PeterRS

It's interesting - at least to me - that there seems a desire to swing back and forth when it comes to electing Popes. I mentioned six in an earlier post. John XXIII, John Paul 1 and Francis were all reformers and pastors. The successors of the first two were the conservatives Paul VI and John Paul II. Had there not been a reaction to Francis due to his time in Argentina, he would probably have followed John Paul II. Instead, the arch-conservative Benedict XVI who had vast Vatican experience topped the poll on he 4th ballot. I have also read that in past conclaves the Cardinals preferred older men who would not occupy the Chair of St. Peter for too many years. So will they want another John Paul II who ruled for 24 years? On the other hand, surely some of them must have at the forefront of their thinking the horrendous sexual abuse scandals all of which occurred under older Popes? A younger Pope might just finally come to some resolution that gets this matter put to bed (sic) in some way.

Cathay's connecting times have always been good - on paper. And to be fair, they have always worked for me. But when I went to Europe last month via HKG I was on the last flight out of BKK with a 65-minute conection to the last flight to LHR where I had an internal UK connection on BA. The CX inter-line minimum connecting time is 50-minutes. Fortunately I have Flight Radar on my phone. Throughout the entire month of January I noticed that that last flight was ON AVERAGE 1 hour and 8 minutes late in departing BKK. Sometimes the flight times were shorter and it might just have been possible to make the transfer. But as I knew, incoming flights at HKG are now almost always routed on to the new 3rd runway which is a good 15-20 minute taxi to your gate depending on where it is located. It was perfectly clear that had I been flying that month on average I would have missed the london flight most days, had to spend the night at the airport, be put on the 08:30 flight the next morning if it had seats available and then spend a lot of cash on a new full fare UK flight. As I was on a mileage ticket, getting CX to put me on an earlier flight out of BKK was near impossible. They said they could change me to the 06:30 morning flight with a wait of around 13 hours for the London flight. When I rejected that, they said they always held last flights to accommodate late incoming connections. Persistence finally paid off and thanks to an understanding supervisor they put me on one departing BKK at 17:45. As for holding flights, the flight ex-HKG to London pushed back from the gate exactly on time! In future for long haul, I will always allow considerably more than that 50-minute minimum.

An absolute disgrace!

I felt it was forced. On the other hand it was an interesting twist given the Church's views on women. But having a cardinal "in pectore" suddenly turn up for a concave could not happen in the Catholic Church. Cardinals only have the privileges of Cardinals once they are openly declared as such. Having a Cardinal with a diocese such as Afghanistan was also stretching credibility too far.

A more lighthearted thread. Can you list the five movies that you consider your favourites? And with just one sentence for each to explain why? I know most such lists are for a minimum of 10 or 20, but it seems more fun just to make the limit five. But you can also add what I term a "sleeper" - a movie that most may not have seen but which has a special meaning for you. My list: Psycho I saw this as a teenager and it was the first movie during which I jumped out of my seat at least three times and almost screamed. Lawrence of Arabia David Lean’s masterpiece epic in my view, better than Dr Zhivago and far better than Passage to India and Ryan’s Daughter. The Go-Between I loved this movie with its various intertwining themes of innocent and not so innocent love, the haves and the have nots, the searing heat of an unusual English summer and the hopes for a brilliant new century soon to be dashed and affect many of the participants. Victor Victoria Have loved this movie ever since I first saw it on a Garuda flight from Bali to Hong Kong, the unaccustomed versatility of Julie Andrews partnering a perfectly magical performance by Robert Preston and the whole gloriously funny souffle masterminded by Andrew's husband, Blake Edwards. Schindler’s List In my view Spielberg’s masterpiece which I saw in a packed small cinema in Tokyo along with 100 or so young Japanese, every one of whom was in tears at the end. My Sleeper: The Egoist I choose this brilliant 2022 Japanese gay movie I saw in Bangkok’s Sam Yan cinema complex last year. Friends had told me about it but I was not prepared for the excellence of its performances, its raw intimate scenes, its heartbreaking pain and the emotions it stirred. The full movie with English subtitles is available on the internet. This is a very brief trailer -

Does any other image better represent Pope Francis' view on Donald Trump? Notice the distance between the two as well as the facial expressions! Photo: Evan Vucci: Pool/AP

Ha! I recall that John XXIII, as Archbishop of Venice, entered the conclave joyfully certain there was no chance of his becoming Pope! But that conclave was allegedly deadlocked and he emerged as a compromise candidate. He aways cut a very jolly figure! Was Cardinal Montini also a compromise candidate when he succeeded John XXIII as Pope Paul VI? Although there were a lot of top people in the Church who actively disliked the reforms John XXIII was pushing through especially in calling the Second Vatican Council, it was thought that Montini would continue them. I believe he did to a certain extent, but he had always been a solitary figure and as his papacy continued, he withdrew more into himself. He became much reviled for his encyclical Humanae Vitae in which he affirmed the Church's condemnation of artificial birth control. Yet he was unable, it seems, to shake off allegations of homosexuality. Although he condemned non-marital sexual relations, the French author Roger Peyrefitte (whose touching book "Special Friendships" about the deep love of two young boys at a Catholic boarding school really first awoke my interest in being gay) wrote about Paul VI's homosexuality in two of his books and later in an interview in a French magazine. Professor Franco Bellegradi, a Vatican insider, had alleged that Cardinal Montini had not only had homosexual affairs whilst serving in Milan, he had a lover who was an actor, Paolo Carlini, and it was because that lover had the first name Paul that he chose Paul for his Papacy. Although as Paul VI he called the allegations "horrible and slanderous insinuations", they later surfaced twice (the latest in 2006) that the Pope had been blackmailed to promote other gay men into positions of power in the Vatican. This is one of the allegations to come out of the VatiLeaks Affair, a report commissioned by Benedict XVI and presented to him in 2013, of the existence of a cabal of homosexual power brokers within the Curia. It has even been alleged in a Vanity Fair article that this was one of the reasons for Benedict XVI resigning. That long article is fascinating and I append it below. But back to 1978. When the allegations surfaced publicly the Prime Minister Aldo Moro, one of the Pope's closest friends, had been asked to intervene to help stop the rumours. It so happened I was in Rome in May 1978 meeting with a good friend who lived in Italy. We were to be having a very simple dinner at a restaurant on the outskirts of the city where my friend knew the owner, Angela. On the bus we noticed a lot of police sirens, and these continued througout our lovely meal. At the end, Angela refused to accept any payment. All she would say was, "This is a terribly sad day for Italy!" Moro had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades 55 days earlier. The evening we were about to have dinner, Moro's bullet-riddled body had been found in the trunk of a car. Although the Pope was ill, it is thought the death of this close friend hastened his end. He died just three months later in August. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/12/gay-clergy-catholic-church-vatican

I have never been for massages in Taipei although I have heard the masseurs are mostly extremely good. Also heard that you are unlikely to get anything more than an HJ at the end. But best to hear from those who have been.

Although @Tomtravel's post is almost 6 months old, it's perhaps useful to repeat that this hot spring is certainly the most popular with gay guys. I always go on my 3 or 4 annual visits. On my last in February, the steam in the steam room was permanently on, thereby making it very hot and quite difficult to indulge in any touching or more. This is not a sex venue but some of the guys there will happily chat in English and it can be a good way of arranging later hook-ups even if you do not speak Mandarin. Remember too that as this is a public hot spring, you may very occasionally see some guys bringing their little children. Then discretion is important. Note that it is rarely called Emperor Spa. It's Chinese name is Huang Tzu as on this card - If you have never been before, i do not recommend being adventurous the first time and trying to find your own way. I always take the subway to Shipai station. Once downstairs exit in the direction the train is taking. As soon as you pass the ticket barrier, on your right will be a taxi rank. Show the taxi this card and the driver will know exactly where to take you. He will stop at a small car park. You then just walk down the little hill past several other hot springs. Huang Tzu is the last on your left before you reach a little bridge across a stream. The taxi fare is now around NT$180 (US$5.50). The rank can sometimes be empty, but usually one will appear within a few minutes. If you take one of the buses up the hill, depending on the time of day you might not find others getting off at your exit (bus fare is NT$30). So you could find yourself getting off way too early in which case you still have to climb a steep hill, or too late. The bus stop is outside the built-up area and pretty dark. I'd show the driver the card and expect he'll tell you when to get off. (I'm sure @Tomtravel is correct in pointing out the stop is Xingyi Rd. 4, but I have never done it!) There are several buses that go up past the springs, but the only one I have taken is #508 for returning. Entrance fee was still NT$250 last February. Remember that you will need 2-NT$20 coins for the locker. Also remember to take a half litre or so of water with you as there is none for sale there and keep it out of your locker - and a small towel. Almost no one uses the towel in the hot spring area which is basically only naked bodies. It's for drying yourself off before you leave. All the hot springs are in quite a deep valley off the main road. My biggest problem is always getting back up to that road in order to get the bus back down to the MRT station. At reception there is a telephone link to a cab company, but they do not speak any English. Finding a cruising cab is usually impossible. A couple of times, guys have kindly given me a lift on their motorcycles. Other times, I just bite the bullet and walk up. OK in the cooler November - April months; a real trial in summer! Can't wait for my next trip in 4 weeks.

Krakow is the country's second argest city with a population now of around 800.000 and so there are understandably more than a few gay guys. I was only in the city for two days but there was at least one gay bar which I visited. Cruising near the Jagiellonian and other universities with your gaydar on is bound to render some results. I did not use the apps then, but I am certain, as @bkkmfj2648 points out, that there will be quite a few to be found there.

Shanghai has two airports. The one in Pudong is large and relatively new having been opened only around 25 years ago. The much older Hongqiao airport bascially handles domestic flights with just a few international routes. I have flown into and out of Pudong aiport many times and agree it is boring but I have never had to transfer there. One benefit is that it is served by the Maglev train into part of the city. The ride takes only 8 minutes and I have photos of it travelling at 425 kph. Unfortunately the plans to extend the line into the centre of the city remain in limbo but there is an easy transfer to the subway. China Airlines through Beijing's wonderful 6-year old massive Daxing Airport might be better bet. Or China Southern Airlines through Guangzhou. Hainan used to get great reviews for its flights from America, but it went through bankruptcy proceedings in 2021 and I have no idea what its service and connections are like now.

Reading articles about the Pope's death and possible successors, even though Francis had appointed so many new cardinals, it seems he fought the all-powerful Curia for most of his Papacy. He was also someone who frequently made his own decisions without extensive consultations. That might mean there is no group sufficiently loyal to the late Pope strong enough to counter the power of the Curia. Newsweek states that the betting favourite at 3:1 is presently Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of The Philippines. He was a trusted member of Francis' inner circle and aged 67 he will have time on his side to continue Francis' reforms. As an aside, I recall that when I first arrived in Hong Kong, the head of the Church in The Phlippines was Cardinal Sin! https://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-dead-papal-conclave-frontrunners-2035569

Providing seat plans for scrapped aircraft is not really pertinent to the point made by @reader since no one flying will check seats without knowing or makign sure of the aircraft type! Although you did not provide any example to illustrate the benefits of AeroLopa over Seatguru, I note that both sites provide the new BA biz class seating for the airline's A350-1000s. Both also include the 777 version with Cathay Pacific's Aria Suites. That said, I do prefer AeroLopa's easier to read seat plans. Much obviously depends on those reading the sites and how detailed they wish to delve into aircraft types and seating. And as stated earlier, unfortunately, everyone can be subject to last-minute aircraft changes. This can be a big problem for those seated at the front of an aircraft, most of whom have to pay a considerable amount of cash for a specific seat. That happened to me last year on Qatar. Having been allocated a Q Suite months in advance, I got an sms a few days before flight to say that the aircraft had changed to a 777 and my seat to one on the middle aisle. How I solved that cash problem would take too long to explain! 😁

This is a particularly sad day. I am not a Catholic but i believe Pope Francis was a force for good in our world bedeviled by wars, dictators, self-interested narcissists and all manner of other madness. I recall seeing the excellent movie "The Two Popes" some years ago when it had been suggested that many cardinals wanted Francis, the name he chose, to succeed John Paul II. I believe one reason for concern at the time was the role he had played in the troubles in Argentina. What a huge pity that the world was saddled with the ultra-reactionary Benedict instead of the pastoral Francis! May this most recent Pope rest in peace, and may his Church realise that a return to ultra-conservatism in the choice of his successor would be a dreadful move. Our world desperately needs another Francis, John Paul 1 or John XXIII - and definitely not a Paul VI, John Paul II or Benedict XVI.

Xiamen Airlines has returned a new Boeing 737Max aircraft to the USA in part retaliation for the tariff hikes. Boeing has an aircraft completion factory in Zhoushan where it carries out final work on the 737Max prior to delivery. Boeing's CEO told a Senate hearing just before the tariffs were introduced that the company sold about 80% of its planes overseas. It has been reported that China has asked Chinese airines to pause purchases of airline-related equipment and parts from American companies. Look at the Zhoushan factory site and it estimates that China will need 7,240 new aircraft over the next 20 years. I'd imagine the last thing Boeing wants it to have that factory idle! Over to you Trump! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/21/china-returns-boeing-737-jet-us-too-expensive-tariffs

SInce these are quite complicated charts to go through, seatguru can also give you exact seating layouts for each aircraft in each airline just by clicking on the airline here - https://www.seatguru.com/browseairlines/browseairlines.php Click alphabetically to get the airline you are interested in and you get a ist of their different aircraft types and seat layouts (this below is for Finnair and you get the precise layout - subject to @Keithambrose earlier comment about their occasionally not being fully up to date.) Then click on the aircraft type and you get the seat layout - this image is too long and so I only include the front half of the plane - The problem comes with major airines which may have 15 or more different aircraft types - including 4 or 5 different types of, say, a 777. Then you just have to check with the airline. But the airlines always have an out. They can change aircraft types for any reason and you as the passenger have virtually no control over reseating, especially if you are at the back of the plane.

So why all the questions about other countries over many months?

I wonder why @Olddaddy asks so many questions - and then chickens out of doing anything after others have posted suggestions. So a quesion for @Olddaddy - why not just go somewhere and find out? And then tell us about your experience. Travelling around Asia is not expensive (uness you always want stay at hotels like the Capella in Bangkok!) There are tops everywhere!

@Olddaddy is seeking the cheapest money boys, yet happily flies business class. Try economy and then you can give the boys larger fees. 🤣

Slightly off opic, I have been to Warsaw a couple of times. Never had much success. But had a great time some years ago in Krakow. The famous Jagiellonian University is based there and there seemed a lot of willing students. Lots of sightseeing from the city centre to the Jewish quarter and the Katyn Memorial marking the massacre of almost 22,000 Poles by the Soviet Union acting on Stalin's orders, now classed as a crime against humanity.

I fully agree with you! My only excuse is that I have been wonderfully fortunate to have had business class travel as part of my employment packages - except for one case where I was permitted first class intercontinental travel. After 40 years with all the comforts near the front (when not a few of my holiday travels were 'paid for' with free miles), it gets rather difficult to sit at the back of the plane on long trips. But I do take the cheapest economy tickets now for my trips to Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

For centuries, the English - and initially most of the upper classes - sent their children as young as 6 away to be educated at private boarding schools. These, it was believed, taught self reliance, independence and provided an excellent education which state schools could come nowhere near. Above all it provided the beginning of what was believed to be success in life. That belief followed the English colonists to the boundaries of the world. Beliefs! Where would we be without them? Only as each of us grows up most of us simply absorb the beliefs of our parents and their generation. In out later teens as we go out into the world and learn new facts, we may rebel against them. But they are almost always there subconsciously rooted at the back of our minds. And almost inevitably they affect our new forming belief system. There is a hugely perceptive article in today's UK Observer that almost for the first time dispels this myth. By taking young children away from parental love, boarding school actually destroys many parts of a child's psyche. Essentially the article and accompanying film comes to the rather fightening conclusion. Could the world's present state of wars and disasters be partly a result of some of the world's business and political leaders being psycholoigically traumatised by their boarding school experiences? That may sound far fetched, but the article follows seven former boarding school pupils and discovers that each has had often quite major issues adjusting to their lives afer school. Typical of the comments - "There wasn’t time for soft interpersonal skills, like negotiation. It was obey the rules, or be damned . . . Everything was geared up to strip you of your identity." "In my time boarding there were no incidents of sexual abuse, sadly plenty have those experiences. For me and many others, it was the abandonment, bullying and neglect, without being able to leave and rest, that left its mark. Psychotherapist Joy Schaverien identified the ABCD of Boarding School Syndrome: abandonment, bereavement, captivity and dissociation. Growing up in an institution without love, appropriate touch, surrounded by strangers – not all of whom are benign – sets you up for a life disconnected from your full emotional range. This is almost universal in my experience of speaking to hundreds of ex-boarders" Of two former Prime Ministers of the UK, "Take David Cameron. He described being sent to boarding school at seven as 'brutal and bizarre' and recalled 'frequent beatings'. He lost a stone in weight during a single term. Tony Blair tried to run away aged 14, making his way to Newcastle airport in a bid to escape. There are so many of these stories. Charles Spencer, brother of Lady Diana, made a huge impact when he wrote of his horrendous time. Last month, Winston’s Churchill’s grandson spoke out." "It was rarely aggressive and violent. Often, it was invisible. And there was no break or reprieve; no time to find comfort from family or community beyond the gates who understood what I was going through. I couldn’t make friends outside school – I had no chance to find my people. I was totally disconnected and alone." Even if you do not wish to read the long article, do watch the second link, a short trailer for the movie "Boarding on Insanity". Realise, too, that it was not simply the English who were sent away from families to boarding schools. Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zukerberg, Reid Hoffman founder of Linked In, King Abdullah of Jordan, Sheik Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani the Emir of Qatar, the former dictator the Shah of Iran . . . the list goes on and on. In the film, Professor Joy Shavarien writes, "Boarding school syndrome is a symptom of serious psychological distress." Plenty of families are dysfunctional in one or more of many ways. Were boarding schools any different? And could the boading school eperience affect the way our lives have been governed and affected in various ways? The answer appears to be a very definite "YES". https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/20/breaking-our-spirits-was-the-plan-the-lifelong-impact-of-having-gone-to-boarding-school

That Vorayuth Yoovidhya remains at large after mowing down and killing a traffic cop while doing around 200kph along Sukhumvit at 5:00 in the morning in his posh car with drugs and alcohol in his system is a scandal the government and the police cannot - and should not be allowed - to live down. I believe some senior officials have been removed from posts and one or two others jailed. But this chapter of known deception - yes it was deception! - on the part of the authorities remains a frightful disgrace on the Thai Justice system. How they were allegedly unable to track down this criminal when sightings of him all over the world had appeared, even several times here in Thailand, is an indication of the stench of corruption in high places. And the pittance they offered the young policeman's widow was massively degrading on the mega-rich family. If ever there was a case where money talked louder than justice, this is it. I believe the latest word is that the statute of limitations has passed. Well, in my understanding, partliament can change laws. In this case it very definitely should. That man deserves to spend much of his life in jail!

I watched the film. I had a sense of foreboding from the start for I knew that what we eventually learn at the end has happened before - albeit in some cases worse. In the late 1970s/1980s the Pagsanjan Falls about 100 kms from Manila was a notorious place in The Philippines where pedophiles not only congregated, they were for the most part welcomed. They brought money to a very poor neighbourhood. Worst of all parents would openly sell their young underage children for sex for what to the foreigners was peanuts. This was well known and quite widely spoken about when I spent occasional long-week-ends relaxing at Manila's Philippine Plaza Hotel. Eventually the authorities put an end to this dreadful practice, but I do not recall when that was. I visited Nepal twice, once in November 1980 and again in November 2009. Each trip was for six days, three in Kathmandu seeing both the city and two of the main cities in the Kathmandhu Valley, Bhaktapur and Patan; and three in Pokhara where I wanted to see dawn break over the nearby almighty Annapurna Range. I had no interest in anything other than sightseeing. That was quite superb, especially the view of dawn over those extraordinary mountains, although whereas Pokara had been a small town with a hotel and some guest houses like the one I stayed at in 1980, by 2009 it had grown humungously into a city of over half a million. I cannot claim to have noticed any seeming relationships between foreigners and Nepalese, but then I was not looking for them! Certainly Nepal is desperately poor, and the situation must have become far worse ouside the cities following the two mega-earthquakes in 2015 - one in April estimated at more than 7.8 on the Richter scale and a second just 3 weeks later later measuring 7.3. I realise these occurred 8 or 9 years after that documentary film. but hundreds of thousands outside the main cities were made homeless and the destruction in the cities was extensive. Much of Kathmandhu's historic Durbar Square was all but destroyed. I imagine many of the homeless youths found their way to Kathmandhu in search of work. Why the Irish poet in that film was permitted without penalty to start unregistered charities to help Nepalese without any supervision is, I suppose, extraordinary. But we know that there are scamers everywhere and this would be up to the Irish government to handle. What is certain is that there will be other foreigners out to help young Nepalese - allegedly - but with sex as part of the deal. After all, it is known that Nepal was the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. With the age of consent being just 16, no doubt some of the backpackers of previous decades have been replaced by sex tourists. And this is such a shame for the Nepalese are a lovely. friendly peoples and they live in an extraordinarily beautiful country.

Very little, although the return flight leaves Hong Kong just before 10:00 pm. After a full day working in Hong Kong, after dinner with a drink or two on board it was sometimes wonderfully relaxing just to put the seat back and relax for an hour or so before starting the descent.