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On this day in 1954, University of Manchester hero Alan Turing took his own life, two years after he was prosecuted for gross indecency during a time when homosexuality was illegal in the UK. He was chemically castrated for his sexuality just a few short years after his groundbreaking ingenuity and determination saved tens of millions of lives during World War II. He must never be forgotten.

Alan Turing was one of the true heroes of the 20th century. His accomplishments were so significant it is appalling what his government then forced him to do. What makes it even more so is that Turing had discovered there was a Soviet spy working in his group at Bletchley Park. He planned to expose John Cairncross but was told by Cairncross that if he did so he would then be outed for being gay. Turing elected to remain silent, partly because the Chief of his Section knew about Cairncross and wanted him to continue leaking documents to the Russians who were by then the UK's ally in the war against Hitler. This decision was to return to haunt the UK government. For those unaware of the Cambridge Spy Ring that rocked both the UK and the USA in the 1950s and later, in 1951 two high ranking UK diplomats fled to the Soviet Union. Donald Maclean and the notoriously gay Guy Burgess had been converted to communism whilst studying at Cambridge in the 1930s. There were always rumours of a "Third Man", but nothing - despite a mass of evidence - was proved. Eventually, following the defection of a Soviet KGB officer to the USA, Kim Philby, a former diplomat and then a journalist, fled from Beirut to the Soviet Union. He had been the notorious Third Man. But then there were rumours of yet a Fourth and perhaps a Fifth spy as part of that Ring. A closeted gay, Sir Anthony Blunt had recruited spies for the Soviet Union. After the war, he held high positions in the art world, notably working at Buckingham Palace as the Surveyor of the Queen's Art Collection. He received a knighthood for his work. He was unmasked in 1964 but that was kept secret. In return for his confession, he was given immunity for 15 years, a guarantee of secrecy during that time and he was able to continue with his high society art work. In 1979 he was finally outed as the Fourth Man by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech in parliament. He was stripped of his knighthood and all his art positions. The identity of the Fifth Man remained uncertain until another KGB defection in 1990. Finally John Cairncross, Alan Turing's colleague at Bletchley Park, was unmasked. His later autobiography is titled "The Enigma Spy." One wonders what might have happened had there been no anti-gay law at that time and Cairncross had been unmasked. Many UK and US secrets might not have found their way to Moscow. While Turing's life was cut so desperately short, his life is finally being recognised in some ways. He had received a Royal Pardon in 2013, a relief to surviving members of his family. After much delay, in 2017 the British government abolished the law that had punished gay men under the Offences Against the Persons Act of the 1860s. Some 50,000 men, including Oscar Wilde, were pardoned. That law has become known as the Alan Turing Law. Ridiculously, the mandarins in Whitehall rather emasculated the original Bill by adding pardons would not be given to those who had importuned sex in public places. So Sir John Gielgud, one of the nation's greatest ever actors, was denied a pardon. Importantly for those who believe Turing must be remembered, his face and the detail of some of his work are featured on the nation's new £50 note that enters circulation on June 23.

Although we may all rightly despise the law passed in the 1860s that condemned known homosexuals as criminals, the fact was that many so-called upright [sic] Victorian, Edwardian and later gentlemen were up to their necks in homosexual activity. That they came from privileged backgrounds and were married with children meant that their 'misdemeanours' were passed off as mere uncharacteristic incidents, assuming, that is, that others in 'society' were aware of it - as indeed many were. Had Alan Turing come from the upper classes with friends in high places, it is highly unlikely he would have been charged with anything. If a long-standing member of Parliament, Lord Boothby, was known by many - although not publicly, for the media gag laws in those days were draconian - not only to have engaged in numerous scandalous homosexual affairs, but also enjoyed a multi-decade romance with the wife of the soon-to-be Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, to the extent that many believed Macmillan's youngest daughter had been sired by Boothby, many blind eyes should have been turned in Turing's case. Regrettably his arrest and subsequent conviction were a result of several extremely unfortunate occurrences. First he had only recently commenced a romantic affair with a 19 year old youth. One evening he returned home to find that his home had been burgled. His emotional boyfriend admitted to Turing that he knew the name of the burglar but informed Turing that if he told the police, he would 'out' him as gay. Since nothing of significant value had been stolen, Turing should just have let things be. But he refused to be threatened in such a way and did report the robbery. As the police were searching his home and realised that he was gay, his legal position was untenable. Any other man with such wartime achievements could have called on his wartime superiors to speak on his behalf and mitigate whatever the Court's sentence might have been, if anything. But Turing has signed the Official Secrets Act in order to get into Bletchley Park. Everything he did there was covered by the Act. Officially he had never worked there. As I think he is informed in the film on his last day, officially you do not exist! Had he chosen to go public and broken the Secrets Act, he could have been sentenced to up to 14 years in jail. Despite his wartime successes, he would essentially have been regarded as a traitor. Finally, it was his solicitor who advised him to plead guilty rather than try to fight the charge in the hope of getting a reduced sentence. Had Turing just had someone to advise him not to report the burglary, it is extremely likely that he could have enjoyed many more years of life, as well as the gratitude of hundreds of millions as his exploits were eventually declassified.

It's at the arse end of Jomtien. As someone who has wasted time looking for a hotel which I had booked, but had been given misleading information and worse, misleading location, I am always on the lookout for more of such nonsense. Looking at the pictures at the booking.com site, I began to suspect that there was something misleading about the topmost photo at the FTN news site. This picture (copied below) gives the impression, if one is not careful, that the hotel is on the beach. However, the cars parked in the sandy-coloured area at the left of the photo were a give-away. Though people do park their cars on the sand, a comparison of the above picture with another one on the booking.com site (shown below) indicates that it is the side of the building with balcony bathtubs that face the sea. The sandy-coloured area is an undeveloped patch of land which no doubt will soon be built up, providing great views (of solid wall or other people's windows) for those rooms on the right side of the above photo. The second picture clearly shows that the hotel does not have a beach front, though it also shows that it does not stand as far back as booking.com's Google Map location suggests. In fact, the booking.com map pointer is plain wrong, off by some 3 kilometres!!! That pointer locates the hotel at Na Jomtien Soi 15, when the booking.com page itself says the address is Na Jomtien Soi 18. This kind of carelessness annoys me. So, I look for Na Jomtien Soi 18 on Google Maps proper, and lo and behold, it has Best Western Bayphere (how does one pronounce that without saying "bay-fear") much much closer to soi 18. Why booking.com doesn't link to the correct map is a mystery. This location is at least consistent with the second photo above. The above satelite picture now indicates this hotel to be only 100m or so from the beach, across a swampy river which one hopes isn't fetid. All that said and done, it's still at the arse end of Jomtien.

I agree 100%! GCHQ apologises for 'horrifying' treatment of Alan Turing and discrimination against other LGBT people 'Their suffering was our loss, and it was the nation's loss too' After being chemically castrated, Mr Turing killed himself by eating an apple laced with cyanide (Susannah Ireland) GCHQ chief has apologised for the espionage service's "horrifiying" treatment of Alan Turing and historic prejudice against LGBT people. The pioneering mathematician, whose code-breaking skills are said to have shortened World War Two by two to four years, lost his job with the secret service following a conviction for indecency and was forced to undergo chemical castration. Robert Hannigan is the director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the successor to the Government Code and Cypher School which first employed and then summarily fired Mr Turing. LGBT individuals were banned from joining the espionage organisation until the 1990s, because of what Mr Hannigan referred to as "completely archaic rules on sexuality". Speaking at a conference hosted by gay rights charity Stonewall, he said he had been asked to apologise and added: "I am happy to that today and to say how sorry I am that he and so many others were treated in this way, right up until the 1990s when the policy was rightly changed. "The fact that it was common practice for decades reflected the intolerance of the times and the pressures of the Cold War, but it does not make it any less wrong and we should apologise for it. "Their suffering was our loss, and it was the nation's loss too, because we cannot know what [those] who were dismissed would have gone on to do and achieve. We did not learn our lesson from Turing." Mr Turing received an OBE in 1945 for his work during World War Two, when he and his colleagues in Bletchley Park's Hut 8 constructed code-breaking devices that cracked German ciphers. Imitation Game Featurette Cracks the Code of Benedict Cumberbatch By decoding messages from the Nazi Enigma Machine, Mr Turing helped Britain to reverse its fortunes in the Battle of the Atlantic, locating German U-Boats anHowever, in 1952 he pled guilty to a charge of public indecency, admitting he was in a homosexual relationship with Arnold Murray. Offered the choice between prison and libido-reducing injections, he opted for the later.

Sad mind you that even writing that excellent piece above that the BBC still couldn't bring themselves to inform people of the terrible homophobia that Alan Turing faced during his career which lead to him being castrated no less and his feeling that he would have to end his own life because of it !!! And people ask us why we need "PRIDE" - it's to remind others ( and the BBC it seems) that LGBT DO actually exist and shouldn't and CANT be treated like that any longer !

Santiagodc wrote an epic, three-part account of the 2019 prepandemic scene in Athens. His posts were my guidebook, but of course a lot has changed. Here is my update: Theaters Sadly, the wild, astonishing places that Santiagodc vividly described were shuttered. You’d think the guys who sold themselves there would have moved to nearby Omnia Square, but not the case. Omnia Square Nothing like the cruising nirvana that Santiagodc saw. Usually no more than a couple of guys, if any, were waiting by each metro escalator. And most of them were neither attractive nor making any eye contact. Usually, only one or two guys, if any, in the whole Omnia area were signaling availability. Overall, there was neither the quantity or quality that I’d expected. I erroneously thought the pandemic would bring out more immigrants needing cash. One reason may have been a police crackdown. Police were everywhere around Omnia, especially on the weekend. I nodded to one good-looking young man who followed me around the corner where I discovered he was selling grass only. He refused to consider sex even with a generous offer. Omnia side streets A few guys were hustling on the side streets that Santiagodc had identified. But again, few were good choices. Around here I found only three (during a week) worth taking to the short-term hotel one block over. €5 rooms Santiogodc’s tips on the €5 short-term hotel rooms and how it all works were spot on. Rooms were surprisingly clean too. Parks Same pattern. Not nearly as many guys hustling as I’d expected – only a few, day or night. Fees Santiogodc’s summary of expected payments was higher than I paid. I always said, as if not open for debate: €20. None ever hesitated and they all smiled. But these were for short action in €5 hotel rooms or bar washrooms or park thickets, not for longer sessions. (Santiagodc took some guys back to his hotel room.) Multinational As Santiogodc described in detail, you do see a variety of the Balkans through to Central Asia. I personally promoted international relations with Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and often Persia. Bars Many of the bars were closed and a few were just beginning to open back up. One place that was open had a number of healthy-looking, nearly middle-class, easy-going, G-for-P, Persian guys was Sami's. Bonus Eye Candy Among the many Greek policemen in their 20s or 30s, quite a few were hot and, as their tight uniforms revealed, have toned bodies and nice bulges. In every group of four or five, invariably one was extra, jaw-droppingly sexy. Tourist tip Get the Acropolis at 8am when it opens and be rewarded with having the Parthenon all to yourself. Then go to the new Acropolis Museum nearby and have breakfast with a view on the upstairs terrace. Of course, “your mileage may vary.” But, if you want to visit Athens anytime soon, you can have fun, but I’d caution against expecting the full, grand scene with wild theaters that Santiagodc recounted from years past.

having read so many reports and experiences on the forum, I decided it was time to share some of mine. my last trip was in January 2020 prior to the Covid situation staying at the Nile Ritz Carlton, which is not as fun in terms of local guys as it once was. However I managed to get a few encounters, the first at Khan-el-Khalili market, moving from stall to shop to stall, and young guy maybe early 20's stands in my way, he's really cute in his white shirt and jogging pants, "you buy, you buy" he smiles as i look at the trinkets on display in front of the shop, "more inside, very cheap" he smiles as he ushers me inside, the shop is really small, and cute guy is standing very close, i can feel him almost pressing against my side. "You have anything else for sale" i smile as i look down at the bulge he has in his jogging pants, perhaps to check that he knew exactly what i was asking, he replies "you married sir?", i shake my head, and he follows up with "you like egyptian sausage?" i smile, and moments later he has closed the shop door and im on my knees with an egyptian sausage in my mouth!, he cums pretty quickly, but it was a great 200 egyptian pound spent The second encounter was in the hotel itself, i went to the fitness centre, there was a black guy working in there, he has a body of a god, and i cant keep my eyes off him!, he helps me with some of the exercise equipment, and is fairly friendly. I tip him everyday that i am there and on the 3rd day, he sees me enter and comes straight over, we are chatting and again the line "you married sir?" once again i shake my head, but follow it up with "i could do with some company in my room if your interested", he goes quiet on me, and i think i have said to much, then as i leave, i give him an extra large tip, complete with a slip of paper with my room number on it. About an hour later there is a knock at the door, i open it to find black fitness guy stood there, he smiles "can i come in?" he enters, makes a point of telling me he isnt gay and only does this for money. We agree a fee, and then im on my knees with his dick in my mouth, if he wasnt gay before, he certainly tried really hard!, he stayed for maybe 20 minutes and left with 800 egyptian pounds. let me know if you want me to continue with my trip reports, and message me if you want any tips on travelling around north africa!

your right although i haven’t had to contend with rush hour for 20 years! i have been very lucky!

Boy, that's almost an understatement...think the 495 during rush hour...but I believe you are retiring so you shouldn't be joining the 9 to 5 crowd.

Prigs to the end...a disgrace.

It is well worthy of two mentions!

In few days Bank of England will issue new polymer 50 Pounds note with Alan Turing face on reverse so at least he is commemorated. (it looks that PeterRS and I posted about that at the same minute )

Actually, yes. Imagine the possibilities!

Something similar actually happened quite recently.

i agree!!

Yes, it is a huge scandal and they do not know how to put out the fire. Personally, I am disappointed. I had always casted Fernandez on the other side of Argentine History.

After four years of Trump and with the Republican Party now in thrall to a self-centred 'Emperor has no Clothes' moron, I cannot help wondering: why is it that with so many investigations into his businesses and his own dirty deeds that have been going on for years, still no charges have been brought against him? The Manhattan attorneys have been investigating Trump for years, but still nothing has happened. How come? His Finance guy Weisselberg has finally been hauled before a Grand Jury, but what about all the other people supposedly involved? What is happening about the Deutsche Bank investigations? What is happening about all the Russians who bought Trump properties in Manhattan and Florida? I find it almost impossible to believe that investigations take so long even to drag up just one piece of evidence of illegal shenanigans.

Thank you PeterRS for your kind and generous comment. But for me there was a real heroine in the UK who transformed how people regarded people with HIV, Princess Diana. The very well publicised visits which the Princess made to HIV/AIDS wards in London Hospitals changed things amazingly. In the early days of working at St Stephen's I remember on the long ten hour night shifts we would telephone other specialist wards. Calling the HIV ward at St Mary's, Paddington regularly I heard that a certain young lady had again sneaked up the back stairs in the early hours, and was sitting with one of her friends as he was dying. The Princess did this many times and the press never caught her. When Princess Diana came to open our new Outpatient HIV Clinic she met all the important people and spent about ten minutes with them in full view of the photographers and cameras, then walked through to where the patients who were fit enough to be there and closed the doors and then spent the next hour or more with them in private. It was the many pictures of the Princess holding hands and embracing patients that showed people that they should not be afraid.

That Sandbox will have the same fate as the "Special Tourist Visa", it's a non-starter. It is so complicated and still has so many restrictions, nobody will do it. So typical. They think - quite correctly - that many people are longing for a nice beach vacation, and Thailand and Phuket are clearly popular. But wanting to come doesn't mean accepting all and every burden the Thais think they can just heap on the potential tourists.

I predict not only will he get away with it but will be back in school by fall. Crime Former College Football Player Accused of Killing Man He Met on Tinder From left: Ismemen David Etute and Jerry Paul Smith Jerry Paul Smith of Blacksburg, Va., was beaten to death May 31. A man he met on Tinder is charged with second-degree murder. A suspended Virginia Tech football player accused of killing a gay man has said he became enraged after discovering the person he had met for a sexual encounter was male. Jerry Paul Smith was killed May 31 at his home in Blacksburg, Va. A medical examiner ruled he died of blunt force trauma to the head; an autopsy further revealed that every bone in his face was broken and that he had skull fractures, the Roanoke Times reports. His teeth had also been knocked out. His body was discovered the following day, and Ismemen David Etute, 18, of Virginia Beach was arrested June 2. Etute is charged with second-degree murder. Etute appeared in Montgomery County General District Court in Christiansburg Wednesday. Prosecutor Jason Morgan, in arguing against Etute’s release on bond, testified that the defendant had met Smith for oral sex April 10, after the two had connected on Tinder. Etute believed that the person he had hooked up with was a woman named Angie. He returned to Smith’s apartment May 31, realized Smith was a man, and flew into a rage. It isn’t clear from media reports why Etute thought Smith was a woman during the initial encounter. No one has identified Smith as transgender; his family has said he was a gay man. But Etute became so agitated that he began punching Smith, according to information presented by Morgan and by defense attorney Jimmy Turk. “Etute told the police he punched Smith five times in the face and continued punching the victim when they hit the ground and ‘stomped’ on them,” the Times reports. “Etute heard ‘bubbling and gurgling’ as he left the apartment but didn’t call the police.” Turk responded by telling the court, “I’m not saying what happened was acceptable, but this was more than someone just showing up to an apartment and punching someone.” Turk had argued for his client to be released on bond, and a judge initially granted it, but Morgan appealed. The attorneys then reached a compromise under which Etute was released on a secured $75,000 bond and will be under house arrest and electronic monitoring, according to the Times. His mother had testified that someone is always at their home and that the family includes three siblings, among them a younger sister with Down syndrome. Etute had entered Virginia Tech at midterm and participated in training with the football team. He is now suspended from both the team and the university.