Rogie

That is so, however when I were a lad, harking back to post #7, almost as soon as i arrived in Britain my grandfather presented me with two booklets, they were the 'Rules of Association Football' and 'The Rules of Rugby Football'. In everyday British speech Association football = 'football' and Rugby football = 'rugby' or 'rugger'.

I lived in Canada for a few years when I was a kid and remember north-American football on TV, I got to know the names of all the Canadian teams but I never became wildly interested. I don't remember baseball on Canadian TV, maybe it's not so popular there as in the States, so I never go to learn the rules and we certainly didn't play it at school. Looking back I would say my favourite team game was Ice Hockey - I probably still have a battered team photo that was my treasured possession as a ten-year old showing the Montreal Canadiens and their star player 'Rocket' Richard. I even remember a guy called Toe Blake, who was the manager I think. That goes to show that the sport(s) you grow up with as a kid makes such an impression on you that years afterwards, even if you haven't been to any games, you still get that funny feeling when the players run on to the field - no wonder guys love to take their sons to 'the game' - they're re-living their youth! After moving to the UK I was still young enough to latch on to cricket and soccer, although my interest in cricket has waned I still support my local soccer team.

The three bars I know best in Bangkok are Balcony, Telephone and Dick's Cafe. Not having ever offed one of their staff I cannot say what might be a suitable amount. I would guess it would be significantly more than from a go-go bar or in Pattaya. Simply because of the location and the fact the, assuming we are talking about waiters, on a busy night one less waiter means the rest have to work harder. What I would do if I fancied one of the waiters at that kind of establishment would be to sound out the manager beforehand, perhaps a day or two before the envisaged off. He could then make suitable arrangements, including briefing the boy and getting his assent. Another tactic may be to chat up the boy whilst he is working and find out if he's likely to be interested in meeting you outside work hours, and get his phone number, although he is probably working long hours and getting decent pay so might well value his time off, his sleeping time, above earning a bit of extra on the side. I apologise if that wasn't what you had in mind FH, I have assumed those places I listed were the sort you meant by 'Beer Bars'. I have only offed a few boys form Beer Bars and they were all in Pattaya, but going back several years now. The off fee was similar to the go-go bars. The tip was also similar, at least in my experience.

You say it's a funny/weird language Eradesso, but have you come across any funny or weird idioms? Anything to make us laugh?!

I really must get my eyes tested! That'll teach me not to go making assumptions. Back to the serious stuff! There is a blog written by Bangkokbois which has featured a few times on this message board. Here is a link to his opinion and experiences at Tawan. I found it interesting even though it's not my scene. http://bangkokbois.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/muscle-worship-tawan/

Hi John, Horrible memory you may have khun Eradesso but as you've been before within 24 hours it'll be as if you've never been away. Sorry I can't help regarding the kind of guys you prefer as I don't like big muscular men myself. But you are quite right to try and sort out your agenda for Bangkok before you visit, as you will only be there four days. Reading your post it would seem you will be in Pattaya for the lion's share of your time in Thailand. Perhaps you are intending just to relax and concentrate on the beach. Was there anything else you were planning to do when there?

A couple of points: 1) There used to be an easy way to go from one forum to another via a drop-down menu located in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. That has disappeared since the makeover. So for example if I am browsing the posts in the main Gay Thailand forum and wish to directly visit the Beer Bar I have to go. . . Gay Thailand forum --> Main Forum menu --> Beer Bar forum. 2) I may be wrong but I seem to recall there used to be the option to PM a member if you wanted to discuss or comment on a particular post he'd made. The icon was part of the mini member's profile along with date joined, number of posts, etc. Whether I am right or not in thinking that, it would be useful to have the option of having the original post as it appears on the forum as part of your PM to that member. I hope I am making sense here!

Fountainhall's guess looks pretty good. The best I could come up with is Actions speak louder than words

Couldn't agree more, plenty of food-for-thought there. Anyone got any other examples?

As an add-on to post #5, here is an excellent article that weighs up the dilemma that faced the British army in WW!. Shot at Dawn: Cowards, Traitors or Victims? I assume that last paragraph was written some years ago before the pardons came through. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/shot_at_dawn_01.shtml

Back to post #1: The outcome of the petition was announced in the House of Lords. I'm not sure why it was done that way, it seems rather strange, I'll have to brush up on parliamentary procedure. I also do not know the mechanism by which a petition is dealt with. Sorry to say I do not expect it is done so with much imagination. Possibly given to some junior Home Office civil servant to 'research' and come back with the verdict "what the petition is asking is impossible - we can't do that Minister". If I had to hazard a guess, I would like to think that in time Turing will get his pardon. Many of the people who are in power, certainly in the House of Lords, lived through a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence, and even when the threat of prosecution was lifted, prejudice was still rife for many many years. The current crop of younger politicians in power, those now in their forties and early fifties, never lived through those times. They are still going to be influenced by 'older counsel' though. In time a new generation will be able to decide on the issue. During WW1 the usual penalty for desertion was death. I would imagine many of the soldiers who met that fate were indeed guilty. However, many of the yong men sentenced to death were in fact guilty of nothing more than suffering from shell-shock. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for a serving soldier in the trenches, we have books such as Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, but to actually expereince it yourself? That must have been terible. Little wonder some of the young men reacted in the way thay did. After many years of campaigning posthumous pardons have been granted in certain cases. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm

Some airlines supply them, even in economy, along with an eye-shade and microscopic tube of toothpaste. Perhaps the stockings are nylon, I've no idea as I've never bothered to put them on. I feel if the stockings are indeed nylon, and Thaiworthy dresses in the way he describes, all he will then need is to don the eye-shade in order to announce his arrival at the Masked Ball.

It seems sorry is as far as it goes, at least for now. Although that's not enough for some people, he has been rehabilitated. No longer in disgrace, his achievements are celebrated. Here is a good example: I rather like that idea of the 'chance encounter'. It reminds me of the 1997 film Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon and Robin Williams. If I put my fantasy hat on I could visualise the Matt Damon character bumping into Alan Turing in the atrium sparking a furious discussion after which they decide to collaborate on a regular basis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing_Building http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119217/

Fountainhall is surely on the right track by his advocating a 'sort of unwritten contract'. That'll need honest and open 'communication' so as to thrash out an agreement equally satisfactory to both parties. Having agreed on what the guidelines are that's just a start though, isn't it? In order for an understanding between the parties to flourish and prosper continuous participation is needed, adding a bit there, tweaking the corners to that part, and so on. I guess what I am referring to is flexibility. Good clear guidelines where the limits are clearly known but that allow a certain amount of sensible flexibility. Top that off with keeping the communication channels open and hopefully honesty and openness will win over any urge to lie or withhold the truth.

I've added this onto the reopening of the old airport thread because it's flying-related but not of sufficient interest to warrant starting a new topic. DVT Mean anything? Well, it should. Deep vein thrombosis. A lot's been said about this over recent years so I hope we're aware their are risks attached to flying owing to being seated for many hours with little or no opportunity to exercise your legs. Today I came across a webpage warning me that window seats on aircraft were more dangerous than aisle seats. Sounded a bit OTT to me and indeed on careful reading all it is saying is passengers sat in a window seat are less likely to get up and stretch their legs simply because it's less convenient to do so. That means a higher risk of DVT. So if you think you might be at risk during a longhaul flight, and if seated in economy, it would certainly make sense to opt for an aisle seat allowing you reasonable opportunities to get up and stretch those legs! I would imagine a window seat in business class for example would be fine as the extra seat pitch (legroom) allows you to get past your neighbour without inconveniencing him.

Thanks for filling us in with the background Ceejay. I've had a quick look in my Lonely Planet guidebook which confirms everything you say! I wonder if the fact that Bang Pa-In is 20 km south of Ayuthaya might make it easily overlooked, but as you say it is a stop on a day tour. Depends how much time you have I guess. Let us hope Ayuthaya recovers from the terrible devastation following the floods.

We seem to have ended up talking more about relationships than the subject of this topic, why people lie to one another. and more relevantly, to their friends and lovers. Michael has told us how his successful relationships with Thai boys works and I congratulate him in that regard, as I do his analysis of what might have contributed to David's failed relationship with the university boy. People must have been telling lies since time immemorial, picture the time when mankind were hunter-gatherers - a rival tribe accost us and asks where the best game can be found - unless you happened to have pigged out recently you're going to lie and tell them "they went that-away". I suspect lying might be part of our DNA, well whether it is or not and whether there's a 'lying gene' is getting off-topic. But why should people lie to their family, friends or even lovers? I would argue that lying can occur under any situation, whether as in David's case he might have contributed to the reasons for it, or equally in Michael's case where, to quote him, they have 'Money. Security. Adventure. Freedom.' Michael, please do not think I am saying your boys lie, only you can know whether they've ever lied to you, what I am saying is everyone has the potential to do so, no matter how cosseted or protected their lives. I am not an expert in semantics so do not know where a fib becomes a white lie becomes a little lie becomes a whopping great big lie. Lies can originate unprompted such as telling your boyfriend you're having a great time, when in fact you're not, because you know that's what he wants to hear, and there are the lies that result from a form of questioning so answering "yes" to the question "are you happy?" when you're in fact bored stiff. A good tactic would be for the person asking the question (perhaps suspecting all is not well with his friend) to phrase it in such a way that the truth emerges, either straight out or maybe it has to be teased out, but the truth outs in the end. When FH says: If some way could be found to secure a face-saving compromise more or less straightaway (rather then let the predicament fester) that might work, but just how to frame your questions so as to make it seem less a lie rather a more acceptable 'avoidance of the truth' would require enormous patience and skill, not an easy task when dealing with cultural differences. As to FH's question: "And given the cultural differences, in this case was not my friend more “guilty” than his young Thai friend who, it seems, never actually “lied”? The young friend was indeed innocent of the crime of lying. He never had to lie because 1) in the first instance his indiscretion was ignored so he 'got away with it', and 2) in the second instance he was blatantly found out and could do no other than come clean. No, he wasn't guilty of lying, he was guilty of 1001 other things, depending on how censorious we might wish to be about it. That makes him 1000 times more guilty that poor David whose only guilt was his poor relationship skills, but when faced with those kind of Thai-tactics anything less than a very experienced falung is sailing in uncharted waters.

Being light years behind the times, to me a GPS phone must be a wonder to behold. Whether you find your bearings by good old-fashioned map or the new-fangled GPS here's a reminder getting genuinely lost is not without its dangers. Bangkok is a safe city but certain parts are possibly best avoided. I don't know Bangkok well enough to know which parts might come into that category - one hears of places which are AYOR (at your own risk) such as certain cruising areas - although a mugging is probably the worst that could happen to you.

That's a very thought-provoking post Fountainhall. That kind of situation your friend David found himself in is certainly more likely to happen in Thailand than the farang's home country. The cultural differences and age difference come to mind straightaway as reasons that may be so. One can perhaps understand that in a relationship that seems to be working and going smoothly nobody wants to rock the boat. The farang feels blessed that he has a fine young man as his good friend and the Thai guy is happy . . . happy if he is from a poor rural area with few prospects and little money, and happy if he is a university student to have somebody of equal intellectual calibre who has probably travelled the world, been there, done that - and oozes sophistication. Why jeopardise that happiness and togetherness by voicing your concerns? Contrast that with a rocky relationship, lots of arguments (as in the "best part of breaking up is making up" tradition) and awkward differences of opinion clearly out in the open rather than hidden away . . . that kind of relationship might well survive longer than you'd imagine.

This is a follow on from the What we might wish we had done topic posted in the Beer Bar in which 'regret' #4 expressed by many older people approaching death was that they hadn't kept in contact with friends. Once I started thinking of the various ways we can keep in contact I was surprised just how many there are - I've probably omitted a few, hence the 'other' option. Please feel free to post comments. The poll is in two parts, the first question you have only one choice, the second you can choose as many as you wish. The poll is anonymous.

Thanks z, I'll try again Later: Ok this time, I think I know what I was doing wrong, I was going straight into compiling the poll without filling in the start new topic box.

I tried to set up a new poll today in the Beer Bar, but I failed. I got all the way through without any problems and hit the 'Finished' button, lower right hand corner, but the poll was not posted. I tried it again, same problem.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. "Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. That made me wonder how we keep in touch with our friends, so I will be setting a poll to try and find out a bit more about how our members do that. Later: I regret to say I was unable to set up the poll. I have added a suitable comment in the Problems with new board interface thread.

What are message boards for if not to have the occasional bit of kite flying and speculation? The announcement concerning the runway closure at BKK coming at the same time as the one telling us the old airport is reopening could be construed as even more alarming - had it no been for the enforced closure of Don Mueang owing to the floods perhaps the repairs would already have started.

Interesting, I've not seen that before. May I ask where? Or perhaps we should see if anyone else knows before you tell us Ceejay.