PeterRS

I thought for a moment that you meant I do not have far in terms of age! But you are much too polite for that!

I remember reading some years ago that Thailand is the most censored Asian country after China and Pakistan. In 2011 the government opened a dedicated censorship department covering a variety of issues including a certain family, porn and generally anti-government protests. Yet even a year earlier, in 2010 under the Internal Security Act 74,686 sites had been blocked. Although I can find no figures, I assume the number of blocked porn sites just continues to grow. For those who might not have noticed, international television news like the BBC and CNN is subject to a 5-minute delay. This is to allow censors to pick up and block anything to do wtih - well, we all know what and who. The official reason for so many porn sites being banned, despite increasing protests, is always that they undermine Thailand's traditional cultural and social values. Typical government b/s.

I am sure this is correct, but take away the resident expats (agreed, they are foreigners) and how many visiting tourists ever know about them? A tiny fraction at most is my guess. For example, a quick check using the Search engine comes up with none of those bar/club names. I for one do not recall any being mentioned in these forums (but accept I may just not have noticed - has any visitor?). And if people do not write about them or read about them, how are they to know that tourists are welcome?

The Toronto team has been part of MLB since the mid-1970s. Originally the San Francisco Giants planned to move to Toronto but were stopped from doing so by a court order. Since the League has 15 teams in the east and 15 in the west, when Seatlle was awarded a team, there was a need to balance this with a team in the east. No idea why but the Toronto team got the franchise. Presumably no other team was available! Expediency!

DId anyone mention Trump University, Trump Mortgage, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka (naturally not made in America, MAGA fans please note), the Trump Shuttle (his failed take-over of Eastern Airlines failed venture), GoTrump.com (the attempt to create a travel agency failed after a year), Trump Ice, Trump Fragrances (retailers dropped the line), Trump The Game, Trump Magazine (launched in 1997 and dropped by retailers in 2009 with unpaid bills and staff - just above the headline it says "think big - live large"!), Trump Institute (a four year disaster ending in 2009)? Indeed, the unpaid bills when his businesses have failed must come to a huge amount. Just ask the workers at the failed Atlantic City casino! And this is the successful businessman MAGA adherents believe him to be? The world's greatest con man!

And I expect that is just the least of the maladies affecting him!

A short anecdote about Dame Julie. Although I lived in London after university for only 18 months, in the course of my later work I met a professional colleague who did live there and we took a liking to each other. Unlike most of my London friends, he adored musicals. Visiting the capital around every three months, we'd meet up for a long boozy gossip one evening and a trip to a musical the next. It turned out he was crazy about Julie Andrews, an artiste whom I only knew through the Sound of Music movie and who rather left me cold. On one visit he told me that Julie Andrews would be giving a one-woman show at the celebrated London Pavilion Theatre three months later. We then got into a bit of an argument as I was not particularly interested. However, we compromised. As Dame Julie was taking up the second half of the show, we'd spend the first half in the theatre bar quaffing the bottle of champagne my friend would buy. Suitably oiled, we took our seats in the mid-stalls. Dame Julie's first number was all dance and frankly she was fantastic. At the end, she hoisted herself up on to the grand piano and said, "Who would have believed it? Mary Poppins sweats!" it was a rather stupid line, and yet perhaps because of our rather drunken state, I totally warmed to her. For the rest of the 75 minutes, she had me eating out of her hand. And for the only time in my life, as the curtain came down at the end, I got out of my seat and ran to the orchestra pit to cheer. She was almost better 'live' than on film.

In that site from which you quote, nowhere are any members listed other than indians or indian-Americans. Indeed, as I quoted, from AAHOA's History in its own prospectus, AAHOA was formed by this group. Bloomberg, Avana Capital and other sites agree. The ownership by indians or indian-Americans in this group is 60% - not 40%. You may have your own Russian maths. I go by what i read in reputable and business journals. And yet you who have more than once trashed google use it your argument! Ha!

I will have I hung up my foil a good deal earlier than you - as soon as I entered my last year at university. I decided i really had to study since I had been a lazy sod (academically) up till then. Mind you, fencing was a great sport - but exhausting.

Visiting a Broadway show has been a part of many tourists' experience when visiting the Big Apple. The most expensive ticket used to be for a popular opera at the Metropolitan Opera House. Comparisons now are quite difficult as many opera tickets are booked up to a year ahead. Looking at the website today, there are tickets for productions like Carmen or Don Giovanni at the end of this month where the best available seats are less than $100. Naturally they are about the worst seats in the House as the best would probably have been around $350 if purchased in late 2024. Popular musicals have been another high ticket purchase. I have seen many in my time since I was 17 and can only once recall paying more than $100. It was $150 for Wicked, a popular musical I thought I would like - but I walked out at the interval. The whole pricing of musials had changed when the best producer of the last quarter of 2024, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, decided to up the top price when he brought his London production of Miss Saigon to Broadway in 1991. Even with musicals like CATS, Phantom of the Opera and Mackintosh's own Les Miserables still playing, he charged the highest Broadway price ever with 200 seats for Miss Saigon priced at $99. The theatre world gasped. If Andrew Lloyd Webber had been able to charge that price, he and his investors would not have lost the $20 million in the later run of Sunset Boulevard (the amount estimated by New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich). But Miss Saigon merely opened the pricing doors. Producers finally realised that instead of fixed price seating over all performances, aggressive dynamic pricing to fit demand could make a huge difference between profit and a large loss. When it opened in 2001, Mel Brooks The Producers kept that $99 top price. But his producers were mightily pissed off when it garnered amazing reviews and hotel concierges were charging their hotel guests much more for the privilege of finding tickets. So later in the year, 50 seats were set aside at a price of $480. Other producers cashed in. When Hamilton opened, for a time it had a block of tickets priced at $1,595. All sold out. Not all new shows succeed, though, one being Spiderman: Turn Off The Lights the musical with the renowned theatre director Julie Taymor who had directed the massively successful The Lion King. If anyone plans to write a disaster story of a disastrous musical production, this will be a large part of the book. Its costs were in the $75-95 million range, but it ended up with dreadful reviews and a loss of $60 million. The new 'fad' on Broadway and to a certain extent London is to have famous movie stars undertake limited runs of plays with ticket prices never even considered before. Most recently George Clooney played Ed Murrow in Good Night And Good Luck on a 13-week run in New York's 1,500 seat Winter Garden Theatre. Plays are massively cheaper to put on than musicals. But the top price was $825 and the show completely sold out, with revenues in the last two weeks of $4 million each. Everyone entitled to royalties were paid handsomely. Sadly theatre stage workers do not share in profits. So Broadway is now out of the ballpark for many of New York's regular visitors. And it is not only re theatre, nor the USA. Insane pricing has been part and parcel of the pop world for decades. An analysis by the newspaper the Yorkshire Post has proved that between 1996 and 2025 the average live concert ticket in the UK has risen by 521%. In Singapore last year, a VIP ticket for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour would have set you back US$948. No ticket was less than S$100 and this was before ticket agency charges and other costs were aded. As one who loves theatre, musicals and opera, I think back to my early days in London immediately after finishing university. I got seats at the back of the amphitheatre at the Royal Opera House for around £0.60. A theatre ticket to see a play with two of the country's greatest actors Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson cost around $2. How young people nowadays as well as the mass of tourists can develop an interest in the arts and in live performances beats me.

Yet again @Moses invents his own statistics and posts them here as facts. @Moses, you are plain wrong! Do you not read? I provided a link and in that link it reads - According to industry reports, Indian-origin hoteliers own over 36,000 hotels across the U.S., a majority 60% share of all U.S. hotels. This is a growth from 27,000 to 30,000 hotels in 2020, nearly 50% share of all U.S. hotels then. I now cite a legal source with exactly the figures I posted - https://plgfirm.com/the-rise-of-indian-americans-in-the-u-s-hotel-industry-an-historical-perspective-and-current-market-analysis/ Oh, and by the way? Who formed the AAHOA? Indian hotel owners. As the AAHOA website states in its opening paragraph - The story of AAHOA is the story of Indian Americans pursuing – and achieving – the American Dream. Suggestion: do not contradict posters when you have absolutely zero proof to offer!

Of course, saying "touche" means that I hit you! Are you using a foil, sabre or epee? I can only really take you on if it is foil as I was quite lousy at the other two!

Er - not American Indians but Indians from the subcontinent. The sort that Trump definitely does not like. Think bigger. Mind you, I suspect he'd be perfectly happy to convert this into a Trump Hotel as long as his name is on it. LOL Photo: Wikipedia

Not I think a well known fact. 60% of all the hotels in the United States are owned by Indians or those of Indian ancestry. This includes humble motels right up to a 41% holding in the luxury market including the Four Seasons chain. In just five years that percentage has risen from 50%! The owners represent the largest single force in the American hospitality business. https://avanacapital.com/general-info/indian-hoteliers-and-their-role-in-the-hospitality-landscape-in-the-usa/#:~:text=They have a big say,of all U.S. hotels then

Six tourists died in the town of Vang Vieng in Laos last November - spiked drinks.

Even at my advanced age, with so many eager Chinese running around it must be some sort of paradise! So tempting to try it.

Surely this illustrates the blatant hypocrisy with so much of the MAGA crowd. Basketball would be a third tier sport without all the black Americans and non-Americans playing in the sport. Remember all the hooplah about Linsanity, the Taiwanese Jeremy Lin who set New York alight for a season or two? And the much better Chinese Yao Ming who became a national figure? Baseball likewise where Japan has started to feature. I can remember all the razzmatazz when the ultra cute ichiro Suzuki left Japan and became one of the early Japanese players in the major league. He joined the Seatle Marriners in 2001. Known simply by his first name Ichiro, Suzuki featured on the cover of TIME. He is regarded as one of the sport's greatest ever ball hitters. Before Ichiro, the pitcher Hideo Nomo was also lured to America in 1995. He became the first ever no-hitter to play at Denver's Coors Park, an extremely difficult pitching field because of the city's elevation. And more recently Shohei Ohtani has lit up the Los Angeles Dodgers seasons since 2018 even though his first seasons were plagued by injury. For 2023, he was paid US$30 million, then a new record for a player in his third season. His present contract is for $700 million over 10 years. So much for white American MAGA ideals! And while on the subject of sport, why is it that the end of the baseball season is called the World Series? It has nothing to do with the world! It is exclusively American. What about the Canadians, Central and South American nations, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, all of whom have major national baseball leagues of their own? At least MAGA can't be blamed for that as it has been going for 102 years! Definitely time to change the name!

The son-in-law of one who had been my best friend prior to his early demise (too much smoking and drinking in his early years, sadly) has an almost religious fervour about American Football. The family lives near Cincinatti. Whenever there is an NFL game on television, he hunkers down with his beer and nibbles while his wife and daughters go about their own business. It is virtually his highlight of the week. For a couple of my university years I took up fencing. Understandably that sport requires special clothing and a helmet. So why do I find it strange that American Football also requires special clothing? No doubt it is because for American Football you are not just avoiding what would be a tiny hit that you often do not even feel, you are taking part in what is more like a war. You wear helmets, massive shoulder padding and goodness knows what else (a penis guard I hope) because the aim of a vast portion of the game seems almost to kill the opposition when it has the ball. When you crash into other bodies with such force, injuries are bound more than occasionally to result. Although it was only guessed at before, we now know for certain that this form of contact can seriously affect the brain. Yet it remains arguably America's most favourite sport and is taught to young kids throughout the land. I cannot understand why! The other night I watched on tv the final of what is called the "China Smash". This is a series of what used to be called ping-pong matches and they take place in various parts of the world. I don't think I have ever seen balls most so fast (no, I don't mean the players). This is not the genteel table tennis I grew up with. This is also an intensely fought duel. Thank goodness for instant slow motion replays because often I just cannot see the ball given its speed and trajectory! And any injuries, of which there are almost none, are always self inflicted!

Trump is 79. Clearly showing some signs of cognitative decline.

You have reminded me that there is a specialist photo shop near the foot of Silom just past the overhead expressway. I was a consultant on a movie some years ago (even got my name on the credits!) and the producers wanted to see a whole batch of contact sheets from an event that took place more than 25 years earlier. Took me several journeys to and fro and I was able to send quite a few to Los Angeles. Unfortunately none were used - but at least I got paid!

Thank you. I aways enjoy the various yearly sun/moon Festivals, although I have never enjoyed Moon cakes. Too rich for me! Looking further to the end of the year, I always think Christmas is such an overblown Festival, the more so in a Buddhist country. It is just a commercial event designed for increased sales. I always prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstice which usually comes a few days before Christmas.

I'll first put my cards on the table. I dislike American Football, even though American friends seem to regard it as a kind of religion. Equally I used to dislike rugby which was played at my school. Thankfully my eyesight was found not to be perfect and I was prevented from playing. When I now very occasionally see on television UFC events which take place in an octagon and seem to me much more like the Roman gladiator fights of olden times, I am appalled. Grown men often with one on the ground being hammered in the head with massively strong elbow butts leave me cold. What will happen to the brains of these athletes in mid-life, I hate to think. But I know some people, especially in the younger generation, who love them all. Not many years ago I recall seeing the movie Concussion about how one doctor came to realise that the constant often violent concussion-related head-butting in American Football was resulting in a series of dreadful brain diseases in retired players that in some cases led to suicide. The doctor wondered how such diseases could have developed so quickly with so many deadly serious results to the health of supreme athletes. He believed it was the game itself. At first the NFL roundly condemned the doctor's findings. But when other doctors started to agree and Congress became involved, it was forced to take the findings much more seriously. In a class action lawsuit, thousands of retired players won a suit against the NFL for US$765 million. But youngsters still love to take part in the sport. I was reminded of this yesterday when reading about a former much decorated professional rugby player. I have never been much inclined to watch rugby on television until a few months ago. Now I quite enjoy it. Speaking the other evening to my sister who has watched international rugby matches on television for decades, I mentioned the sport was more violent than I had remembered. She exclaimed that not only has the degree of violent tackling increased dramatically, the weight of the eight individual forwards has also increased considerably, thereby further increasing the effect of tackles. Now the UK newspapers are full of details about Lewis Moody, a former England captain who has been diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 47. And he is not the only one. A 2022 Study showed that in a group of more than 400 former professional rugby players, the risk of developing MND is 15 times greater than the general public. This was a very limited Study and much more research needs to be done. But in Moody's autobiography he describes being knocked unconscious twice in a World Cup game in 2007. It was suggested that he come off the field after the first occasion, but refused. "This is the World Cup. I've waited so long to get my chance, I'm not going off after five minutes." On a week-end following the game, he and some mates went to Disneyland in Paris. Riding rollercoasters he recalls, "Every loop the loop was torture, every jerk of my car was like having a needle shoved through my head.” That anyone having suffered concussion would ride a rollercoaster would be unthinkable now. It should have been unthinkable then. Rugby is now a much better controlled game. But it is still a heavy contact sport and its long term effects are still not known. Referees and the video referees come down hard on things like neck tackles. But that does not prevent the neck tackle having taken happened in the first place. Paralysis has resulted in some cases and no doubt will eventually happen again. How do you view contact sports? https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/oct/06/answers-former-rugby-players-lewis-moody-mnd-andy-bull

Instead of a Peace prize, Kissinger should have been indicted for War Crimes. That man led the USA and its Presidents into many wars resulting in many millions of deaths - of others, very few Americans. I realise that in the USA Congress has to declare war, but more than one President Kissinger served got round that with lies and most of the wars did not affect American lives. It is fact that Kissinger's interference and agreement resulted in a dreadful blood-stained legacy in more than eight non-USA countries. We all know about Vietnam and Cambodia. We know little about the 1971 war in former East Pakistan from which emerged the state of Bangladesh. Following the result of a completely free and fair 1970 election in East Pakistan, the dictatorship in West Pakistan was furious. Kissinger quickly met with its military dictator and confirmed the US would give West Pakistan its full support if it went to war. The number of deaths cannot be accurately assessed but some analyses suggest up to 3 million lives were lost. However many, it was justifiably called the forgotten genocide. Between 16 and 17 million East Pakistanis were also displaced. Before the full scale war developed, Nixon advised by Kissinger repeatedly ignored warnings from the US Consulate in Dhaka that there were massacres happening daily just in Dhaka alone and begging the US to give up its support for West Pakistan which was using US weaponry, much of it secretly supplied, to crush the Bengalis. This conflict has been called "one of the worst moments of blindness in US foreign policy." When it was over Kssinger worked hard to cover up this US involvement in the war and few now remember it. Yet it was unquestionably one of the most dreadful humanitarian crises of the 20th century. Anyone wishing to know more, should definitely read the thrilling account in Pulitzer Prize-nominated Gary J. Bass's book Blood Telegram. (Arthur Blood was the US Consul in Dhaka). In Kissinger's New York Times obituary, the East Pakistan/Bangladesh genocide did not appear. The Huffington Post obituary named him "America's most notorious war criminal".

Happened to me once when I was visiting my old haunt in Hong Kong for business. I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express quite close to my office, not a hotel I had used before. One morning i felt the need for company and so checked the apps. There was nothing special to interest me, although one reasonable looking guy persisted. So I told him roughly the area I was in and asked where he was. "About 10 minutes away" was the reply. Of course i should have asked for a more precise location but sex was on my mind. Wnen I did not hear from him for 20 minutes, I called. Now he was only 5 minutes away. So I said I would go down to the lobby and wait for him as lift cards were required to get upstairs. 20 minutes later I was checking the street in both directions. Back at the lift after accepting the morning had been wasted, I heard a voice. "Here I am. So sorry I am late." There before me was a guy who was not as good-looking as his pic and no doubt a few years older. Like @joizy, I should just have given him his subway fare and said goodbye. But . . . Never sure of anyone coming directly to my hotel, all my cash and valuables were in the safe apart from HK$150 (about US$20) which I had left in the back pocket of my jeans in case this guy had wandering fingers. Cash had never been mentioned but I always offer transport money. After showers, we got down to business. Within a few moments he hasked if he could take pics of our encounter, but only from below my waist. Of course i should have said no, the more so as I was not really enjoying this encounter. Why I said "OK" I now cannot recall. But it was all over in a few minutes and I was very pleased this guy would soon be far away. Instead of showering together, he said I should go first. When he then showered, I checked my jeans pocket. The money was gone - hardly surprising. Once dressed, he said he wanted "his" fee. I told him he had already stolen HK$150 from my jeans and he was not getting another cent as cash had never been mentioned. He quickly became difficult and asked me to open the safe. Not in 100 years, I told him, adding that if he did not leave with the money which would have more than covered his transport, I would call the hotel security. Still he would not move. I was not prepared to try and fight to get the guy out of my room and so I did as I said: I called security that there was a thief in my room. After about 30 seconds, he did finally leave. But I was not going to let him keep those photos. At the lift, the security guard appeared. I am certain he guessed what had been happening within a nano-second but he was very professional. When I told him about the photos, he insisted the guy show him his phone. It was then I realised he had hundreds of photos on it. The security guard asked which were my photos, had them deleted and then let the guy go down in the lift. I tipped the guard and thanked him profusely. There had been so many red flags I shocked myself that I had not been warned by them. Thinking later about the episode, I wondered where he could have come from. There are not many money boys in Hong Kong in the daytime. Besides Hong Kong public transport was excellent and you get anywhere within about 30 minutes unless coming from close to the border with mainland China. And then it twigged. I think he had to have come from Shenzhen across the border with China where I knew there were quite a number of money boys. A subway from Shenzhen would only have taken around 30 minutes for someone also holding a Hong Kong ID card. But it was virtually all my fault and I learned from it. I did write to the management of Holiday Inn Express in Hong Kong warning about a thief, informing them that he had been ejected from the one i had stayed at and even giving them his photo. Remarkably, on one of my regular visits to Hong Kong two years later, this thief contact me again. He had clearly forgotten the incident. I just texted him that if he showed his face anywhere in my presence, the police would be called. He never did! I realise some will say i was stupid and that this guy could have been carrying a knife of some other weapon. But he did not have any carry bag and I could see there was no knife or gun. Still, had be put up a fight, I could have been injured in some way. I learned my lesson.

Trousers without pockets, on the other hand, would be a definite 'no-no' for me. Otherwise, how could enquiring hands easily find their way down to give you the 'rise' you seek in a bar??