PeterRS

Thank for printing the article @Lonnie @RockHardNYCthe number of free articles is down to about 5 I believe, and this includes reading of back articles posted on the internet.

The majority will not speak English. If making a reservation, you can always ask the shop which guys speak a little English.

Until about 25 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about this 15th century painter who was arguably the most important painter of the early Renaissance period. Today his few works continue to amaze me. I came across him completely by surprise. Good friends of mine had bought an old farmhouse on a hill about 20 minutes west of Arezzo in Umbria. One summer three friends and I went to stay in their beautifully decorated home. On our first evening, we had a barbecue by the swimming pool. In the early evening light, the fields stretching down were filled with wild poppies and the fireflies started to come out. Eventually we could see the lights from hilltop Renaissance towns far in the distance. Quite magical! Nearby is the town of Sansepolchro. We decided to visit the Museum. Here are several paintings by Piero dell Francesca as he was born in the town around 1415, the exact date is not known. I was captivated. Later painters were known for their use of perspective and light, but Piero's predated them all. To cut a long story short, I returned to stay with my friends a couple of years later. By then I knew more about Piero and there was one painting I was determined to see, The Flagellation of Christ. The art historian Sir Kenneth Clark had had named it "the greatest small painting in the world." It is located in the small Museum in the town of Urbino, about 2 hours drive from where I was staying. So I drove over. How to describe the painting. Small it certainly is. It is also displayed flat because it was actually painted on a table top around 1470. At first sight it seems lop sided with the figures on the right taking most of the attention away from Pontius Pilate watching Christ's flagellation by a Roman soldier on the left. Who are these large figures? Who is the young man between the older men? Why is Christ not the focus of the painting as would usually be the case around the time it was painted? Many theories have been presented as to the meaning of the characters and the composition. To start, I believe these are less important than the painting itself. Piero's use of light and the source of that light was to become typical in many Renaissance paintings. His use of perspective is far more advanced than in the works of other contemporary painters. It is his use of geometry, though, that marks this painting as extraordinary. At first we hardly notice this. Rather than my explaining it in writing, this video below goes into simple detail that illustrates the extraordinary geometric relationships within the painting. Unfortunately it is narrated by a man with a boring delivery. So skip the first part where he is giving some of the allegorical significances of the painting and its figures. Instead, start at 3'38" - and prepare to be amazed! As the narrator points out, Piero was a mathematician. I cannot think of any other painting where geometry and maths plays such a major part.

Just to echo a few points raised by @z909. Get the fun element back in to the bars by having the boys at least appear to be enjoying themselves. Bring back nudity, even if only for part of an evening. Since it seems OK in the girlie bars, I wonder if it the boys themselves that are too shy about going naked? Cannot agree more about Japan. Doesn't matter how much of an age difference there is, the boys are there to give the customer a good time. Everything is so well organised, as you'd expect. There may be no gogo as such, but you can either go to one of the host bars or choose from an amazing selection on their internet site. There are several of these and absolutely everything you need to know is there - photos of all the boys, the times they work, the activities they are comfortable with (top/bottom), if they will drink alcohol or not, if they have been in porn movies, full details of the system and how it works, pricing and an order form if you want to reserve a particular boy (recommended). If you order someone to arrive at your hotel room at 8:00pm, they will be there probably at 5 seconds to 8:00! Fees are all inclusive unless you live far away in which case transport will be added. And no hassle with tips as none are expected. This is a screen shot from one of the on-line out call bars - The full site is here - http://lang.dgdgdg.com/top.php#

The New York Times has a firewall and those who do not pay can not read articles. Can RockHardNYC kindly copy and paste the relevant section please.

If any reader happens to be in Tokyo and interested in art, there is a host of large galleries and many that are smaller. One Gallery that is a definite must-see and often not listed along with larger galleries is one started by the founder of the Bridgestone tyre company who was an avid art collector. His collection formed the basis of the Bridgestone Gallery which has recently re-opened after a three year refurbishment. It is now named the Artizon Museum and is situated not far from the Kabuki Theatre. The collection is not large but contains some amazing paintings by Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, van Gogh, Gaugin, Picasso, Matisse and a host of others. This is in addition to the Japanese collection. The sculptures include the smallest of the three versions of Rodin's The Thinker. https://www.artizon.museum/en/

Shakespeare's oft quoted adage "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones" is frequently quoted when a person has been guilty of dirty deeds. I wonder if that is so true of musicians, actors, painters and others. Earlier I bracketed Levine with Weinstein and Cosby. There is, though, a difference with Shakespeare's dictum. Levine must have conducted at least 100 CDs and DVDs if not quite a few more. Although the format may change, that music and those operas are likely to live on in time for many decades or longer. In, say, 40 years will anyone listening to a Verdi opera conducted by Levine know that he was a molester of youngsters? Will anyone watching "Shakespeare in Love" know that Weinstein was a serial molester? Surely by that time their names will have been whitewashed by copyright owners, recording companies, film distributors etc.? In classical music, we know that the Renaissance composer Gesualdo murdered his wife and her lover. In painting we know that Caravaggio was a murderer. In sculpture Benvenuto Cellini was even worse, murdering almost at will. Yet the art of all remains exceedingly popular and unsullied by by their more lurid activities.

Purachai was a deeply religious family man and a pal of Prime Minister Thaksin. He loved joining the major raids and having his photo in the papers. There was one of him holding a used condom outside Babylon. He was quoted as saying this proved that there were illegal sexual activities going on inside. If only the idiot had thought about it, his colleagues in the health ministry should have been delighted that people attending saunas actually wore condoms. I take exception to your comment that there was open exploitation of kids in the main bars in Bangkok, certainly those frequented by westerners. There was no exploitation by 2001. That may not have been the case in Pattaya and almost certainly not the case upcountry in the bars frequented only by Thais. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was upcountry where his nightlife reforms were especially popular. The number of bars in Twilight may have increased but other bars closed and the offerings in the bars from 2001 onwards were nowhere near like those before Purachai appeared. There was an interesting article in the New York Times in 2006 about the effect of the Social Order campaigns. This talks about the effect on the late night dance clubs, most of which quite quickly died soon thereafter. It adds "one night at the 15-year-old Zouk bar in Singapore provides more real action and excitement than you'd find in an entire week on R.C.A." (Royal City Avenue, one of the three permitted entertainment zones, this one catering more for Thais). Having been at SIngapore's Zouk Bar several times in the mid-1990s, it was a fabulous place for spending a long evening and seeing a lot of great eye candy. Zouk rarely closed before 4:00 am. Even Kurt Wachtveitl, the revered long term GM of the Oriental Hotel, wrote of his objection to the early closing mandated by Purachai and its effect on tourism. It is also interesting, I believe, to realise that what the Thai elite objected to was far less what was going on in the bars and saunas - they actively disliked the dance clubs and especially their effect on their high-born daughters. As the award-winning author Alex Kerr points out in his very perceptive book Bangkok Found - "Politicians and bureaucrats see dance as dangerous and have done their best to restrict it, by granting few dance licences and tightening the zoning for entertainment districts, and requiring clubs to close earlier and earlier. Bangkok is already far more restrictive than Singapore or Tokyo when it comes to officially mandated times for closing and permitted age limits for entry." https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/travel/social-order-takes-the-life-out-of-night-life-letter-from-bangkok.html

My first was a rather nervous affair for both of us. So if the TS does not mind, I'll tell a bit about the first time I fell seriously in love. I love Japan and had visited three times on business. That third time I met a great guy and we arranged to meet again on my next visit. After dinner we both went to one of Tokyo's gay bars for a couple of drinks before returning to his place. Quite soon I noticed a young guy taking drinks to customers who had extraordinary charisma. He also spoke very good English. When he brought our drinks, his smile was heart melting. My friend had to leave the city to spend the following day with his family. So in the evening I decide to return to the bar even though it was a Sunday and pissing with rain. When I got there, there were only two other customers. But my barman friend was on duty. So I sat at the bar and spent the better part of three hours just chatting and flirting with him. The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to be with him. Around 11:15 he said he had to leave to catch his last train home. I don't know why I had not the courage to ask him back to my hotel. Having put on his rain jacket, he came in front of the bar, said goodbye to me and trailed his hand gently over my ass. If that was not a signal, I don't know what would have been. But I remained rooted to the spot. Ten minutes later, I decided to get my last train back to the hotel. I was still kicking myself for having been such an idiot. After walking a few meters in the rain, I thought "fuck it". The night is still young and I have to leave tomorrow night. I knew there was a small disco next door to the bar which I had never been to. So I decided just to go there, check the eye candy and have a whisky or two. It was on the second floor - basically two smallish rooms divided into a bar area and a dance floor. Without looking I went straight to the bar and got my whisky. I then turned to the dancers. I nearly dropped my glass when I saw that my friend from the bar was there in the middle of the floor dancing on his own. I was completely surprised! Eventually he turned and noticed me. He extended his arm and signalled for me to join him. After saying it was nice to see me again, he asked why I had not responded to his overture to follow him. Can't recall what I said but soon we were dancing body hugged to body and it was clear we were both aroused. He then shocked me by putting his hand down my trousers. Even though no one else was looking at us, it seemed a most un-Japanese thing to do. End result. He came back to my hotel and we spent a sleepless night making love every which way. We kept seeing each other for many months. I took a long holiday there and he came to stay with me for a month. As with all long distance relationships, difficulties arose and it could not last. But it was amazing while it did.

Little here about art. So hopefully this might start the ball rolling. Whenever I travel I try to take in an art exhibition or visit a gallery. Occasionally I will see work of art which stuns me. Caravaggio is a favourite painter of many gay guys. In Bangkok a year or so ago there was a wonderful exhibition of digital reproductions. Not like seeing the originals but they looked wonderful. I remember about 3 decades ago a friend took me to the rather dingy interior of the French Church in Rome not far from the Piazza Navona. There was a side chapel near the altar. When you put some Lire into an electricity box, the chapel lit up and there before us were three large stunning Caravaggio paintings. Even earlier there was one painting which i have been tracking down for decades - and never found. I was in Berlin in the early 1980s. I wanted to see East Berlin and so took the S-Bahn across to Alexanderplatz. The drabness of that open space was enough for me. I got on the next train back to the west. Alighting at the first stop, I noticed a museum. In the basement I saw a painting that I recall was a Renoir bursting with colour, such a contrast to the scene I had just witnessed. Since then i have tried to find that painting, without success. Back in Berlin a few years ago, I noted that the Museum no longer existed. But I did attend a Monet exhibition and saw one painting (below) that was very similar to what I remembered as a Renoir. But the Renoir had the figures running towards the stream from a house in the upper left. I am resigned never to finding it! A painting which has literally grabbed me was one I saw in London's small Courtauld gallery 5 years ago. I had not wanted to go as I was very tired that day, but my friend insisted. So we trooped around what is an interesting gallery. Then I saw this large painting by Edouard Manet - Un Bar aux Folles-Bergere. I was immediately captivated. Nothing in the painting seemed to make sense. The barmaid is looking out at us with a blank expression. Behind we see the audience enjoying the titllating show of the Follies Bergere. But then we can see her back curved behind and on her right. We also see that she is talking to an elderly man. What is he doing? Ordering a drink? Unlikely given the blank reaction of the barmaid. Perhaps he is seeking an assignation after the show. Then we realise that all the way behind her is a curved mirror and that the audience is in fact in front of her. There are lots of other fascinating things about the painting whichI will not go into here. But I remain fascinated by it.

Although music is not included in the forum title, I assume it can be bracketed with art. James Levine was one of the great conductors of the second half of the last century. He was Artistic Director at the Metropolitan Opera for about 40 years, a record that will never be broken. He also conducted virtually all the world's great orchestras, many like the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic regularly. He died recently aged 77. Like all conductors he was not perfect. In Levine's case, his flaws unfortunately included a sexual attraction to teenagers. Rumours abounded especially in the music profession that the Board of the Metropolitan Opera had paid large sums to parents to keep at least two of these sexual molestations away from the media. As a man in a position of great power in the music profession, other young men came forward alleging their careers were affected because they did not do as he requested. It took the Met Opera decades to set up an inquiry headed by a lawyer. By 2018 its report found "credible evidence that he had 'engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct'". He was then fired. He sued the Met's Board and ended up with a $3.5 million out of court settlement. That the Board had been aware of his conduct for decades is one of the disgraces of this sad ending. That he was a great conductor in certain repertoire is indisputable. He also moulded the Met orchestra into one of the finest in the world. But it is likely that as with Weinstein and Cosby, he will be remembered at least in the short to medium term more for his extra curricular activities than those on the podium.

We obviously went to the wrong spas. Can I ask what the costs were - entrance, massage and then tip?

As this thread is illustrating, there are arguments pro and con the bars and pro and con the apps. The single common factor seems to be that taking a boy from the apps will end up something like 50% less than from a bar, given all the costs involved in visiting a bar, drinks, off fee etc. To my way of thinking, once more and more tourists start to return, it is surely a fact of life that economics alone will result in even less visitors to the bars. As before the pandemic, the future seems to be with the increasing number of Chinese and other Asian visitors. But as many have written before, what this group want from a bar is different from the earlier western visitors. Leaving the mainland Chinese aside for a moment, other Asians have a definite preference for massage with happy endings and attending saunas with their friends. They might then go to a bar to see the show before ending up in a disco. Its hard to lump all mainland Chinese into one group but most on tour groups only visit the bars as a tourist-type experience just as they would the Grand Palace. Before the pandemic, more and more Chinese were embarking on solo tours and I expect their numbers will continue to increase exponentially in future. But Ithey tend to stay in the higher end hotels and I have not read many stories here of younger gay Chinese taking boys off from gogo bars. Gogo bars basically don't exist anywhere else in the region (perhaps Manila apart) and so their vacations are filled with high-end shopping, massages, saunas, discos and perhaps an occasional visit to a gogo bar. Drop the gogo bar, and this is the their behaviour pattern in places like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei. In my crystal ball, therefore, I see little hope of the bars returning to their earlier glory. Some Thais are obviously returning during the pandemic and may continue to do so. But their numbers are small; nothing like in the 1980s and 90s. More Asians will eventually do so. But the only way the bars can survive is a radical rethink of the business model. It will no longer be acceptable to have over high drink prices with bored boys in underwear rotating around a stage and more interested in their phones than the audience. Shows depending on ludicrously made-up female impersonators bore everyone except the Thais. Big cock shows can be of interest and I suppose there will always be an audience for fucking shows, although the massive spread of pornography on the internet has in my view reduced even their impact, if only because when I last visited a bar years ago, the participants appeared so bored. That is so unlike the 1980s and 90s when the boys in most of the growing number of gogo bars exuded fun. They interacted with each other, laughed and their sense of fun was infectious. It must be more than a dozen years ago when the poster Shamelessmack in his first incarnation proposed a new model for gogo bars. This did away with large spaces in favour of a few smaller closed ones where different types of gogo entertainment could take place. I cannot recall any of the detail other than it did depend on nudity in at least one of the spaces. Perhaps genuine strip-tease in another. But since Thaksin's Social Order campaigns 20 years ago nudity outside a show seems no longer been permissible. Yet with the police and the army having a stake in both ownership and the regular brown envelopes, surely it is in their interest in pushing the legal regulations to the limit to ensure greater profitability. I wonder what radical changes readers would like to change in the gogo bar model, both to make them more fun and a must-see for gay visitors (and expats).

You are indeed correct. Since we rarely eat meat, yesterday evening we had the Wild Halibut which looked very tasty in the photograph. The halibut itself was well cooked with a very gentle taste. But we found the very large chunks of carrot overpowered the delicate taste of the fish and the brussels sprouts were a rather strange accompaniment. While the dish was better than the salmon mash, it was not what we felt was anywhere near ideal. We can get better fish dishes sent from restaurants near the apartment. Obviously Paleo Robbie's meat dishes are far better, but on the basis of the two we have tried, fish is not one of their strengths. I should also add that having written to the manager after the very disappointing salmon, he generously agreed to refund the cost and add a credit of Bt. 300 for our next meal order. Neither actually materialised - although I stress that at no stage was I looking for any discount or refund. Instead, I have just written to have my name taken off the mailing list, adding that I definitely do not wish any refund whatever. You win some, lose some. This take out is just not for us.

Once again Thai government rules and regulations require mountains of paperwork. And as those retired in Thailand are only too well aware, government decisions are made without anyone thinking through the many potential problems that these decisions end up creating. This documentary brings home the enormous wealth gap in the country. But I found it interesting that the main reason for suicide even today is problems with personal and family relationships. That this should account for between 50% to 60% of all suicides is surely extraordinary. Then even with covid19 financial problems are only fourth on the list. Even worse, though, is the lack of an infrastructure that can take care of increasing mental health problems. Makes you reconsider "the land of smiles"!

Mention of Mary Renault's The Persian Boy reminded me that I omitted one recent book that all but turns our western view of world history on its head. Peter Frankopan's 2015 book The Silk Roads is a brilliant account of the world told from the viewpoint of the Silk Roads - there were several. It successfully challenges the western view of history that runs - “Ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry crossed with democracy in turn yielded the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Instead he writes about the great Empires of the past which were all in what we now call Asia in between China and Turkey. Not only is it the bridge between East and West it is where Civilisation was born. Part of his thesis is that the present has washed away the past. One example is we forget that Persia was at one time not just the world's largest Empire through which several of the Silk Roads crossed, it was one of the greatest of all civilisations. Having spent two weeks in Iran a few years ago, I can attest to the wonders of a stunning country. Reviews of The Silk Roads are full of words/phrases like brilliant, dizzying breadth and ambition, exceptional, a vast rich historical canvas, a terrific and exhilarating read. The Wall Street Journal Reviewer wrote, "a rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world.”

Tom Driberg was an avowed homosexual known for his notorious gay affairs even when an MP. But then many British parliamentarians had long had homosexual affairs and were not averse to sex with boys. Lord Boothby was not only the lover of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's wife, he attended gay parties from at least the 1950s when such affairs were very much against the law. He also consorted with the notorious gay criminal Ronnie Kray who procured at least one boyfriend for him. In 1964 the Sunday Mirror newspaper had run a story alleging Boothby and Kray were lovers. Boothby threatened a lawsuit. He won a settlement of £40,000 and an unqualified apology. For years the British Intelligence Services were well aware of Boothby's dalliances but chose to ignore them. In 2009 there was a tv special titled "The Gangster and the Pervert Peer." Then there was the gay affair of the leader of the Liberal Party for 9 years, Jeremy Thorpe. A well known frequenter of public lavatories (cottages in English parlance) he nevertheless married and fathered a child. When his wife was killed in a car crash, he then married up, this time to the divorced wife of Earl of Harewood, a cousin of the Queen. But long before then he had started up a long term affair with a drifter named Norman Scott. After several years, he wanted rid of Scott and arranged for a friend to pay him £5 per week to keep quiet. But Scott would not disappear. So in 1975 Thorpe arranged for a friend of a friend to murder Scott. The deed was bungled. By 1979 the whole affair had become public knowledge and Thorpe and his colleagues were accused of attempt to murder. After a steamy trial, the presiding judge was so biased against the defence and its witnesses that the jury returned verdicts of not guilty. The affair was made into a mini series in 2018 under the title "A Very English Scandal" with Hugh Grant giving a superb portrayal of Thorpe.

Yes, I forgot about the spas. However, in our experience the amount of sexual contact can be very limited. HJs are quite common but anything more depends to a large extent on the masseur and the spa. It seems to depend very much on the chemistry between you and the masseur. But the amount of English spoken is extremely limited. The spas are not nearly as free and easy as those in Bangkok.

A word of warning for those who have been transferred from the US site. For around a decade one of the best on line apps for meeting up with young gay Asians both around the continent and sometimes in other countries was fridae. Founded by a Singaporean, it used to be a paid site with an annual subscription of around $45 giving you access to what was claimed as 500,000 members. I joined around 2005 and found it a great site, well worth the subscription. Not sure when it happened but perhaps around 8 years ago it was sold to a business concern. Quickly it went downhill and I left the site. Now it is all but dead and subscription is free but a waste of time. Examples. 1. Check on who is online from various countries ar any one time. This will always show between 1,600 and 1,800 - always. It recently included 59 members allegedly in Afghanistan and 60 in Antarctica! Click on the country and you discover that there was in fact just one member in each country! 2. Go into advanced search (for those who paid their subscription) and insert something like Thailand guys under 35. It will provide a list but the average age of those on the list will in almost every case be well over 35! Of 45 presently listed in Singapore, only one is under 35! Most are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. 3. The list of saunas, massage places and coffee shops includes some which closed as long ago as 2015. 4. The news items of gay interest used to have a couple of posts each week. It has had nothing for the last 4 months.

Like TotallyOz I read a lot. So permit me to add two other books that opened my eyes - literally. After my first visit to Istanbul, I became fascinated by the Byzantine Empire and the whole history surrounding that part of the world. The Crusades played a major part. So I started by reading Steven Runciman's early 1950s three-volume history (surprisingly readable!). At school, I was taught that the Crusades were the virtuous Christians attempting to take back its most holy site from the heathen Muslims. And that was about it. In fact, they were a huge blot on the history of Christianity. Many more recent accounts make this clear, including The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf. This finally helped me put all those centuries into a better perspective. On a totally different tack, I am a classical music fan and love much of Wagner. Brigitte Hamann's masterly biography of the evil Winifred Wagner, the 17 year old Welsh girl who became the wife of the 45 year old gay son of Richard Wagner, Siegfried, Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth is utterly fascinating especially from an historical view. No one was a more dedicated Nazi than Winifred. That she was in love with Hitler is certain. That he was in love with her is equally certain. Whether they ever consummated that love remains debatable, but it is likely. Even after the end of the war, Winifred never wavered from her adherence to the Nazi cause. Her family kept her out of the public eye, but in a tv documentary made about her life in the 1970s she renewed her dedication to the cause of National Socialism. Even on camera she seems proud to present herself as "the only Nazi in Germany."

Most of the books that have affected me and to a certain extent changed my thinking relate to historical events or my views on a certain country. The partition of India had largely escaped me until some decades ago I read Paul Scott's masterful quartet of books which go under the title The Raj Quartet. This epic fictional tale brings to the fore the differing views of long time British residents, colonial masters and the rising tensions with the people of India. The characters are superbly drawn from the sadistic police inspector to the young lady just arrived from Britain to meet up with her Indian boyfriend and Barbie Bachelor, the ageing Brit who intends to stay on after Independence as she has nowhere else to go. The Quartet was made into an excellent tv series in the 1970s featuring the cream of British acting talent. It changed my views on the history of the lead up to that disastrous period in history. The first two books of the Quartet Over the last three decades we have learned more about the story of Hong Kong and how it became one of the world's leading economic city states. With China now breaking its agreement with Britain to basically leave it alone for 50 years after the handover, our attention is on the present and future rather than the past. Yet its past is utterly fascinating, from the Qing Dynasty being the world's major economic power in the early 18th century to the internal decay that was evident a century later; from British traders being confined for most of the year to the quaint little Portuguese enclave of Macao, to the need for the British colonists to find an outlet for the opium which they grew in great quantity in India and so to the Opium Wars that heralded what all Chinese even today call the start of the century of shame. None describes this in simpler, easier to comprehend detail then Foreign Mud by Maurice Collis. This was the name given to the drug opium. The origins of the Vietnam War also fascinate - and horrify me. From the dreadful effect of French colonialism, from Roosevelt and Truman's rejection of their wartime ally Ho Chi Minh's written requests that the anti-colonial American government not permit the French to return to post-war Indo-China, to the mistaken belief that Vietnam was a communist domino rather than a country seeking to rule its own affairs, Vietnam suffered 3 million deaths over a 30 year period. Again, many books have been written, but none had more effect on many than Robert McNamara's 1996 mea culpa In Retrospect. Vietnam was basically McNamara's War. As he writes, "we were wrong, we were terribly wrong." In Retrospect reveals the fatal flaws and misassumptions behind America's involvement in the war. It is tempting to suggest that it should be a bible for all those countries going to war believing they are in the right. Yet America's leaders paid no attention and continued its overseas misadventures with Iraq. Recently I came across a short novel which made me think more closely about the priesthood. Stephen Hough is one of the world's finest concert pianists and clearly a fascinating character. The Economist named him in 2009 one of the world's top 20 polymaths. His intention was to become a priest until he won one of the world' top piano competitions at the age of 21. That launched him into a major concert career and he now has more than 60 CDs on the market. The Final Retreat is his first novel. A short book with just 182 pages, it takes as its subject a troubled gay priest, his thoughts and deeds as his world descends into areas he sought to avoid (although i hasten add that pedophilia is not part of the book). Written almost in a clipped style, it is difficult to put down.

Very little commercial sex. Only a few on the apps. Peace Park a few blocks behind the Caesar Palace Hotel used to be very cruisy with a lot of rent. May still be. Not sure what you mean by old. I and my friend are in our mid 50s - late 60s and never had problems finding sex on the apps or in the saunas. There are not many westerners living in Taipei and a considerable number of young Chinese guys looking for them.

Love the photo of the old red Citroen. Exactly the same model as my father drove for some years, although his was black. He loved that car! Last word on Luang Prabang. Although it was about 15 years since I was there, I booked a gay evening tour of the city's nightspots. A lovely young guy took me around on his motorcycle. Nothing much happening in the one bar and one club that I recall, perhaps because I was smitten with my young guide!! He was gay and would have come to my room but this was prohibited in my guesthouse. I am sure visitors are allowed in most places, but frankly do not know for sure. On my last afternoon I was sitting by the river when school came out. Two boys who were probably around 17 or so sat at the next table. Obviously gay, they flirted with each other and also with me. Then one came up and asked if I liked his friend - because he liked me!!! Told him I had no time, but also he was a bit too young for me.

As far as I know, none of mine are gay owned, but all are definitely gay-friendly. There's a new restaurant on Soi Yen Akat (about 400 meters from the Malaysia Hotel) called Workshop. Intimate, mid-price but great food and service. At least one of the staff came from Zanotti in Soi Saldaeng. Portions may be on the smallish side if you are desperately hungry! Il Bolognaise at the end of the short Sathorn Soi 7 (the Singapore Embassy is on the corner of Sathorn and Sathorn Soi 7). Been around quite a few years, excellent Italian food at reasonable prices. Near the top end of the price scale, Eat Me off Soi Convent has consistently been wonderful for probably around 20 years. Great atmosphere, impeccable friendly service, Australian fusion menu, several wines by the glass selections - and fabulous desserts! For a small coffee shop with a small menu of excellent food and again excellent service, Kush on Soi Nanglinchee has become a favourite. For breakfast or brunch, their scrambled eggs with melted cheese, bacon, salad and the largest and best croissant you will find in the city is superb. Nanglinchee is the extension of Soi Suan Plu off Sathorn. Kush is on the right just before the gas station on the opposite side. For Thai food, it takes a lot to beat Ruen Urai. This is set in a Thai House in the grounds of the Rose Hotel off Suriwong. This s nothing like the hotel itself. The quality is really excellent and the atmosphere almost unbeatable. However, always book ahead and ask to be seated on the ground floor. The upper floor is boring! Mid-price. The only restaurant that I have ever found gay un-friendly was Indigo off the Silom end of Soi Convent. French cuisine, mid-price and patronised by many of the French community. The owner was a total homophobe who would rant about the gay Fan Club massage being just across the soi until it closed some years ago. I believe it is now run by his son, but after one of his rants 6 years or so ago, I vowed not to return.

You should add Taipei to that list.