Ruthrieston

I am another person who has never taken part in the social media stuff and I wouldn't touch facebook. People's addiction to their telephones is becoming addictive and dangerous. So often I have seen young families sitting in a restaurant having dinner with a phone propped up in front of the baby, the four or five year old watching his phone and the parents also just watching their phones and not talking to each other or their children at all. That is all so unhealthy, and so sad to see.

My parents both smoked a lot and our house was a permanent nicotine yellow inside, I hated it and have never touched a cigarette. In my years in London I joined the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to protest for gay rights in the late 1980's and the Sister who came from Australia and founded the Sisters in London used to smoke cannabis and some made hashcakes but I never tried it. I was given the name Sister Immaculata Worksurface because my flat was always so clean. We used to stage protests alongside a group called Outrage and the police always went for them and arrested them but we looked like nuns and the police left us alone!

In Pattaya it all starts by 11th and goes on and on until 19th. It is all ridiculous and I hate it. I hide in my condo until 16th when I flee to a quiet and dry Bangkok until 20th.

Me too PeterRS, I avoid all the social media nonsense completely and if my phone battery goes down to 80% in one day that is a lot of use for me.

So true Vinapu. We hardly ever hear about the ongoing massacres of the people in Myanmar by the army anymore.

Nothing that comes out of Orange Face's mouth bares any relation to truth or reality. This sad escalation of violence on the Thai/Cambodian border is awful, and I hope they can calm things down soon, assistance from Malaysia would be more likely to help.

And the lovely sweet young Carlos Alcaraz deserves every penny he makes.

I think this is a reference to the absence of His Majesty Vinapu from his favourite five star eating place, the Took Lae Dee restaurant inside Foodland.

Bless Dame Maggie Smith!!

The Bolt taxi app is better, 100 Baht to the big shopping centres/malls from Jomtien. On Dongtan beach you can look for the sections with Rainbow flags flying in front of them, but all areas are welcoming. I have been living in Pattaya for almost fourteen years and I have always felt safe, the Thai people are always smiling and polite and welcoming. I am sure you will enjoy your time here.

Growing up in the 60's to 70's with a brother five years older than me who was also gay but instead of helping me cope with things he tormented me and made my life even worse, driving me to try to kill myself three times in my teenage years. He got married and had two children, but they divorced and he came out and last I heard he was living with his boyfriend. We have not had any contact since our mother's funeral in 2000. I will never forgive him for how he treated me. It was not until I was 24 that I started to open my closet doors. I have been living in Thailand for almost fourteen years now, and I am so grateful to feel safe and welcome here.

From my first visit to Pattaya in 1998, then with a group of friends, I had regular holiday trips every year. Then in 2011 I took early retirement and certainly could not afford to continue living in London, so I sold up and moved to live in Pattaya. I have never regretted it, and still enjoy living here. I hardly ever visit the bars now, but I feel comfortable with my quiet life here, live alone with quite a few friends around.

I prefer to use the term "young gentlemen"

On my last trip to Bangkok I had real problems with taxi drivers refusing to put on the meter. I go to Siam Paragon to shop for books and try to take a taxi from the waiting line outside Siam Paragon where an attendant takes note of your destination and speaks to the taxi driver next in the queue, six drivers refused to put on the meter and with the drivers just taking off and the queue of people waiting behind me getting longer I gave up and went to the sky train.

A decent young man helping his mother to pay the bills, how pathetic were the people who threw him out of his school. I hope he has a happy life with his wife and children.