PeterRS

There is already a thread on mens figure skaters, but I thought some in Thailand might like to know that for the next three months True Channel 690 has the Japanese semi-professional volleyball league matches on Saturdays and Sundays. I only discovered this on Saturday and really enjoyed the matches - and not only because some of the boys are very attractive. I particularly liked this guy from the Oita team. On court he looks like he'd be around 1.68m or so. But his teammates are so tall he is actually 1.75m! Very cute 23 yo named Yamada Kota. This is a short video on him from the club's website.

Unfortunately Thailand did not show the US Skating. We have recently had some other skating competitive events but none has featured any of the top half dozen men's skaters. We still do not know if the double Olympic Champion and double World Champion Yuzuru Hanyu will have recovered from his ankle ligament injury in time to compete in Beijing. I hope he does. For me he is the complete men's skater. Like most skaters, I love his costumes with their tight-fitting pants - often quite revealing if you use your imagination as in this less elegant photo if his getting rid of some of the glitter on the ice. 😍

I have to add that I'm very good at asking questions and pointing out what I believe to be problems. I am much less good at coming up with answers. I have sometimes criticised Singapore which is hardly a democracy in the western sense. But I must admit I do not know if there are criteria for becoming a parliamentary candidate. If there are such criteria, I wonder what they are and who rules on them. I also suppose the moment you establish minimum criteria there will be a lot of people who cry foul as this could eliminate some potential candidates who might well go on to become good and conscientious MPs. I suppose, too, if there had been criteria in the US in 2016, Trump would either have met them or ensured his minions found a way of getting him to meet them. I am no fan of Boris Johnson in the UK - although I readily admit that his opposite number in the Labour Party at the last election was singularly ineffective and given the choice, I am sure many voted for Johnson as the lesser of two evils, as it were. I believed his former boss at the Daily Telegraph newspaper who wrote a scathing article before Johnson became leader warning readers that he was totally unqualified to lead his Party and to become Prime Minister. I believe much worse was written, but I cannot remember it now. In theory, SIngapore could be an example of the type of democracy that western countries might look more closely at. The problem is that, like Japan, it is democratic in name only. Both countries are basically benevolent dictatorships and I do not see electors in western democracies giving up the rights and freedoms that would be necessary to make them work. The two core issues which I feel have to be tackled in countries like the USA and to a large extent the UK are firstly the two party system. You just have to see the mess that the US now finds itself in to realise it no longer works. Add to that the enormous power given to the winning party to appoint judges right through the entire justice system which effectively gives that party the right to determine certain key policy issues for possibly decades after the party has lost power. Secondly, as mentioned in my earlier post, governments need more time. 4 years is no longer enough given that the world will soon have an undemocratic China as the supreme power..

There can be little doubt that Trump is responsible for a great deal of the damage. Yet, I think we should never forget why this con man, fraudster, litigious bigot and TV personality actually managed to get elected in the first place. At the outset his candidacy was regarded as a joke by most Republicans. He treated his fellow candidates worse than cheating schoolchildren. Yet the US electoral system enabled him to become President! And now more than a year after he was kicked out, the faults in the US electoral system - of which so many have now become so obvious - enable him to continue with his lying, cheating and undermining of the very democracy the US is supposed to be built on. Anyone who really examined Trump before the election would have known full well the extent of the damage he could do. His failed business dealings, his close relationship with the in-the-closet homophobic bigot sue-at-all-costs lawyer Roy Cohn and so much more - failure to provide tax returns, obviously manipulated medical "record", views on women and so forth - should have disqualified him as a candidate. But he was the teflon Don. Nothing stuck. Set aside for a moment the antiquated and now ridiculous electoral college system. Trump was elected because a great many Americans felt left behind. It was not just the disastrous failures resulting from the 2008 financial meltdown which saw so many suffer so very badly but the fact that the bankers and financiers who actually caused it with their personal and corporate greed get away, in all but I think one or two cases, scot-free in the years following the scandals. Even before then, though, I believe the average American had seen many of the rich getting mega-rich while that average man or woman had to work harder just to make ends meet. At the same time the poor got poorer and felt helpless. When such a small percentage of the population owns such a huge amount of its wealth, how does that square with 35-40 million Americans relying on what used to be called food stamps. It matters little that it has been Republican policies which have largely created this wealth disparity. Americans were just fed up of government in general. Trump, the "successful" "billionaire" TV star gave too many some hope that life might just get better for them. It didn't, other than for the mega-rich and members of the Trump clan. I trashed the US electoral system earlier. I could as easily trash those of other countries, especially my own, but the topic of this thread is America. Whenever I hear pundits talk about American history, the wisdom of the founding fathers and their Constitution is praised to the heavens. We know that that document caused a great deal of angst before it was adopted. Now much of it is very much outdated and should be radically altered in my view. Two reasons. That Constitution was ratified by only 9 out of 13 states. In 1788 there were no motor vehicles, no planes, no computers, no public transport. A long period of time was required to collate all votes within a state and then another long period for those votes to be safely delivered to the capitol. There is today absolutely no reason on earth why it should take more than two months for an election to be certified. There is no reason why for a national rather than a local election a Federal law regarding election procedures should not be adopted rather than a whole series of separate voting systems and procedures mandated by individual states. There is no reason why the resultant votes cannot be quickly verified within days if there is a dispute. The hanging chad business in Florida that stretched out the election process in 2000 was a total farce in the eyes of the democratic world. A new administration could - and in my view - should be able to take over the government within a week or so at most. In the UK it takes 24 hours. Secondly, that long totally unnecessary drawn-out period between polling day and certification plays right into the hands of crooks and naysayers like Trump. No doubt some will argue that it has never happened before; that Trump is a maverick and it won't happen again. Oh really? I can't talk about the past but I certainly would not bet on the future! There are actually three other related points stemming from the present electoral mess. One is the example shown to the rest of the world. And it's a dreadful example of democracy and how it should work. The Putins, Xis and other dictators must be salivating as they trumpet how much better their system of government is. And let's be frank. Right-wing nationalism is now on the rise in many parts of the world. Secondly, the four year term of office is surely totally out-dated if only because it encourages short-termism. Few of us might choose to live in Putin's Russia, but for the vast majority of his people it appears he is doing a good job of restoring Russia's reputation after the humiliation of the fall of Communism. He has had two decades to do that. Xi has few critics, not because they are likely to be thrown in jail or worse. The fact is - and few in the west ever really acknowledge this - that since the end of the disastrous Cultural Revolution and the collapse of virtually everything, the economy included, the one-party leadership of that country has pulled a basically peasant society into the world's second largest economy in little over 45 years. Forget for a moment how it has done that, the theft of intellectual property, a disastrous human rights record etc. (but when we talk about human rights for Tibetans and Uighurs, it always seems odd to me that Americans conveniently forget to talk about the mass slaughter of the Native American population or the historical treatment of African Americans!). Just stick to the facts. China will be the world's next great power and there is nothing any other country can do other than resort to nukes. The fact that China is not a democratic society is constantly trumpeted in the west, especially in the US. Yet the US was founded on democratic principles. The people of China have never known democracy throughout the entire period of their history. One man (only once, one woman) has ruled China for millennia. The dictators have time to carry out their plans. A system of government that changes every four years - with an ensuing government able to undo what the previous one has effected as with the Iranian nuclear deal, for example - is a far from ideal way of being the world's superpower. Lastly, the Trump years - and some prior to then - have shown that an entrenched two party system of government is basically undemocratic. Oh, I know. The more parties, the more difficult democracy becomes. Just look at Israel and its plethora of small, single issue parties and the mess it gets into in elections. But the whole point of what I am trying to say is to challenge Churchill's view that democracy is the worst form of government other than those which have already been tried. I challenge not the sentiment. I challenge the vital need for democracies constantly to review their procedures for electing governments. What worked in 1788 in the US does not work now. As long as it remains unchanged, the world becomes a more dangerous place. All merely my views and I know these will have upset some readers. Fair enough, but perhaps you can explain how you believe the system should be changed?

Great photos of Doi Suthep. Thanks @vinapu

Very sensible.

When is life fair for all? Never! If someone gets pissed off, there are usually alternatives of some sort. Maybe they will be just as expensive but probably better quality. As far as transport in Chiang Mai is concerned, 'twas ever thus! As far back as 1987 on my first visit it was a lot more expensive than by comparison with Bangkok. But what are you going to do about it? It is what it is. At least now with Grab you get a quotation and a car that will usually turn up in only a few minutes. Same as transport in Phuket which for decades was - and maybe still is - run by some kind of mafia. If you don't like it, hire a jeep or a car. I just can't be bothered with the moaners who believe they could run things better (no doubt true) and that everything should be a matter of supply and demand for everyone (why?). This is Thailand - not England, not the USA, not Australia or any other country. What about all those first world countries I mentioned in my earlier post which appear not to have double pricing but make sure the tourist pays by slapping a tourist tax on every visit? What's the difference? Do moaners quibble about paying a tax which might be the same as an extra euro or so on a Swiss tram?

I agree 100% with @vinapu. I alsolutely fail to understand where those who feel that there should be one price for all are coming from. That's perfectly fair if everyone has basically the same standard of living and average income. Of course there are mega-rich Thais and it could be argued that they should pay more than even visiting foreigners. But this is their country and however they have made their cash, legal or otherwise, they will be paying some taxes. Visitors spend a considerable amount of cash to get here and stay here. The vast majority will earn far more than the average Thai. Why anyone feels they should be entitled to the same low entry fees always beats me. I just do not understand it. Besides, this practice also happens in other countries. It may not be a fee to enter a specific monument but you will have paid it in the form of a tourist tax - as anyone who has visited Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, The Netherlands and dozens of other countries will be aware! To clarify, the Grand Palace entry fee is actually a fee to enter Wat Phra Kaew. This is perfectly fair as it is, as @vinapupoints out, the most impportant religious shrine in the country. You cannot enter the Grand Palace on its own.

Reader's post is very informative and for many of us probably quite timely. The fact is that a will written in Thai is essential. Without that the Court will decide who your nearest relative is and he/she will end up with your assets. I had a will made on line by a solicitor's office in Phuket about 15 years ago. I thought it was virtually foolproof. Not so. A few months ago I consulted a solicitor in Bangkok who had drawn up the wills for two friends. He pointed out one clause in my earlier will which had been superseded by legislation. So at considerable expense I had a totally new will drawn up that makes my wishes 100% clear and 100% in accordance with Thai law. One issue which I was asked to clarify and include in the will is what happens if the beneficiary/beneficiaries die prior to my death. So a second beneficiary had to be included just in the unlikely event that happens. Copies of that will are lodged not just with the solicitor but also with the beneficiaries who also have the contact details of the solicitor's office. I believe the cost has been more than worth it for the peace of mind it provides. I have a second will in the UK and have ensured that neither conflicts with the other.

'Tis that silly time that comes twice a year in the UK when the great, the good and a good few of the bad - along with some ordinary folk who have gone about their business with extraordinary zeal - are awarded with "honours." These are the people the British Empire continues to evoke - Member of the British Empire, Officer of the British Empire and Commander of the British Empire - all titles that should have died decades ago. Rightly, many this year have been health workers. But I will just select two from this year's long list. That Tony Blair, the Prime Minister who led Britain into the disastrous Iraq war, is not now merely Sir Tony but a member of the exclusive Order of the Garter (limited to the Queen, Prince Charles and 24 others) is a disgrace in my book. On the other hand, the actress who is now Dame Joanna Lumley fully deserves her accolade. Most of us know her merely as an actor from her time playing Patsy in the Absolutely Fabulous TV series or even earlier in The New Avengers. But she has espoused a large number of charitable causes and fought bravely for them. Born in India, in 2008 she became the face of the campaign to provide all Nepalese Gurkha soldiers who had worked for the British army before 1997 the right to settle in Britain. Many thousands had worked for the army, quite a few in Hong Kong who had effectively been left stateless after Britain's exit. Her campaign took several years and suffered many official rebuffs. Eventually she got together a petition signed by 250,000 citizens. Her campaign was finally successful. She is patron of as many as 60 other charities and in 1996 endowed a research fellowship at Oxford University for "major environmental and wildlife issues". For all these, please rise, Dame Joanna.

Gievn the number of gyms that have gone bust in recent years, I'm not sure that would be a very good business idea.

The original series was great. I remember having a nice dinner with a really lovely young Thai guy one evening when he suddenly surprised me by saying, "I'm very sorry I have to go. Tuesday is sex night!" And with that he disappeared. I was not just disappointed, I was pissed off. I had visions of his ditching me for some regular fuck buddy! It was only the next morning someone told me that Sex and the City was aired here on Tuesday nights! By the time of the second movie, I reckon I had had enough. It was a lousy movie, lousy script and not very well acted. It seems thatMr. Big is now well and truly caught up in the me too movement with many wandering fingers!

Saw it in Bangkok a week or so ago. But it was clearly not going to continue its run for more than a day or two. We saw it on an afternoon showing and there cannot have been more than a dozen people in the cinema.

So I suppose you regard those running London, Paris, Rio, Edinburgh, New York, Athens, Rome, Berlin and a host of other major world cities also as culpable of BS!

The average age of the membership of this site seems far younger than most other Asian gay chat rooms. Many of the threads seem pretty boring, but as @tm_nyc points out there is a dedicated Travel forum that has a lot of advice that I assume will be much more useful once travel opens up again.

Yes. Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai played magnificently throughout the tournament. It was just a pity that the Japanese boy, the excellent Yuta Watanabe, was hampered by injury, otherwise I'm sure the final match would have gone to three sets. But that is not to take anything away from the Thais victory. Thailand has had a World Champion before in the Ladies Singles when Ratchanok Inthanon became the top Women's Singles player in 2013 and the youngest ever to hold the title at the age of only 18. She also became the first Thai to reach a World No. ! ranking in 2016. Increasingly I find badminton a great sport to watch on television, especially the mens singles, the mixed doubles and the often incredibly fast mens doubles matches.

Congratulations to Singapore's Men's World Badminton Champion, the island state's first World Champion in any event. 24 year old Loh Kean Yew is aggressively fast on the court, very cute and with a killer smile. But he is also dead straight (and sorry this is not really a Gay Singapore subject). Maybe he'll change his orientation if he meets another cute Asian badminton player - of which there are many! 😉

This is more or less a repeat of an old post from somewhere. There is some excellent coffee in Chiang Mai grown by a hill tribe. The story of how this poor group of villages turned to coffee and now sell it all over the country is truly inspiring. It was all the idea of one stateless boy who wanted to find a way of alleviating the poverty of the hill tribes. Encouraged by his parents to get an education, he walked four kilometers every morning and afternoon to get to primary school. Then he went to a temple school because his family could not afford high school. He became the first from his village to graduate from University in Chiang Rai. After he persuaded the villagers to grow coffee, a crop the villagers knew nothing about, he was sent to Portland to learn more about coffee and coffee roasting. That coffee has been exhibited at several international events. A few years ago he opened a cafe in Chiang Mai and I enjoyed their coffee there two years ago. This TED talk by Lee Ayu Chuepa, the co-founder of Akha Ama Coffee, is truly inspirational.

Well, my partner and I saw the new West Side Story this afternoon. Not surprisingly, our views were different. Surprisingly, though, whereas I thought I would love it, I was quite disappointed. My younger Thai partner on the other hand really enjoyed it. His only concern near the start was the question he asked, "What's Puerto Rican?" I think he still has no idea why people from a small island would be going to live in New York and want to start gang warfare in the city. That, for me, is a very definite reason for Spielberg to have had more courage and brought the time the show is set much more up to date. What disappointed me? Certainly not the two lovers Tony and Maria. They were excellent actors and singers. Indeed, most of the acting was very fine. It is much more that the movie looks and feels dated. I found the dancing, the choreography and the big production numbers more convincing in the Robert Wise version (or what I remember of that movie). Indeed, I much preferred a touring version of the musical at the Thailand Cultural Centre during one of the Dance and Music Festivals about 15 years ago. That stage production kept me emotionally involved throughout. Spielberg's movie just lacked that emotional pull. My last beef was that the balance between the singing and the orchestra was just too much in favour of the singers. Naturally they have to be heard and understood. But in a theatre, the balance engineers keep the smallish orchestra at a good level. Having employed the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to play Bernstein's gorgeous score, it was mostly kept just too much in the background. I came out of the cinema disappointed.

It's one of the iconic movies of the 1960s - the Robert Wise recreation of the smash hit Broadway musical by the gay quartet of Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins. An entire generation grew up knowing many of its main songs and its updating of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" play. Yet the movie was of a time for its time. Nowadays, classic though it is, it does seem dated. So it was perhaps not surprising when Spielberg announced a couple of years ago that he would remake the movie for today's generation. Many were shocked. How would Spielberg update the story? Would it become the disaster that was his attempt at the Peter Pan story with his flop movie "Hook". Not so, have most critics announced. In fact the movie has received almost universal praise. But its opening box office week-end in North America was way below expectations. Only US$10 million taken when any hit movie should gross upwards ot $150 million. The covid pandemic and reluctance to be in a large crowd will inevitably have had an effect. But others have pointed out that the shock value of the original, despite the miscasting of Maria and Tony, is no longer shocking 6 decades later when violence is much more common on our cinema screens. Also the US bible Variety Magazine suggests that older movie goers will not be attracted to the movie having already seen the original. It further suggests the movie stands little chance of recouping the $300 million that will be needed to see it go into profit. The movie is now playing in Thailand. A few critics have gone to town to criticise the movie, especially in this long review below from The New Yorker Magazine which starts – "A rich and famous artist spends a hundred million dollars to revive a corpse with the blood of young people. The creature is still alive, but barely, and the infusion leaves it deader than when it started. This is not the plot of the latest horror film from A24 but the unfortunate tale of Steven Spielberg’s efforts to remake “West Side Story,” the movie musical about love and ethnic rivalry among New York City gangs. With the screenwriter Tony Kushner, Spielberg has attempted to fix the dubious aspects of the 1961 film, including its cavalier depiction of Puerto Rican characters and its stereotypes of a hardscrabble New York. But, instead of reconceiving the story, they’ve shored it up with flimsy new struts of sociology and psychology, along with slight dramatic rearrangements. They’ve made ill-conceived additions and misguided revisions. In the process, they’ve managed to subtract doubly from the original." https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-steven-spielbergs-west-side-story-remake-is-worse-than-the-original

I went to the Marriott Fair again today. Yes, the prices are only available through vouchers purchased at the Fair. Most of the hotels had no blackout dates but a few had an increase over Christmas. Not Le Meridien though. Just for info, the Le Meridien nightly price at the Fair is 3,700 baht inclusive of breakfast for 2, tax and service. Additionally there is a 500 baht daily credit for use in the hotel's F&B outlets. Pretty good deal I reckon! It's valid till March 31.

The new immigration law came into force only two or three years ago. If they have managed to circumvent the law, good luck to them.

You have to pay for the number of days you want at the fair. You then decide and book the actual dates when you are ready. You obviously run the risk that your dates may not be available if it is a really popular period like Songkran. I'd check with the hotel now if they have dates available at Songkran before paying the cash. But in these days of covid, the chances that there are no rooms available must be infinitesimal! In almost every other case, though, you should have no problem. I'm going back to Paragon today to pay for another hotel for an early May stay. You might be able to book directly at the hotel or via the Bonvoy site during the fair period, but I have not checked that.

With the omicron variant about to hit hard, one wonders how long it will take for the government will reverse this move.

It used to be possible but recent changes to the immigration laws made any form of longish stay impossible. There is a 5 years visa but you either have to be a Vietnamese expatriate, operating a business or married to a Vietnamese. There is no retirement visa in Vietnam. Even before covid the maximum stay was 3 months. If you wanted an extension you had to leave the country first and then reapply. A good friend told me of an Australian friend of his who had purchased a property and planned to retire in central Vietnam. When the Immigration rules were recently changed, he had no choice but to give up and sell his apartment. His retirement dreams down the tubes. Like Thailand there are probably a few foreigners who get away with breaking the rules, but I doubt if there are many in these times of covid.