Leaderboard

I enjoy airplane food. My favorite story of food was about 20 years ago I took my two elderly aunts to Thailand from USA. First time on a plane. I flew them Northwest Business Class as they were in their 70's. We took off and they were eating lobster when one of them said, "I see why you fly so much. This isn't hard at all. I could get use to this." I told them to go back and look in the other section of the plane. They did, and they were so grateful to me for flying them in business. My Aunt died a few years back, but her best memories were from that trip. My BF back then showed them a great time. There were tons of photos as we spent 3 weeks in Thailand and every major city. When they were on the plane home, my aunt said to her sister, "what are we going to tell people about the Thai guy in all our pictures" and she said, "I'll tell them this is my nephew's boyfriend and he was good to us." The defrost started with the lobster and ended with them always asking about the BF.

Many Argentines feel like everything good in their lives is owed to Peronism. From the times of Evita & Perón, when a day is sunny nd beautiful, it is a Peronist day. Well, this has been a Peronist weekend. Spring like temperatures and the announcements of downgrading restrictions in the city got Porteños in the street. I joined them, and yesterday met with a friend nearby my base. I walked from my Airbnb to Plaza Italia. In my way, I enjoyed once again my neighborhood. This single block is representative of many others. In a few meters you can appreciate examples of buildings built along more than 100 years. And next to these typical landscape, you have a nuclear bomb that ruins everything. I am sure the view from these towers is amazing, but they completely fucked up the skyline and the nearby family houses' privacy. I wonder how much money those developers paid in bribes to get approved a construction permit breaking the standards for the area. In my way to Plaza Italia, I walked through another development from after my departure. They recycled the areas under and around train bridges. The one near my place is an open outlet shopping mall of local and International first brands. People were standing up in long lines waiting to enter the stores, as there is a limit set per squared meter. As most shopping malls, this one is forgettable, but I thought you may be curious about American burgers prices. This is a Wendy's display. 319= U$S 3.28/2.05; 359 = U$S 3.69/2.31. If you compare these junk food prices to what you have to pay for a prime steak (remember? I am paying 420), these are very expensive. However, in Argentina, fast food crap like Wendy's, McD, and BK, are the choice for the middle class. Just another example of Argentinean middle class' "tilinguería" (a localism for "snobbism" carrying all the cultural nuances that its standard universal synonym lacks of), famous all over the subcontinent. I met my friend at the Ecopark. I absolutely loved walking those trails I had walked so many times as a child, when the Zoo was up and running. The buildings are from Buenos Aires' golden age, when Argentina was still dreaming of becoming an International power. They are just beautiful, with many statues, fountains, and just all kind od constructions with high artistic value. The designers of some landscapes show great sophistication, the apparent intention is to show nature taking over the old buildings, as in a post apocalyptic narrative. Additionally, all the vegetation is local species. Most of the buildings that used to contain wild animals in captivity are now empty. Others have been refurnished. I still remember from 3 decades ago how this used to be a series of small cages with exotic tropical birds: Most animals have been sent to reserves, but a few still remain as they are too old, or sick to be translated. I saw an old poor elephant alone and away from the open to public areas. Other animals will probably become permanent habitants of a quite open space, in the middle of Buenos Aires. After te Ecopark, we walked towards Recoleta. This is all the fancier are of Palermo. We walked through the zone we mentioned before, Palermo Chico, where many local Plutocrats and diplomatics live. Right there, we have the embassy of a favorite American country. I ended the day exhausted after walking about 7 km, and went back home with the intention to write this report. But Grindr came in the middle of my task, and instead I ended inviting a local who made a party with my dick. I need to close Grindr or I will never hire again. To celebrate a good fuck, I ordered authentic Argentina empanadas. Another item checked out of my To Eat List. Today Sunday it was family time. First, I had to stop by the pharmacy to get more anti acids and more lube. Then, my mami was waiting for me with mbaipu. Originally the dish is from Paraguay, but we do the version popular in Corrientes. Another check out of my To Eat List. After spending some hours with family I took advantage of being back to Recoleta, and ran up to the artisans fair to buy a water pipe. And now I am here trying to make a decision. Grindr? A contract? Resting?

This is a good story and thank you for sharing it. One factor to consider is that one or both of these men may have been suffering from dementia, undiagnosed as they seem to have been rather socially isolated. Or perhaps one of them had undiagnosed mental illness such as bipolar disease, one of the symptoms of which is recklessness with money. Perhaps the other man didn’t know how, or didn’t have the strength, to handle his friend’s increasingly poor decisions. I wonder about this especially because of the sudden loss of income, which suggests they may have fallen for scammers who prey on vulnerable older people. Likely we will never know, but before judging too harshly, we might want to consider these or other possibilities. All of which suggests that the best investment we can make in old age is not financial; it is social. I think of my miracle 98 year old mother still living independently in Massachusetts, USA. Her sons are loving and supportive but not nearby. She couldn’t manage without the support of neighbors and friends she cultivated over the years. Not to mention her cat and her garden. So everyone make sure you have people around who care about you and keep an active mind. You will need them both when the inevitable decline comes.

I had not realised this topic would result in such a variety of interesting posts and suggestions. Having chatted yesterday with another guy here who knows the unfortunate pair, we have tried to put together a timeline of what happened up to the point where their cash seems to have disappeared. They both retired around 1998. We expect they must then have been 65. One had received a large amount from the sale of his recently deceased mother's house. No idea of the amount, but clearly several thousand pounds. They had decided that rather than spend their retirement in the UK, they would move to Singapore. Both knew the city state and so must either have worked there or visited more than once. Singapore must have seemed an ideal place. It was still suffering the effects of the 1997 Asian Economic crisis, property prices had fallen and like all Asian currencies, apart from the Chinese RMB and the Hong Kong $, the Singapore $ had dropped close to 25%. We expect they arrived there around late 1999. They spent a year in a serviced apartment and then planned to buy somewhere. But in late 2000 the financial world went into a tailspin with the bursting of the dot.com bubble. Many portfolios took quite a hit. As a result, the pair decided their cash pile might not last in Singapore and they needed to find somewhere less expensive. They did not know Bangkok and so moved into a serviced apartment on Saladaeng (not the one above Zanotti restaurant - a cheaper one between there and Silom near Senso massage) for year while they checked locations to purchase. They purchased a large flat (too large which was a major mistake) in a residential district about 2 kms from Silom. I now realise they moved in at the start of 2002. But property in that area was not expensive, especially for larger apartments. So they must have assumed they got a good deal. But the next curveball as Spoon so accurately describes it occurred just a year later. SARS in early 2003 hit Asian stock markets hard - far more so than the rest of the world. Although they had recovered by around the end of the year, had anyone sold assets during that downturn, their cash pile would have been effectively reduced. Fast forward to the worldwide depression of 2008 when just about everyone suffered financially - many badly. The future outlook for those living off savings inevitably was bad, the more so with interest rates falling close to zero and remaining there for many years. We suspect they must at that time have seen the writing on the wall as far as their long term future in Thailand was concerned. But they could not sell their property as values had crashed. So they hung on presumably for as long as they could. At that stage we guess they could have just upped sticks, taken the financial hit and returned to the UK. But if you are getting close to 80 and know that the world has recovered from similar crises in the past, perhaps they reckoned waiting it out would be the best thing. Clearly it was not. Yet they waited till around 2013 before putting the condo on the market. We have no idea who they entrusted the sale to but it took three years before they found a buyer. By then the asking price had dropped by more than 25%. Their next mistake was moving into another large apartment so close to the city centre at a rent that they perhaps thought they could afford. Even with some savings and with somewhere around 10 million baht from the sale in their accounts, not moving into a much smaller and cheaper apartment further from the centre was some kind of madness. Within 5 years their cash had all but run out. And yet, how did they run through such an amount of cash so quickly? As I mentioned earlier, something must have happened between renewal of their visas in May last year and having to start borrowing from friends just to stay alive only a few months later. We still do not know how a seeming 1.6 million baht to renew visas disappeared. In the thread title, I used the word "sad". I believe that is because I knew the pair and I knew them to be good, decent people who lived quite frugally and were good neighbours. Perhaps I should have left that word out. I feel very badly for them now and their future must seem bleak. But it is certainly a cautionary tale. All the advice offered above about the amount of cash anyone requires for retiring in Thailand is so apt. It is likely to be a lot more than at first thought, the more so if you live into your late 80s or 90s. Placing all ones financial eggs in one uncertain basket is not at all a good idea. Some back-up is vital.

the same here, actually I find those meals quite edible but usually I board aircraft a bit hungry and being hungry greatly improves taste of almost anything. In reality I think we eat aboard more to entertain ourselves and pass time more than satisfy hunger - how much one must east when sitting busy doing noting for several hours?

Im good at saving money but not good at investment. I should learn the investment routes soon but kept delaying it. Plus, i cant seems to shake off losing my hard savings when the stocks didnt do well. I have one stock only and havent sell mine since the IPO. It is profitable and still giving me dividen. I like reading about investments but the more i read, the more hesistant i get lol.

Great photos. Thank you for sharing. And, the empanadas look fabulous!

To be fair, I had to take Northwest a lot and found their breakfasts pretty good (although that was in business class). Not being American, I particularly loved their pancakes with fruit and lashings of maple syrup. Most of my flights were trans Pacific and I could never understand why it had earned the name "Northworst". But then I rarely had to take a flight in coach within the USA! One of my most amusing flights was on British Airways flying from London to Singapore. I was travelling with the Asian Regional Director of the company and since he was in First Class he arranged for me to sit next to him. In the BA Lounge, he asked if BA served caviar on the flight. I'm certain they must, I suggested, but said i would check. The British Airways lounge personnel usually seemed to believe they were members of some snooty aristocratic class. Having asked my question, the young lady brushed me off with, "Oh, of course they will. But I will check and page you" Back at the desk five minutes later, that stupid lady had to crawl and admit she had been wrong. Caviar was not on the menu for our flight. When I told my colleague, he literally screamed, "F-U-C-K" and the entire lounge went silent. He then stormed out with "I'll see you on the plane." 15 minutes later I got to our double seat in the centre at the back of the cabin. My colleague arrived clearly happier than when I had last seen him. I assumed he'd been to the caviar bar in the main departure area and snacked there. But no. "Guess what I got?" He then held up a brown paper bag. Inside was a £250 tin of caviar and a bag of Melba toast. £250 then is probably closer to £500 now. As soon as the flight attendants started to come round, he summoned one. "Please bring us two side plates, two knives, two tea spoons and two patties of butter - fast!" When she eventually realised that it was to serve ourselves caviar, she exclaimed, "Goodness! You are lucky. You have caviar," to which my colleague said in a loud voice, "Thats because this fucking airline is so mean it won't serve it for first class passengers!" We were not very popular with the others in the cabin!

Certainly , along with common sense, a concept of downsizing was very foreign to those two unfortunates. I'm with zombie in this case

Good points to ponder. I toyed with the idea of retiring to bkk several times but it was always the growing uncertainties that dissuaded me. In the end, after I weighing all the factors, I decided that three long trips per year suited me better. That practice served me well until the pandemic and I realize how much I miss that routine. I'm ready to resume that schedule as soon as conditions permit. I remain confident that opportunity will arrive by October. Like most of us on this board, I've come to really like the guys I meet and the laid back lifestyle of Southeast Asia. So I hope the powers that be adopt a reopening that is free as possible of limitations on my choices of where and when I want to go. Other countries in the region are eager to attract tourists and I'm counting on that competition to enable my plans.

Me? It's much less the flying itself and much more missing meeting up with old friends again in various countries in Asia. I'm an admitted travel junkie and so I can't wait to get vaccinated and for travel bubbles finally to open up. For another self-confessed travel geek what he misses most is - airline food! Nik Sennhauser grew up almost on planes between Thailand where his Dad worked for a multi-national company and Austria where he went to school. Now based in Scotland, he spends his Sunday mornings making airline food for himself and his husband. I can't think why anyone would want to recreate airline food. When working for a multinational company, I had the luxury of business class travel most of the time, but the meals remain forgotten. Bumped up to first class on a few occasions, I was introduced to caviar and did enjoy it to the point where I always asked for a second helping - to the annoyance of the flight attendants who were probably limited to how much each passenger could be served. If there is one other item I recall it would be the wines, a few of which were spectacular. Perhaps oddly, the one meal I recall with pure pleasure was on JAL returning on an evening flight from Tokyo in economy class not so long ago. The airline had asked some chefs to prepare some new economy meals. I thought mine the best airline meal I had ever enjoyed in any class in decades of travelling. Pity the wine was cheap plonk, though! Nik's recreation of a United Airlines meal! Urghh! https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57411754

"Just don't do something, stand there" The late Jack Bogle, who pioneered Vanguard into the leading low-cost investment company, had 10 rules for guiding investors, and especially those who manage their own money. What I particularly like about them is their inherent simplicity. In the end, Bogle cautions that that we're our own worst enemy but he also reminds us that there's a easy way to avoid it: it's always better to ignore the gyrations in the market and "just don't do something, stand there." Here's a past interview that as current today as it was when he was president of Vanguard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk9w-XuXXk

I dont like flying. Weird since i.love travelling so much but flying is just a thing one must do to go to places. I dont mind the food, can live with the cramped seats, but a good flight for me is one i can sleep through, ideally as soon as the flight took off, and woke up as we are landing. I had one bad experience when i was 17, where our flight had to turn back and make emergency landing at the departure airport and we heard people said they see smokes while we are descending. The landing was rough but safe and there is a scores of fire trucks and ambulance ready but thankfully no one needed them. We were put on a different plane to travel again on the same day. Also, i hate turbulence lol. I had taken few business class flight for work, and it was definitely much better especially for long haul travel. I also took northwest 13 hours direct flight from minneapolis to narita, on a flight that doesnt even have in flight entertainment. The most pleasant flight ive taken is on the airbus business class with emirates, between KL and Dubai.

In my post two above, I mentioned the sale of the mother's house as "clearly several thousand pounds." Apologies - it should have read "several hundred thousand pounds."

The health issue is so vital for retirees and so relatively uncertain. From my 40s I had a wonderful health plan paid for by my employer. Everything was paid for and it was worldwide. But even before I left, I knew I could not take it with me, as it were. And even had that been possible, there was no way I could have afforded the premiums. So before I had to give up that policy, I very stupidly took advice from someone in one of the chat rooms by going to an acknowledged "expert" in medical insurance. And I assure you, everyone said he was "THE expert". End result. I got a plan that was much more suited to a future in Thailand. So for a couple of years I had two policies as I knew that after 65 I would have difficulty finding any cover. I was extremely stupid. i did no research on the insurance company. It was large and based in the USA. I had checked on likely future premiums for ten years and was satisfied. But I did not check the company. t was then fighting several law suits and had a reputation for pulling in clients close to retirement and then raising rates very quickly. For three years all went well even after I hit one of the 5 year milestones when premiums usually increase more significantly than usual. But over the next two years the premium went up first by 25% and the next year by 50%! I was near incandescent with rage. I spoke to the company and especially to the broker who had sold me the policy. All put their hands up and said "not our fault". So after age 65 I had to try and find another insurer, move back to the UK or self insure. Thankfully I found another company here in Thailand and have what I consider a very good plan at decent rates. But the reason I quoted from @Ruthrieston's post concerns the possible introduction of the 40,000 baht outpatient requirement. This to me seems the height of utter nonsense. I dropped outpatient treatment from my policy and will save around 37,000 baht annually. It made no sense since my policy has a 40,000 baht excess. Why pay 40,000 that just to claim 3,000? So I have a separate bank account with plenty of funds to cover outpatient treatment and any other additional medical costs. But will the Immigration Department and its medical advisers see the sense in this? Of course not! TIT.

When I got to Heathrow ready for my flight to Thailand I would always treat myself to a seat at the Champagne bar to indulge in some smoked salmon and a few glasses of Champagne, a great start to my holiday!

and rightly so , even on economy one will not hear that kind of language more than once per 127.3 flight hour

He was young when he was on Idol and I remember talking about how I thought he was gay. He did come out to his family earlier and now to the world. It is good he felt comfortable to do that as his family is very religious and he is as well. I know this was a struggle for him.

After these many years I have to do the reverse: In TH-as clothes there are never properly labelled, I stock up, if I see anything cheap&cheerful for EUR and here in EUR I buy pure 100% cotton shirts/pants- mostly in the after season big sales, as I still find these are the best for TH, even only staying the cool monthes there. Except for the yellow+Thai flag coloured monday shirt. Most of the out of centre hypermarkets have a stall of 2-3 selling 2nd hand cloths and these can offer very good buys, but its a pin in a haystack. The saying is these are donated from the west with pitiful intention to dead poor countries like Cambodia (not/never Laos-even if its more poor) or Burma/Phima. The clever people overthere search them out and sell the better items on to TH as this gives them more money! Now they can buy on their markets 2 pants/shirts/whatever for that they got as 1.

Basically I agree with you. But I think you have to remember that regulations do change from time to time and there was a major change in the retirement visa extension requirements early last year. From 800,000 baht in the bank for 3 months prior to renewal which could thereafter be spent over the next 9 months, Immigration decided (for reasons I still do not understand) that the 800,000 had to be in the bank for 5 months during which it could not be touched and thereafter 400,000 must remain untouched for 7 months. In other words, at least 400,000 has to be locked up for life, as far as I can see. That is a pretty radical change considering many older people never had the level of pensions most younger people nowadays save or are forced to save towards. Anyone in their mid-80s who contributed to the UK National Insurance scheme for the required 40 years and started taking the pension at the age of 65 has it frozen at that level. My guess is that for those two guys that probably amounted to less than £75 (3,290 baht) per week each. Also, there may come a time, especially when you are in your 80s or older, when you cannot return home because there is simply no home to go to. Remember the case of the 92 year old who was put on a flight to Switzerland not so long ago? He could not meet the new retirement visa requirements and was deported. He had absolutely no relatives and no place to stay in Switzerland. Yet he was Swiss and so that is where he was sent. What he did once he got there, I hate to think. I have no home in Britain. No house, no apartment, no income apart from a basic British pension which would certainly not enable me to rent even a small apartment or get me into a care home. My brother and sister are about my age and may die before me. I don't have an extended family like many others, although i am certain my niece would look after me. At least i have an apartment here and savings in the bank. But as gaybutton writes, it would be useful to know what financial disaster befell these two guys so quickly. When people run out of cash, it is usually the case that they can predict that probably years ahead. So they can plan accordingly. From what we know, it seems these guys were caught almost completely unawares. On a separate matter, thanks to 10tazione for finding my earlier post. Renewed apologies for repeating most of the tale.

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.

The more I walk around Palermo, the more happy I am at my choice. After so many years in Recoleta, it is awesome to be back at home but, at the same time, to experience a different Buenos Aires. This is an area that had a lot of redevelopment after I left. There are many skyscrapers, crystal luxury department buildings next to family houses mostly from the 50s and 60s, although there are also older gems. It is not unusual to find buildings like this corner: A traditional house built probably at the ending of the XIX, beginning of the XX century, refurnished and repainted to get a contemporaneous look. My favorite finding was an accident. My boy Y ran out of the anesthesic (dilocaína) lotion he needs for his ass to take my cock, so we had to look for a pharmacy. In our way to the one where I had bought Viagra a couple of days ago, we found this wonder: I am not an architect, but that building is probably from the 1920s. And who knows when they cleaned those walls for the last time. The inside was just as old and outdated as the outside. A flashback in time that is not usual in this city anymore. The pharmacist is an old man, probably around 80, who needed a long time to move around and deliver an order. He probably is the son of the original pharmacist who opened the business. Surely, he is the last one to keep this pharmacy open. Soon they will be kicked out of the market by the modern uniformed pharmacy chains flourishing all over the city. I guess you have heard about how good ice cream is in Argentina. I have never been in Italy, but I am told by Italians that it is almost as good as their famous gelato. I stopped by one of the best Gelato chains in the city, Volta. Take a look at those prices! I bought 1 Kg of delicious creamy pleasure for only 12 bucks at official rate, 7.70 at blue. Perhaps is more expensive than USA ice cream, but you cannot compare. If you want a fair comparison, compare this ice cream to an orgasm. I keep checking out my favorite dishes out of my To Eat list. Last night, was the turn for milanesas argentinas auténticas. Finally, to honor TGIF, I tried my first contract with a local escort, Ander. I was actually expecting to start next week, because Grindr has my dick smoking. It was an accident. I was checking profiles in Scruff, and saw this Colombian guy who I already had in my To Do List. I hit him as a regular hook up and he responded telling me he was an escort. I decided to keep playing the game "I did not know you". We quickly closed a deal for $AR 5,000 (51 bucks official/32 Blue). The guy was amazing. I offered him a photo session, and he told me he will think about it. I will wait for his response to write and publish a detailed review in the blog. Just as a spoiler, he was absolutely recommendable. Pleasing and at the same time demanding, passionate, voracious and uninhibited, indeed I will see him again with or without photo session. I was actually planning to hire first Douglas, to start with someone I already know. I even contacted him to check his fee. He charges only $AR 2,500 (U$S 26/16). However, after he told me his fee he vanished. I am still struggling with finding a productive routine. I still have to telework until the 18th, and the city closes down at 8pm because of the pandemic. The government just announced new protocols, less strict, and starting next week the city will close at 11pm. When I am traveling, I usually write in the mornings. This time I will probably do as I am doing right now. Once the city closes down, if I have energy, I will write.

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.

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.

Alan Turing: The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' Alan Turing - the Bletchley Park codebreaker - would have been 100 years old on 23 June had he lived to the present day. To mark the occasion the BBC commissioned a week-long series of articles to explore his many achievements. This second essay examines the impact the British mathematician had on the outcome of World War II. image captionTuring's Treatise on Enigma helped break Germany's encrypted messages Germany's Army, Air Force and Navy transmitted many thousands of coded messages each day during World War II. These ranged from top-level signals, such as detailed situation reports prepared by generals at the battle fronts, and orders signed by Hitler himself, down to the important minutiae of war like weather reports and inventories of the contents of supply ships. Thanks to Turing and his fellow codebreakers, much of this information ended up in allied hands - sometimes within an hour or two of it being transmitted. The faster the messages could be broken, the fresher the intelligence that they contained, and on at least one occasion an intercepted Enigma message's English translation was being read at the British Admiralty less than 15 minutes after the Germans had transmitted it. image captionTuring helped adapt a device originally developed by Poland to create the bombe On the first day of war, at the beginning of September 1939, Turing took up residence at Bletchley Park, the ugly Victorian Buckinghamshire mansion that served as the wartime HQ of Britain's top codebreakers. There he was a key player in the battle to decrypt the coded messages generated by Enigma, the German military's typewriter-like cipher machine. Bletchley's bombes Turing pitted machine against machine. The prototype model of his anti-Enigma "bombe", named simply Victory, was installed in the spring of 1940. His bombes turned Bletchley Park into a codebreaking factory. As early as 1943 Turing's machines were cracking a staggering total of 84,000 Enigma messages each month - two messages every minute. Turing personally broke the form of Enigma that was used by the U-boats preying on the North Atlantic merchant convoys. It was a crucial contribution. The convoys set out from North America loaded with vast cargoes of essential supplies for Britain, but the U-boats' torpedoes were sinking so many of the ships that Churchill's analysts said Britain would soon be starving. "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," Churchill said later. Just in time, Turing and his group succeeded in cracking the U-boats' communications to their controllers in Europe. With the U-boats revealing their positions, the convoys could dodge them in the vast Atlantic waste. image captionThe bombe's operators read decrypted German messages by marking the position of its drums The Turingery Turing also searched for a way to break into the torrent of messages suddenly emanating from a new, and much more sophisticated, German cipher machine. The British codenamed the new machine Tunny. The Tunny teleprinter communications network, a harbinger of today's mobile phone networks, spanned Europe and North Africa, connecting Hitler and the Army High Command in Berlin to the front-line generals. Turing's breakthrough in 1942 yielded the first systematic method for cracking Tunny messages. His method was known at Bletchley Park simply as Turingery, and the broken Tunny messages gave detailed knowledge of German strategy - information that changed the course of the war. "Turingery was our one and only weapon against Tunny during 1942-3", explains ninety-one year old Captain Jerry Roberts, once section leader in the main Tunny-breaking unit known as the Testery. "We were using Turingery to read what Hitler and his generals were saying to each other over breakfast, so to speak." Turingery was the seed for the sophisticated Tunny-cracking algorithms that were incorporated in Tommy Flowers' Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer. With the installation of the Colossi - there were ten by the end of the war - Bletchley Park became the world's first electronic computing facility. Turing's work on Tunny was the third of the three strokes of genius that he contributed to the attack on Germany's codes, along with designing the bombe and unravelling U-boat Enigma. Ending the war image captionTuring and Bletchley Park's other cryptologists helped counter the threat posed by Germany's U-boats Turing stands alongside Churchill, Eisenhower, and a short glory-list of other wartime principals as a leading figure in the Allied victory over Hitler. There should be a statue of him in London among Britain's other leading war heroes. Some historians estimate that Bletchley Park's massive codebreaking operation, especially the breaking of U-boat Enigma, shortened the war in Europe by as many as two to four years. If Turing and his group had not weakened the U-boats' hold on the North Atlantic, the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe - the D-Day landings - could have been delayed, perhaps by about a year or even longer, since the North Atlantic was the route that ammunition, fuel, food and troops had to travel in order to reach Britain from America. Harry Hinsley, a member of the small, tight-knit team that battled against Naval Enigma, and who later became the official historian of British intelligence, underlined the significance of the U-boat defeat. Any delay in the timing of the invasion, even a delay of less than a year, would have put Hitler in a stronger position to withstand the Allied assault, Hinsley points out. image captionThe UK government did not disclose details of the efforts to crack the Enigma machine until 1974 The fortification of the French coastline would have been even more formidable, huge Panzer Armies would have been moved into place ready to push the invaders back into the sea - or, if that failed, then to prevent them from crossing the Rhine into Germany - and large numbers of rocket-propelled V2 missiles would have been raining down on southern England, wreaking havoc at the ports and airfields tasked to support the invading troops. Saved lives In the actual course of events, it took the Allied armies a year to fight their way from the French coast to Berlin; but in a scenario in which the invasion was delayed, giving Hitler more time to prepare his defences, the struggle to reach Berlin might have taken twice as long. At a conservative estimate, each year of the fighting in Europe brought on average about seven million deaths, so the significance of Turing's contribution can be roughly quantified in terms of the number of additional lives that might have been lost if he had not achieved what he did. If U-boat Enigma had not been broken, and the war had continued for another two to three years, a further 14 to 21 million people might have been killed. Of course, even in a counterfactual scenario in which Turing was not able to break U-boat Enigma, the war might still have ended in 1945 because of some other occurrence, also contrary-to-fact, such as the dropping of a nuclear weapon on Berlin. Nevertheless, these colossal numbers of lives do convey a sense of the magnitude of Turing's contribution.

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.

These first two week, specially this one, I am still heavily supporting my school from distance, and my movements are highly restricted, as at 8pm local restrictions mandate to stay home. I just went for a walk in between zooms and got still more in love with the neighborhood. Yesterday not only was Sunday, but also the last day of a strict weekend quarantine. Most places were close. Today bars and restaurants were open and, as it was still morning, starting to set up their tables outdoors. Definitely, they seem to be tailored to welcome USA and UK visitors, both countries right now banned from entering. Just a sample: I chose that picture not because it is exceptional, but rather the opposite. Most places have bilingual menus and signing. By the way, remember that here it is Fall. I was concerned when I realized I did not bring any viagra pills, considering the activity I am about to start today (Y is coming this early afternoon). So I stopped by a local pharmacy to check whether or not they would sell me sildenafil without a prescription. The regulation here is unclear, and some places will demand a recipe, some will not. I was lucky and hit bingo in my first try. 20 pillas of 50mg, $AR 3600. If I had paid with my CC, the bill would have been U$S 37. As I used cash, I actually paid 23 bucks. My Grindr keeps driving me crazy, Scruff so far has been a disappointment. I am saving the most interesting hits after a quick chat to confirm we are a match, I will probably start meeting them this coming weekend. My favorite one:

I seem to recall that was the drug AZT. Although it was a breakthrough of sorts, didn't it have to be taken in a strict regimen every few hours, often along with some other drugs because like all viruses HIV was mutating? It was a Taiwanese-American, Dr. David Ho, who discovered the first real protease inhibitor treatment in the early 1990s that made life for HIV patients far more bearable. I remember only because he was on the cover of TIME magazine! I am sure @Ruthriestonis far better informed. I still consider the account of the early history of the AIDS crisis by Randy Shilts 'And The Band Played On' the near definitive book that everyone should read. Vastly better than the TV series packed with stars of the same name. Its one major error was in propagating the "Patient Zero" myth. When the doctors in NYC and LA noticed they were dealing with clusters of cases among young gay men, they eventually realised there almost certainly had to be a common link. Their research led them to a Canadian airline steward named Gaetan Dugas. All at one time had had sex with him. His work had taken him to Africa where it was then discovered there had been a major outbreak of AIDS in the 1920s in and around Kinshasa. We now know it had jumped the species barrier from chimpanzees to humans. Dugas was located. After being tested, he was found to be positive and informed about his passing HIV to others. He was asked to stop having sex with other men. Allegedly, he said he would not. Someone had given him the virus and he saw no reason why he should cease his activities since he was not responsible for his being infected. While that part of the tale may be true, by the end of the century it had become obvious that Dugas, who had by then died, was not Patient Zero and had been much maligned by being so named. However, later research suggested HIV had ben present in the USA much earlier. In 1968 a 15 year old teenager named Robert Rayford from Missouri entered hospital suffering from a variety of ailments. Doctors were baffled. On questioning, they suspected that Rayford was gay and had perhaps been either seriously molested or he was a male prostitute. None of the treatments seemed to work. As his condition worsened he soon developed a pneumonia-like illness and his immune system was discovered to be dysfunctional. He died in May 1969. The autopsy found rare purplish lesions on his left thigh, unheard of in black teenagers. The odd thing about the case was that Rayford had never travelled outside his home state and never received a blood transfusion. The only later connection thrown up was that he lived close to TWA's airline hub of St. Louis. Tissue samples were kept for later analysis. It was found that antibodies against all nine detectable HIV proteins were present in the blood samples. This was published in a medical journal in 1988 but only ever once again referred to, at a Conference in 1999 in Australia. Unfortunately the last known samples of Rayford were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Anthony Fauci was one who was both curious and baffled. “It certainly could be true, and may even be likely that it’s true,” Fauci said, “but the absolute nailed-down proof isn’t there.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/15/mystery-illness-killed-boy-years-later-doctors-learned-what-it-was-aids/

I always thought the first cases were of kaposi's syndrome identified in New York. But I see from the link that the two sets of cases were discovered on the same day. Thank you @TotallyOzfor reminding us all of this pivotal moment in our lives. It is one we should never forget. It brings back so many memories, many of fear because in those early years being informed of a positive test was quite literally the door opening to a long lingering death. And if we had lovers or just casual acquaintances with whom we might have had sex, we were terrified of what might happen to them and then to us. The fear, too, of the possibility that we were infected and were passing death on to others. And yet, looking back I sometimes wonder if those days were quite as frightening for most of us as perhaps they should have been. I did not refrain from sex after i had heard of HIV. I did not even start to use condoms until I had learned a lot more about the disease. But then I was in a part of the world where it took a longer time for reality to dawn. It took the death in 1987 of one whom I had loved passionately to knock me to my senses. Although we had not been together for four years, we eventually became good friends and I had had tea with him just 10 weeks before his death. His new lover informed me of his passing. He had meant so much to me that I flew the round trip of 12,000 miles just to attend his funeral. Although I was 99% certain I could not have been HIV+ as a result of our relationship, I started to think of all the other men I had slept with, many in different countries. I became more afraid. What if I was positive? A little earlier, in October 1984 three friends in Tokyo had birthdays within 4 days of each other. They invited me to the joint party they would be holding. I said I had to decline. I just could not afford the trip. Nearer the time, I thought this is silly. They are good and close friends and I do want to be there. So I bought a ticket. I did not tell them I would be coming. So when they opened the door and saw me bearing gifts (as it were), there were lots of smiles and laughter. I am glad I went. It was a wonderfully happy evening. I ended up with another of their guests who had seemed such a quiet soul but was a tiger in bed. What I could not know then was that I would see none of my three friends again. They all died of AIDS. I admire @Ruthriestonso much for all he did for those young men he cared for before and after death. You, sir, are one of the many saints and one of the many heroes of those times.

I qualified as a Registered Nurse in Aberdeen in Scotland in 1986 but there were no jobs to be had and I was forced to move to London where I went to work in the HIV ward in St Stephen's Hospital in Fulham. We had eighteen beds in small rooms and we had at least nine deaths every day, mostly young gay men. We had to receive and transport patients ourselves as the porters wouldn't transport them, also the bodies had to be prepared by us and taken to the mortuary by the nurses too. Those were the hardest years of my life and I too lost many friends and colleagues.

So, I was in need of some company today. Here is what I had a choice of. Can you guess which one I chose?

BTW: These are the two that were at the desk when I left and they were sexy.

Here were the boys available today. I took one and it was below average. But, two more were at the desk that I liked and will try again. The place is OK but I had a different room today that was tiny. Bathroom is shared and not clean but tolerable. Cost was 550 baht for 1.5 hours to the place and then tip to boy.

OK. So, I went today as they put out videos from TikTok and this lad captured my attention. The place is easy to find but there are other gay massage places in the area. It was quick on highway in Grab. The lobby is small and they show you the guys on the phone. I called ahead as I only wanted one. He was waiting for me when I arrived. The manager spoke good English and we had a nice conversation. The closest BTW is Saphan Kwai. They use to have a lot of beer bars in that area I liked but have not been in 20 years. The room was OK. It was on the floor. The bathroom was fine but 3 flights up stairs. Cost for massage is 500 baht and minimum tip for boy is 500 baht. Both are for 1.5 hours. I chose a top and he was a true top but a great massage and nice lad and fulfilled my TikTok fantasy! I loved his tats!

I thought I had written about these two English men who found themselves on really hard times in an earlier thread a few months ago. But I cannot find it. So apologies if I repeat myself. I just find this sad tale one that more than a few considering retirement in Thailand might also find themselves eventually facing. I had virtually forgotten about them until a friend sent me a Thai Visa thread at the weekend. The background. Two Englishmen I'll call D and D moved to Thailand to retire in Thailand around 2003. Both gay but I was never sure if they were a gay couple. I expected not. Just two good friends saving money by retiring together. They purchased the large double flat next to mine and spent quite a bit renovating it. Over the years I rarely saw them other than in the lift, waiting for a taxi or when we would occasionally invite ourselves to the others apartments for a glass of wine. They were polite - almost reserved. They hardly ever ventured out except to meet other expat friends for a coffee or a drink. Apart from one trip to England, I do not think they ever left Thailand. Both had medical insurance policies from English companies and one certainly had a pension being remitted. But I know that they used the 800,000 baht cash route when it came time to renew their retirement visas. As neighbours, I could not have asked for any pair more considerate and quiet. About 5 years ago they sold their flat. It had taken them a long time to sell and I know they got considerably less than they hoped for. Still, they will have at least doubled their purchase price. I assume it was probably in the region of 10-12 million. They moved into a rented apartment about 1.5 km away. From what I have now learned, the rental was probably in the region of 50K - 60K for a flat in the 140 - 200 square meter range. With hindsight that clearly was a massive mistake. Committing to such a large rental near the city centre with virtually a fixed amount of cash to live on for life was stupid. The recent past. In May last year, both extended their retirement visas still using the 800,000 baht route. Since this requires keeping that amount unspent for three months, they presented evidence via the bankbook in August. Something very serious then happened, but we do not know what. From at least 1.6 million in the bank plus other savings from the sale of their flat etc., in the space of little over 2 months they had virtually nothing. They stopped paying their rent. By December their landlord had cut the electricity and water to the apartment. They started calling friends asking for small loans. The landlord took them to court. The judge gave them a month to vacate the apartment. They did not leave. Soon even friends ceased to provide cash they knew would never returned. They started making plans to return to England, even though one had no living relatives there and the other only an older sister. Then those pans fell through, perhaps because of covid regulations but more likely they had no money to purchase tickets. They continued living without air conditioning, a fan or even water. The present. Having failed to renew their retirement visas towards the end of May, the matter moved from the police to the immigration authorities. Last week, in their mid-80s they were arrested and placed in a detention centre. Having overstayed their visas they will be deported and blacklisted. Who pays for their tickets is uncertain. One Thai Visa respondent states that the UK Embassy does not pay for such tickets. Then what happens is also uncertain since it seems at least one has nowhere to live on return. From the photo on the Thai Visa thread showing them in custody they appear desperately thin suggesting they had little money for food. What the future holds for them must be grim. But there remains the unanswered question: what happened to the cash they had in the middle of last year which then vanished within months? I suppose, perhaps like others we have heard about, they borrowed from money lenders at a very high interest rate and that cleaned them out. Who knows? Sad nonetheless.