PeterRS

Sometimes doing the right thing can be incredibly painful. But when it has to be done, it is better than the alternative of a longer, bitter decline in what was once something unique and beautiful.

A good point. I have no idea if any of his immediate family were able to access his emails or phone. There is one postscript which I did not bother to add to the story. About 7 or 8 years ago, I was with a friend having lunch in another Italian restaurant off Sathorn. I recognised the owner as being one of the ladies who had left Zanotti along with my friend. I asked her if she remembered my friend. Of course, she said. Had she seen him in recent years, I asked. There was a pause which I considered too long. Yes, she said. I asked if he was OK and in Bangkok. She summoned another of the staff who I did not recognise, chatted a little in Thai and then told me he was OK but she did not know where he was. I merely asked her to tell him I was asking about him. I wrote in another post recently that I have never been able to understand Thai logic. But I have an idea when a Thai is being deliberately evasive. I took what I was hearing and the way she said it as being basically, "I don't want to talk about a difficult subject." Why could it have been difficult? I can only guess. This was very similar to another reaction when a long time Thai friend passed away. He ran a little shop with branches in Chatuchak and Terminal 21. I was in Chatuchak and wanted him to make something for me. When I saw he was not there, I asked if he was overseas as he often sourced materials in China and India. "Sorry, I don't know where he is," his nice assistant said. I was just looking at some of the products when the co-owner of the business came in. She chatted to the assistant in Thai. I asked if she knew where my friend was. After various knowing glances between the pair, she said she was very sorry to tell me he had died. Eventually I managed to tease out of her that there had been a fire in his condo and he had not been able to get out. I left certain of two things. Firstly he must have died. Secondly it definitely had nothing to do with a fire in a condo. But what? I'll never find out.

Interesting that both reigned for 70 years, although Elizabeth for about 120 days longer. Interesting, too, I suggest that neither was destined to become monarch at their birth. Accidents of history resulted in the crowns being passed to them.

No one needs me to point out that friendship is a two way street. That means opening up to others and welcoming them into your life. It does not necessarily mean their knowing your sexuality. I have several straight friends, mostly not in Thailand, whom I have known for decades and who still do not know I am gay. I stress "know". The fact that I have never been married nor had a steady girlfriend means that at my age virtually everyone has guessed that I am gay. I never bring the issue up in conversation. But if anyone asks me outright, I will always answer "Yes, I am gay." I also have a small number of lady friends whom again I have known for decades and whom I have told about my sexuality. None is in the slightest concerned about it. One is one of my closest friends. Over the years, we have taken vacations in various parts of Europe enjoying our shared interests and having a lot of fun times together. Now mostly retired, I spend a lot of time writing. My next book will be dedicated to her. I cannot speak about Pattaya as I visit only rarely. I live in Bangkok. Three of my close western friends here I had known for at least a decade before I moved. So it was not a case of my having to start anew in a totally new country. My experience of making close friends with Thais is more complicated. Over decades of visiting and living in Thailand I have realised that I will never understand Thai logic. And that failure makes a deep friendship more difficult. Not impossible as I know farangs who have been happily partnered with/married to Thais for decades. I have written in another thread of a very close Thai friend who was not gay who frequently came to my apartment over a couple of years and we'd spend hours just chatting, laughing and gossiping as real friends do. One other I was close to for almost 25 years was gay. Again we'd meet frequently and have lots of good times, especially discussing his always complicated love life (which did not involve me!) Sadly a nasty illness brought death much too early. So in response to your question, yes you can make close friends. But please realise that very often you will have to take the initiative.

So you know the problem, but you are not prepared to take the 'medicine' to enable you to have that fuller life. We're all different and that is your way of living it. Frankly, though, if I wanted a fuller life, I'd hate myself if I had not done my damnedest to solve it. As has been said before in other posts, I don't want to die with regrets.

Perhaps even worse is when a boy you care about just disappears and you have no idea what happened to him, even after many years have passed. Around 16 years ago I would occasionally go to the up-market Italian restaurant Zanotti on Saladaeng. Sometimes a client would take me. At others I would go with friends. Expensive at evening time, it had a very good set lunch at a very reasonable price. There was one waiter who I found especially attractive. Mid-20s, he came from a town in Isaan. His English was good and his smile virtually to die for. I usually chatted with him. Over time we became friends although he always said he was not gay. As his room was not far from my condo, I invited him round for drinks after work one evening. I was surprised that he came. Soon he would come quite frequently, almost always sleeping overnight on the sofa. For his birthday, I got a cake from the Mandarin Oriental shop and he was so happy. He said he'd never had a birthday cake before! Only on 2 or 3 occasions would he knock on my door and ask to sleep with me. Although i was not in love with him, I loved his company. He could be wonderfully funny and we spent many evenings on the sofa just chatting and laughing. I considered him a lovely close friend. After about a year, he and several other staff left Zanotti following a disagreement with the manager. He told me that of the 10% service charge, the manager kept 8.5% leaving the staff to share just 1.5%. Eventually he told me that he wanted to work overseas. The Mango Tree restaurant (near Tawan Bar) had a namesake in Dubai. He had been offered a job there. I checked the contract with which I told him there were several problems. He tried to bring them up with the manager here but was told it was take it or leave it. So he signed and flew off to Dubai. In several early emails he told me how much he was enjoying the work and being in Dubai. Soon, though, things began to turn sour and he wanted to break his contract and just leave. He did have his passport but no air ticket which he was saving up for. I told him just to get the ticket and I would pay him the balance. Back in Bangkok, he did a couple of part-time restaurant jobs before he was offered a post on one of the Royal Viking Line Cruise ships. Hugely excited, off he went to somewhere in the Baltic. When in ports he would email me saying he loved the job, despite the hard work. Eventually he had some leave coming up. He wrote and asked if he could stay with me in Bangkok. Of course I agreed. Having given me his dates, he said he'd contact me when he got back to Thailand. Sure enough, he mailed me to say he had arrived but would first go to see his family. He'd come to Bangkok after 6 days. That was the last I heard from him! I mailed him several times. They were unanswered. I left sms messages on his phone which was still working. No reply. I called and just got the ring tone. After a couple of months I wrote that I did not care what had happened to him - maybe he'd married, maybe found a long-term boyfriend, maybe been in a bad accident - all I wanted to know was that he was OK and perhaps see him if he came to Bangkok. If he needed help, I was here. Again no reply. I hope he is somewhere and happily settled down with the good job he deserves and a love life that he enjoys. If I could just get one mail saying that, I'd be really happy for him. It would also set my mind at ease. My fear is that something happened when he was back with his family and he died. It's the not knowing that occasionally, even now, gnaws at me.

WIth all respect to you @vinapu as one of the most prolific and important posters on this board, you are lousy when it comes to arguing your case in a discussion. This one has just descended in nonsense!

Surely a key ingredient in enjoying retirement is to be at peace with oneself. However we decide to live out our remaining years, whether short or long, the absence of worry is liberating. Some guys want to be active in pursuing a gay lifestyle and enjoying lfe to the full. Others are unable to do so for one reason or another. I am a firm believer that we all create our own realities. For those who are less than happy, I'd ask you to take time to work out why you feel that way. What specifically creates that unhappiness? What in your view would make you happier (let's leave money out of the discussion as there is often little we can do about that late in life)? That decided, I believe you have no choice. You have to set those demons, fears, worries aside. See a psychiatrist if you think that might help. I fully realise that changing views that have been welded into your brain for decades is far from easy. But the choice is simple. Either continue with those demons etc. and perhaps keep regretting that you did not do this or do that. Or make a conscious decision that now you are in the latter part of your life, this life is for enjoyment and fulfilment. Your enjoyment and fulfilment. You have to make the decisions. They may seem hard, but you'll be surprised how easy they really are once you have made up your mind. Just do it!

I also love many wines, red, white and rose and would find life more difficult if I could not have some nice wine regularly from time to time. Unlike @kokopelli 2, though, I love a really good sweet wine at the end of a meal. Although I get to drink it only rarely, a glass or two (they're small for sweet wines) of Chateau d'Yquem is a small miracle. The rich taste of so many honeyed tropical and other fruits in one's mouth and an aftertaste with roasted nuts that lasts at least five minutes. One of life's glories!

Of course there is a countdown to life. But none of us really know when that will be unless we have an untreatable illness. Why do you assume that lifespan will end at 82 - 84. For many it will, but for others it won't. I would hate to live feeliing that I had to pack everything into life before I am 84. One day I will not be alive. I'll leave it to fate to decide when that will be. The main thing for me is that I have wills and executors and know that whatever I leave will go to those I wish to have it. Am I living life to the fullest? The answer is definitely yes. I am well over 60. Having retired from my main job, I still work part-time as I have always loved the work I do and cannot imagine life without some involvement in it. Prior to covid, I travelled quite extensively and will definitely continue to do so as barriers to travel break down. I already have four trips planned and tickets booked for one. Again, I cannot imagine life without travel to those places I enjoy and meeting the friends I have made there. The one limiting factor may be travel insurance as I gave up my annual policy 3 years ago. But one of my credit cards offers good travel insurance on a per trip basis which is fine for me. As for sex, I have a partner and am very happy in Bangkok. It is some years since I was a regular at gay venues. On my trips, though, if my partner can not join me because of his job, I have more freedom to meet guys if I wish. I do and have rarely had a problem meeting up with nice guys. My partner and I discussed this and he is not concerned about it. But I always tell him about my adventures on my return. We go out to various types of restaurant quite regularly and enjoy meeting up with our friends (who are mostly gay). The thought that I might have to countdown to a definite ending date horrifies me!

Fair point. But my main point is that you related the recession suffered by many countries in the 1970s, not just the UK - after all, the quadrulping of the price of oil at the start of that decade affected all oil importing country - with communism. It had nothing to do with communism. Yet for whatever reason, you fail to accept that! Let me restate - the draconian oil price caused a worldwide recession. Not sure wher eyou live but it certainly affected your country unless you come form a country which was an oil exporter. Again you totally deflect. You brought up those historical figures in relation to this discussion. You quoted them to prove that there is no such thing as historical accuracy. So you believe that what happened 50 or so years ago cannot be recorded accurately? Come on! That is absolute nonsense and you know it!

Sorry @vinapu - you have strayed way off topic - and there is indeed such a thing as historical accuracy. We have been discussing the recession in the 1970s. The facts - accuracy - of what happened during those years are perfectly well documented in great detail. Perhaps you can enlighten us what have Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan to do with that decade?

With respect, as you well know there is nothing that makes uninterested readers look at any paricular post or thread. It's great that there has been quite a flood of new posts on other topics recently. I happen to believe historical accuracy is important - but others clearly seem not to agree.

Has worked extremely well at Taipei since installation more than 5 years ago.

That comment merely runs away from my various comments that are directly opposed to your inaccurate comments. Sorry, but nothing you have written actually backs up your assertions re the 1970s!

Quarantine will remain at 3 days plus a covid test will be required on arrival. Gettting to Taipei for the Gay Pride Parade at the end of October is now looking more possible.

Wonder what happens with taxis which do not have correct belt fittings. Yesterday I took three taxis and one had no way of affixing the back seat belts. I suspect a lot of cops will be salivating at the thought of all the notes they will be extorting once the law goes into force.

I still don't follow! Communist parties certainly had a presence in the immediate post-war politics of France and Italy. But they never reached any major presence and, unlike as reported earlier by another poster, never played any role in any post war Western European governments. i agree that Churchill's defeat after WWII was in part due to the desire of the electorate for a governmemt that would implement the social change proposals in the 1943 Beveridge Report. But all that took place decades before the 1970s. I stand by my first comments in response to @vinapu's suggestion that communism was keeping capitalism in check during the 1970s. Sorry but I just do not believe that assertion at all. Those in Europe who did have communist sympathies post war quickly fell by the wayside with the Soviet actions during the early part of the Cold War in the 1950s. And the few that were left quickly rethought their positions after the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw Pact forces snuffing out the desire for freedom during the Prague Spring - both in the 1960s.

The discussion is about communism affecting capitalism and western European governments in the decade of the 1970s. The New Left was not a communist movement and in many western countries merely made up of fringe groups with little direct influence. It certainly had nothing to do with western European governments. Or did I miss something?

Sorry @vinapu but I don't seem to be following you. Communisim was anthema to most post-war Western European governments. It had reached the peak of its influence around 1945-46. Then the Iron Curtain fell. As far as I am aware, only in Italy was there a sizeable Communist Party but it never gained power nor did it ever share power. Did communists actually particpate in any post war Western Eurpean governments - i.e. those outside the Soviet bloc?

I reckon I had not given enough thought about it as a reaction to communism. But I still cannot believe it had anything to do with western nations reacting to communism after World War II. Western nations had had enough of communism advancing into Eastern Europe, the Berlin airlift, the spies, the race to build even bigger and better nuclear bombs being tested by exploded in the atmosphere - and so on. Communism by then was a disease to be feared and rooted out, not to be envied and in any way copied. So if communism did affect capitalism, it's surely impossible it could have done so as late as the 1970s. It certainly had an affect on some during the bleak interwar years when many, especially intellectuals, considered it as a form of socialist utopia. The madness of Stalin, his thugs and the millions they massacred ony became known after WW2. But by the end of the 1940s the Soviet Union was an Empire to be feared, not emulated. The creation of welfare states was a reaction to the deprivations of war - not a result of a comparison to communism. World War !! was a great societal leveller. Those who had fought wanted evidence that they had been fighting for more than merely freedom.

As is obvious even from that vdo, Japan is a highly organised society hidebound by rules from virtually cradle to grave. The sex trade is equally organised and, as mentioned at the start of the vdo, it is a huge commercial business. I read somewhere that overall the business of sex in all its forms accounts for up to 3% of GDP - double that of the country's agricultural sector. These male host bars have been around for many decades but were primarily to give older women the chance to spend time with handsome young hosts. But they have proliferated hugely as much younger Japanese women rebelled against the long established rules about marriage and children. Starting in the boom years of the 1980s, they realised that their salaries were giving them independence. Like wolf packs they travelled to cities like Hong Kong and Singapore with the sole objective of buying luxury goods which are very expensive in Japan. Over a week-end the savings they could make in the Louis Vuitton and Cartier boutiques more than paid for their air tickets and their rooms in 5-star hotels. Increasingly they were chosing to stay much longer with their parents and spend their increasing salaries on themselves. In such a male dominated country, the host bars offer an escape - at a very considerable cost. As one host says, "We sell dreams." Although another says early on that he could easily fuck the patrons 365 nights a week, another stresses that it should never come to that because then the dream ends and the girl never comes back to the Club. The host's job is to get the girls to keep coming back and to keep spending on Dom Perignon and the expensive cognacs. I know there are clubs like this for boys and girls in Thailand but foreigners will never find out about them. The commercialism of the host bars tourists visit in Bangkok and Pattaya are in their infancy when it comes to getting customers to splash the cash. While we may object to 400 baht for a drink and a few hundred baht to spend half an hour sitting with a boy, that pales into insignificance when you see the Japanese women in that video spending US$2,000 and a lot more for an evening being flattered by a young man they will only be able to dream about after she leaves. It all seems rather sad. At least here in Thailand the hosts and hostesses will readily ensure that your dreams materialise with a night of sex - and at a fraction of the cost. And you can go back the next evening!

Cfs Asia has been all but dead for many years. Even life support seemed to fail.

I find it strange to believe that communism should have kept excesses of capitalism in check. Surely it had nothing to do with communism. It was the policies of President Reagan and his crony Margaret Thatcher which freed up economies and encouraged speculation. In Britain that meant selling off state assets (admittedly they were inefficient), selling off local Council housing and encouraging individuals to place part of their savings into share ownership. As that and the following decade progressed, greed on a large scale became virtual state policies. I remember getting a taxi from JFK to my hotel in the late 1990s during the dot com bubble. My taxi driver asked how much I'd made that day. I had no idea what he meant. Buying and selling stocks, he said. That day he had made US$2,000 in day trading - in and out of the market in a few hours. Then came the day that bubble burst. Then came 2008. Then came covid. The big players, the massive institutional investors which always have a head start even though it's only measured in fractions of seconds, mostly survived or were bailed out. The individuals who lost most of their savings were left to fend for themselves - as usual. With 14 years of ultra low interest rates, keeping up with inflation for most has been all but impossible. It was to a large extent the desire by so many to make a quick buck through greed and speculation that is the reason we are where we are. That and a slew of incompetent so-called leaders who should never have been allowed anywhere near a political process.

In an earlier post, I used the 1970s as a comparison of what the world might be facing. In today's Guardian newspaper there is a letter from a lady who also lived in that decade which paints an even bleaker picture. "The current crisis with regard to rising inflation is often being compared with problems with inflation in the 1970s (Energy prices could push UK inflation to 22%, a near postwar record, 30 August). This has made me think about that time. I had babies in 1973 and 1976; there was very little part-time work, so I either worked part-time when I could or did casual work. My husband worked for the local authority and although the income was regular, it was fixed and just enough to get by – so we managed. "I do not remember prices in the supermarket, or anywhere else, rising at the speed and rate at which they are now, and of course all utilities were still publicly owned, so those prices were stable. "I feel quite angry about the present comparisons. We didn’t need food banks, there was no talk of “heating or eating”. But then the gap between the haves and have-nots was not so wide. "I believe that the 70s were the time of greatest financial equality since the second world war. That changed in the 80s and has never gone back." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/02/in-the-1970s-we-didnt-have-to-choose-between-heating-and-eating