. Solid was never a popular bar which was a shame as some of the boys were fun to spend time with. Even allowing for smoking, it closed after about three years or so.

True, but the problem with mushrooms is they usually have quite a strong flavour. So putting them aside only gets rid of part of the problem. How did you know my second name?

It very definitely does. If you happen to be an art lover with just a few millions in your bank accounts, paying professional art thieves to steal a certain work of art or series of such works is peanuts. A few people enjoy having a masterpiece somewhere in their homes just to enjoy looking at it. It is not necessarily just paintings. Among the most valuable objects d'art ever made were the 57 now near priceless Easter Eggs by the jeweller Faberge for the Tsars of Russia. One was given each Easter by the Tsar to his wife until the last Tsar who had two made each year, one of which was for his mother. After the Russian Revolution, many art treasures were sold off by the new communist government at near knock-down prices. The Eggs ended up in various hands, including the British Royal family, but most by entrepreneurs like Malcolm Forbes and oil gazillionaire Armand Hammer, the latter owning 14. I recall on my first visit to New York in 1978 I went to the headquarters of the Forbes businesses where the nine Eggs he had purchased were displayed in individual niches in the lobby which anyone could visit. These were purchased by a Russian squilionaire and returned to Russia in 2004. 15 can now be viewed in a relatively new Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, and others in the Kremlin Museum. But 6 remain unaccounted for including the 1886 Egg. Someone no doubt has them! The Eggs were not just beutifully fashioned oval eggs bedecked by jewellery. Each had something even more exquisit inside. Below are two of the Eggs. This is a photo of five of the missing Eggs.

It can also happen when the young man is not an escort. I wrote some years ago about getting to know a handsome waiter in one of the city's best Italian restaurants not far from my apartment. I was a guest of a client, I hasten to add. The waiter was 24, spoke good English and I chatted with him on several visits. Eventually I summoned up the courage to ask if he would like to see a popular entertainment event which was visiting Bangkok a couple of months later. He surprised me by agreeing. In the meantime, since that restaurant also had a very reasonably priced set-lunch menu, I had gone two or three times with gay friends. So I was certain the waiter was aware I am gay. Anyway, we went to see the show which he loved and then to a nice hotel bar for drinks and snacks during which I invited him to come and stay if he ever had a late function at the restaurant. Not sure if he himself might be gay since he always acted more like a straight guy, I stressed I had a large sofa which turns into a bed. He began to come round several times and each time stayed the night. One was on his birthday in December 2007. When I learned he would not be having a party, I bought a nice cake and candles. He was so happy and happily I still have these photos. A couple of times, he knocked on my bedroom door and asked if he could sleep with me. Silly question!! But it was all very vanilla and I still had the impression he was more straight than gay. Our evenings together were mostly spent on the sofa chatting and joking. Over many months he became a very good friend and I just loved being in his company. After about six months, he said he wanted to work overseas. The popular Bangkok Mango Tree restaurant was opening a branch in Dubai and offered him a job. I checked the contract for him and made some suggestions. For the first few months, he loved it. We were exchanging messages virtually every two days and he described his excitement at being outside Thailand. After four months, though, it was obvious the attraction of Dubai had worn off and he wanted to come home. So even though he'd be breaking the contract, I happily purchased an air ticket for him. After another three months, he decided he wanted to see more of the world and had been offered a job with a major cruise company sailing the Baltic. I tried to dissuade him, reminding him that housekeeping on cruise lines is a 7-day a week job. He would have to wait months before he got a few weeks off. But he insisted and so off he went. With emails expensive on these ships, he would write to me when he had a few hours off at the ports he was visiting. A few days before his month off, he contacted me, told me when he'd be returning and hoped he could stay with me. When he arrived at BKK, he called to say he'd first go to his home town in Issarn to see his family. He gave me the date he'd be arriving in Bangkok. And that was the last I ever heard from him! I wrote him several emails. I was concerned that maybe he'd been in an accident. I even told him that if he had perhaps got married, I'd still love to hear from him. Or even if he now had a gay lover. My mind went through all possible reasons. My emails all went through, but I never received a reply. I knew a couple of his friends in Bangkok. They told me they did not know where he was - but I had long since realised not to trust what a Thai tells me, the more so when it concerns a fellow Thai. And so there the story ends. I'd known him for almost two years and we had become extremely friendly for about 18 months. I have a horrible feeling that he might have somehow died on that trip home. But who knows? I will never find out. As @durian points out in his earlier post, it is the not knowing that is the "monster".

From what I understand, the people that steal rare paintings have no desire to profit from them. They may be middle-men for the mega-rich art lovers who hang them in concealed galleries in their mansions and then sit and view them from time to time. Perhaps in the fullness of time, one of their accomplices may claim to have found it and reutrn it for a big reward. But that is generally rare. You are probably too young to remember the first James Bond movie, Dr No. The year before the film came out, a famous portrait by Goya of The Duke of Wellington was stolen from the National Gallery in London. It was eventually returned four yers later - but as you can see in the clip below, it featured in the movie as James Bond does a double-take on seeing it.

We clearly share the same dislike of mushrooms. Many years ago I was bumped up to first class on a fight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. All four main dishes had mushrooms! And then back in business class for the Hong Kong/Bangkok sector, once again all three main courses had mushrooms. I wrote to CX but cannot recall their reply. Seems that vegetables are frequently added to chicken and cashew nut dishes, something to do with bringing out flavour. I can recall occasionally having some onion and very few red or green peppers. But I do not recall mushrooms and would ask the waiter that they not be added.

Good news. Elon Musks's SpaceX Starlink has finally agreed to cut its services to more than 2,500 satellite links identified as being used by the scam operators in Myanmar.

Known as puerperal fever, this was a common cause of death after childbirth if you go even further back than a century. Two of Henry VIII's wives Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr and a host of other well-known women thereafter died a as result shortly after giving birth. Sources indicate that from the 17th to 19th centuries most such cases resuled from the doctors themselves through lack of handwashing when germs on the hands were not understood. Early in the 19th century various doctors in different countries, including a Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, realised that childbirths at home had far fewer instances and linked washing hands with a particular solution significantly reducing deaths in hospitals. This theory was roundly condemned by the medical fraternity of the day, yet Semmelweiss reduced deaths in his Vienna clinic from 20% to 2%. So ridiculed was he that he suffered a breakdown and ended his life in a mental institution. By the 1930s and the development of antibiotics, deaths became much more rare. I only became aware of this, partly as a result of coming from a medical family, but also seeing a movie in the 1960s that dealt with this subject. I have tried to locate its name on search engines but without success.

The possible presence of boys on Epstein's Island came to the fore after the recent very sudden sacking of the UK's Ambassador to Washington, Lord Mandelson, after less than 10 months in the post. As just plain Peter Mandelson, he was a fixer for Tony Blair when he became Prime Minister in 1997. Claimed on the BBC webste as a typical behind the scenes fixer, schmoozer and schemer, he earned the title the "Prince of Darkness". Three tmes he was booted out of the government. Three times he bounced back. Now openly gay having been outed in 1999, Mandelson had an easy ability to hobnob with the rich and powerful. As one former colleague told the BBC, "He has weaknesses. He likes the high life. A lifestyle he can't afford." One he met was Epstein prior to his first arrest and he continued that association long after he served that sentence. Photos have appeared of Mandelson on Epstein's private island. Epstein also paid for some of his private travel and he also used Epstein's private jet. In the infamous birthday book, Mandelson's long comments spread over two pages end, "wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!" Appointing him Ambassador to the USA was a huge error on the part of the present Prime Minister, the more so when Mandelson had called Trump "reckless and a danger to the world." As the UK political establishment expressed astonishment, he was then appointed as Ambassador. Why would a notably gay high flier like Mandelson be on an island full of young women unless there were some gay men for him to play with?

I think you mean Oui! LOL

Some are filmed near windows and you easily can see the Mahanakhon Building.

The first time I tried to give someone in Japan a tip, they recoiled as though I was a snake trying to bite them! The Japan economy is certainly not good at present. Like many countries it is not only suffering from high inflation but also a huge national debt. Wage growth is also quite weak. If there is a problem for the boys who work in the agencies it must be that their regular Japanese clientele who surely make up a huge percentage of their income are not visiting as often. And although international tourism is up with more than 21 million visitors in the first half of the year - way ahead of the pre-covid high,, the main increase in visitors has been from China, Taiwan and South Korea. My guess is there are not as many clients for the escort agencies than from the declining traditional markets like many Europe countries, Australia, the USA, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. This is perhaps really surprising given that the ¥ is at near historic lows - at least over the past four decades. Today it is at ¥151 = US$1. At the start of the 1980s it was around ¥250 to US$1. As a result of pressure from the Reagan administration it entered the 1990s closer to ¥120. It even went as high as ¥76 in the early 2011s. I can only guess that the quite substantial increase in the cost of air tickets since the pandemic has prevented those from traditional markets being prepared to fly the long distance to Japan.

I was not sure whether this should be under "Art" or here. But given the amount of PR the heist has achieved, I think it is appropriate here. As we know, thieves broke into the Louvre on Sunday and stole a fortune in jewellery. Not just any old pieces, either. These were to all intents and purposes the royal jewels of France. Just eight pieces, but of almost incalculable value. One crown is set with 2i2 pearls and 3,000 diamonds! The gallery from which the French crown jewels were stolen on Sunday The general public seems to love art heists. They are crimes that involve huge sums of money and usually no one gets hurt. There is a fascination about the lowly art thief who overcomes the latest security measures to steal works of art that are often so unique they can not be sold - other than to private collectors to view in the privacy of their massively expensive mansions. What makes the Louvre heist noteworthy is twofold. First the Louvre which must be one of the most secure store of art treasures in the world, housing as it does a host of unimaginably pricelss art like Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.But secondly, art heists from major museums and galleries are not really that uncommon. The Mona Lisa itself was stolen in 1911. It reappeared two years ater in Perugia in Italy. The Mona Lisa on its return to Paris - Photo Reuters Almost annually since then, museums and galleries have updated their security systems to ensure the safety of their treasures. Yet in 1964 lax security enabled thieves to get away with a bagload of precious gems from New York's National Museum of History, including one of the world's largest sapphires, the Star of India. Most seem to have been recovered but one, the Eagle Diamand, has never been found. Called the largest theft in history, in 1990 two men dressed as police officers walked into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and walked off with art treasures then valued at US$500 million. None of the 13 stolen works has ever been recovered, and these include a rare Vermeer and three Rembrandts. The Vermeer remains the most valuable stolen painting in the world. Today only 34 works by Vermeer exist, compared to 74 attributed to him in 1866. The 2023 Vermeer Exhibition in Amsterdam drew 650,000 visitors, the largest ever attendance for an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. The Concert by Vermeer: the world's most valuable lost painting - Wikipedia Better known, perhaps, is the case of two men who walked into the National Museum in Oslo in 1994 and in less than a minute walked off with the nation's best-known painting, "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. They clearly had a sense of humour as they left in the painting's frame a note, "A thousand thanks for your poor security!" The painting was recovered there months later There have been other relatively small thefts. One of the larger ones was at the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 2010. A man known previously as the "Spider-Man" got into the gallery without setting off any alarms and stole five masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Léger. None has ever been found. Then in Dresden, thieves used explosives around the Green Vault Museum in 2019 and made off with US$100 million in jewels. Several pieces were damaged in the raid and three have never been recovered. Just released this week is a movie The Mastermind about art thefts and a man tasked with finding lost artworks. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20251016-the-reason-art-heists-exploded-in-the-1970s

I have just been reading the latest story on this crash which appears in news.com.au. If the map issued by the HK Airport Authority is anywhere near accurate, this story is a load of garbage! It suggests that the 747 failed to stop "at the end of the runway" (it was less than half way down as shown in the photos), hit the ground vehicle and ended up in the sea. It is perfectly obvious it veered off the runway before it reached any of the turn-off taxi ways. This implies a fault with the aircraft or its pilots as they must have been aware that the turn-off points were on their right but the aircraft veered left. There is no left turn off taxi-way! But that is speculation and we must wait for the initial inquiry results.

Good of you, but this is the first time I have heard of tips being requested by boys from the escort bars, Years ago I even had a tip rejected - not because it was too small (I was quite a good tipper) but it is absolutely not the custom in Japan to tip. I wonder if western habits have started to creep into these bars.

How absolutely dreadful! Desperately sad even though he had reached the age of 84 especially for the manner of his tragic death. It's not jjust the Pattaya gay community who have lost a voice and a dear friend, it is Thailand. He is virtually irreplaceable. May he rest in eternal peace.

The authorities have now confirmed the ground vehicle was not on the runway but on the harbour road. It was hit by the 747 as it collided with the harbour wall into the sea and both in the vehicle were drowned.

Lots of the boys in the March CMU vdos are bottoms. The one probem I find with the vdos is that they are all mostly very similar in content. Cute guys but usually boring vids. It seems some, if not all, are filmed in Bangkok.

At the media conference, the airport authorities have stated that the arcraft was given correct constructions for landing. The BBC website reports that the ground vehicle was not on the runway when the accident happened. It has posted this map of the crash site. I believe that where is states "runway exit" is incorrect. It is a runway entrance and you can see that from the angle at which it enters the runway. The first of several runway exits is a little further down. Since the plane was carrying no cargo when it landed, it would have been relatively light and might have been making for that first exit. I have no idea where the ground vehicle was located when hit by the 747. But I have landed three times on this runway and there is a road track by the harbour wall not marked on this map. The airport authorities have said the vehicle struck by the 747 was outside the runway fence. It must therefore have been on that track close to the harbour wall. The biggest problem for the airport now will be its cargo operations. It has a massive cargo throughput and that third runway handles a lot of cargo traffic. Reduced to two runways will put a stress on the airport until that runway is operational again.

Wasn't there another weekly column in the Bangkok Post until at least 2000 with info on bars? That column did occasionally mention the gay gogo scene and give news about the gay scene in general?

Hong Kong's International Airport was built by vastly expanding a small island to the north of the largest island of Lantau. It has been virtually accident-free apart from one incident during the start of a mild typhoon in August 1999 when a China Airlines MD11 crashed on landing after a wing tip touched the ground and the aircraft turned 180 degrees and slid on its back. Despite the small fire which broke out and most passengers being stuck upside down by their seat belts, as a result of the heavy rain and quick response of emergency teams everyone except for three passengers got out of that wreck alive. That evening I happened to be in the Cathay Pacific lounge as I was about to fly to Bangkok to finalise the deal to purchase my apartment. I could not work out why everyone had suddenly rushed to the windows! But with the airport then closing, taxis suddenly became like gold and getting back to my apartment in monsoon rain took around 6 hours insted of the usual 90 minutes.. At 03:50 this morning the airport suffered its second fatal accident when an Emirates cargo 747 wet-leased to ACT Airlines crashed into the sea. This happened on the new 3rd runway. That runway is now closed. Thankfully it is some way away from the original two runways and so airport operations should only be mildly affected. Allegedly the aircraft hit a vehicle on the ground which resulted in the accident and two members of the ground staff were killed. . This split the plane in two. Why a ground vehicle was on an active runway will no doubt be the subject of an urgent enquiry. The airport authority is due to give a media conference at 09:00 Bangkok time. The scene is vaguely similar to a 1993 incident at the old Kai Tak airport. A notoriously difficult airport for landings from the west which necessitated a 90 degree turn just before touch down, a China Airlines (same airline) 747-400 got its turn slightly wrong, landed too far down the runway and fell into the sea at the end. mercifully no-ne was injured, although the new 747 was badly damaged.

Many thanks. I know I will. I usually go four times a year. Some time you really should visit at the time of the Taipei Gay Pride Parade on the last Saturday in October. It's always a great fun week-end with around 200,000 mostly young Asians atteding the march and then parties at various bars and clubs. You may already have seen this earlier post -

So glad that you enjoyed one of my favourite haunts about which I have written several posts. I guess you didn't notice - or know about - the mostly nude gay beach not far from Tamsui. Were you charged the extortionate entry price for non-Taiwanese at Soi13In? (Well, extortionate is perhaps overstating it, although others have mentioned this). NT$1,000 (US$32) rather than the NT$300 for Taiwanese is a bit of a hike, but then when it is packed with lots of mostly young guys it can be near paradise! I believe the best time for arriving on weekdays is around 6:30 - 7:00pm. Entry to the other larger spa when I was last there in June, Hans Mens Sauna hear the Red House, was NT$400 for everyone, but the clientele is generally older. I'm returning to Taipei in just over two weeks. Can't wait!

No help, sorry. The nearest I got to Palermo was Catania about 200 kms away. Long time ago met a delightful guy when I was visiting the wonderful Roman amphitheatre. We started chatting (thankfully he spoke some English and was looking for company) and ended up having a wonderful time. Pure luck! Great view of Mt. Etna against the evening sun.