PeterRS

As we have been exposed to more images and video footage of Thurday's massacre, I have found myself becoming very emotional over this senseless, horrific, cold-blooded murder of innocent little children. I thought I had become all but used to news about the massacres of schoolchildren of any age - from Columbine, to Dunblane in Scotland, Virginia Tech, the Anders Breivik mass slaughter in Norway, the ghastly Sandy Hook murders, Parkland to the more recent atrocity at Uvalde in Texas. Although the world has little good to say about Russia at the present time, we should not forget to include here the bloodiest murder of the largest number of schoolchildren at Beslan in 2004. Perhaps it is because this one is so much closer to my home. Watching happy parents driving recently with their two laughing 3-year old twin boys and knowing that both boys are now dead just brought tears to my eyes. Nothing surely can be more personally harrowing than the loss of such young children. In this case, though, it was surely made worse because quite a number of the parents of these little angels had had to leave the village to find work nearby. They did not get to spend as much time with their children as I am sure they would have liked. Now they are gone. It is said that time is a great healer. How in God's good earth can those parents ever get over this tragedy?

Just one suggestion for sightseeing. The Siamroads guides are excellent and well worth the price. The Grand Palace and the Wat Phra Kaew complex has been mentioned by @vinapu and is a definite must. There is a dress code for temples and some other major historical buildings. No shorts, no flip flops and arms must be covered at least to just above the elbow - i.e. no tank tops. To get there I would suggest to your guide going by public boat along the river rather than any other means as it gives you a better feel for the city. Getting there from your hotel by the Skytrain (BTS) is easy. Just get the train 4 stops to Saphan Taksin (I think it is now 4) and there is a ferry pier within about 50 meters. There is a boat stop very close to the Grand Palace entrance. There is also a fast Express Boat if you prefer. That part of the city is often not easy to access so you might consider making a full day of it. Not far away in the Dusit area is the all-teak royal Vimanmek Mansion originally built as a royal Palace. which has tours at various times of the day. I believe the entrance ticket for Grand palace includes free entry to Vinanmek Palace. But one caveat is that the Mansion was closed for major renovations which took several years and it is extremely difficult to find out on the web if it is finally open again for public tours. Your guide will check. The symmetrical quite lovely Wat Benchamabophit temple is only a sort walk away and well worth a visit. Your guide will also ensure you are not scammed by the tuk tuk drivers who stand close to the Palace Entrance. They prey on tourists by informing them that the Palace is closed for an hour but they can give you a short guided (and expensive) tour around nearby areas to kill the time. Lastly, remember that in Thailand it is the law that you carry around your passport at all times. Many do not do this, instead preferring to take a photocopy of their personal information page. In that case, best also to photcopy the page with the stamp in the passport showing the date of entry into the Kingdom.

Japan is one of the worst countries in this respect. So many young people no longer have a desire to get married that it has led to a series of major government concerns. The numbers getting married last year showed the continuation of a decline that saw the lowest number since World War 2. The resultant decline in the birth rate saw the country's population continue to fall for the 11th consecutive year - by 644,000. In a country without many safety nets for an ageing population the lack of a new generation to help look after parents in their old age is worrying many. In a survey in the mid-1980s, just 2.3% of men and 4.1% of women stated they would never marry. Last year those figures had jumped to 17.3% and 14.6% Many reasons have been cited. The increasing independence of women seeking meaningful careers in a traditionally male dominated society. The attraction for young women of remaining at home longer to save for and enjoy the good things in life rather than getting married early and being tied to looking after children and the household. Long working hours and traditonal reticence making it difficult for young men and women to meet and develop the social skills to develop relationships. Japan is also hampered by strict immigration laws which still prevents skilled workers in many disciplines obtaining jobs in the country.

Haven't we heard virtually the same about London's Heathrow - huge queues for check-in and security, late arrivals and departures and airlines asked to cut a large number of flights to enable the airport just to operate? I must have been one of the lucky ones at Amsterdam. I took four inter-European flights in and out of Schiphol in mid-March. Two arrived early and two departed bang on time. But the walk required within the airport to get between gates was as long as almost anywhere.

Drugs? According to the toxicology report. there were no drugs in the muderer's system. But his mental health was clearly an issue given that he had been fired and was to be arraigned on drugs charges. Similar to the USA and I assume other countries, more attention will be paid to mental issues as the cause, but as I have asked before in this forum, how on earth do you identify people likely to commit mass murder on the basis of mental health? You may identify a few but you will never find more than that.

Do you mean the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre? The present building has been there at least since 2001 when I attended an event there. Since it only opened in 1991, I think it unlikely it was ever demolished. Parts of the interior were refurbished during covid.

In addition Cathay Pacific has opened all its seats on most flights in October for redemption using standard mileage awards.

Is there anything to do with 'Gay Bangkok' in the lists? Interesting though it is, this seems more suited to The Beer Bar thread where many more are likely to read it.

A wonderful post. Beautifully written with great honesty. You are never boring and always provide a different view from most of those expressed here. I'm not sure if you enjoy classical music but some of your history reminds me of Britain's finest pianist Sir Stephen Hough. Deeply religious as a teenager, he believed he was destined to become a priest. Music was his other passion and when he won one of the world's top piano competitions aged 21, he abandoned ideas to become a priest and instead became a concert pianist. Although gay he remained celebate well into his 30s. Signing autographs after a concert in New York, a young professional Asian man asked about future concerts in London. They arranged to meet there a month or so later. They have been a couple for around a quarter of a century. Hough is an extraordinary individual. In addition to being a pianist with more than 60 CDs to his name, he is also an accomplished painter, poet, composer and author. The Economist magazine named him one of 20 living polymaths. I thorougly recommend everyone to read his first book The FInal Retreat. It's a small slim volume about a priest at conflict with his views about the Church. He is a middle-aged gay man who tries to face up to Church teaching and increasing sexual desire. It is not about the recent scandals in the Catholic Church. It's more a personal journey which is troubling, depressing and . . . well, I cannot give the ending away. I hope those not interested in the subject will forgive my quoting from one chapter. Many focus on sexuality and gay sex. The focus here is on the priesthood. "I look back over my priesthood – twenty-five years, my anniversary is next year. How pointless it all seems, as if I had sailed to a desert island after my ordination and begun to live some weird fantasy life there about which no-one knew anything or cared. My memories are like shells, dry and empty and dead, the tide creeping in and out and slowly reducing them to sand. Blank squares in a out-of-date diary. "What did I think my life would be like after I was ordained? I'd iived around priests since infancy so I knew the public face, but I didn't know about the private failures and the sheer monotony of their lives. Failure: 'the omission of expected or required action', as one dictionary puts it. Interesting that it's defined as a passive fault ... omission. Jobs have goals, the achievement of which is their very definition. To be a pilot is to fly a plane. To be a bricklayer is to lay bricks. Priesthood is infallibly 'effective', so the theologians tell us ... but underneath theology's theoretical confidence is the constant undertow of practical failure. We fail to lift spirits or heal souls. We answer big questions with little lies. With a few exceptions we fail to make a difference, week after week. Omission is the invisible footprint behind every step."

Thank you.

Anyone got any idea when the Ron Howard movie will find its way into Thai cinemas?

I'm the same as you - I have no idea apart from immediate friends. But as most readers are perfectly well aware, working boys have their own network. They will know long before before anything mentioning the weather is posted on this site.

As I once wrote in another thread, Paul Kennedy's excellent book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers confirms this.

No doubt posting what might be a new event. As I have stated and no one has disputed, October is the height of the rainy season and Thailand floods every year, especially in Isaan. I fail to see how this is news to anyone - as it certainly would have been given the horrendous damage resulting from the floods in 2011.

I totally realise this. But flooding EVERY year is severe. It is always particularly more so when the tail end of a particularly bad typhoon hits Thailand as happened on Monday earlier this week. I witnessed those hours of heavy rain in Bangkok and it will have been much worse in Isaan. I feel badly for the farmers who were affected. But again I ask: has the flooding affected anyone who reads this Board more than the floods which happen every year at this time? Thankfully no flooding has been anywhere near as bad as the 2011 floods which affected tens of millions and caused US$46.5 billion in damages (World Bank estimate). In Bangkok I have a Thai friend whose home was so badly flooded the water was knee-deep for almost 2 months. Don Mueang airport had to be closed for more than 4 months. That had all started a couple of months earlier and the trigger was once again heavy typhoon rains int he north. With high tide in the Gulf of Thailand coming next month, many riverside hotels and businesses have already got sandbags at the ready.

Of course you are correct. But perhaps you can suggest how many working class guys living at sea level either read or contribute to this Board?

For goodness sake! It's the rainy season and every year the monsoon results in a great deal of rain in October. Why anyone should be surprised at heavy rains and occasional flooding in Bangkok totally beats me! And I totally fail to understand why it's newsworthy.

So true. I had an excellent guide who lived for part of each year in Dubai. His parents lived in Shiraz and for each of my four days in that city, he brought me a small fruit juice bottle of passable Shiraz wine made by his father. His only request was that I wash the bottles thoroughly before putting them in the hotel trash bin!

Finding a way round sanctions is not unusual. 4 years ago I spent a quite lovely 2 weeks in Iran. The country is stunningly beautiful and the people are so warm and generous. At that time Coca Cola was imported from Malaysia and lots of other allegedly banned goods imported from places like Dubai. Although I was from a country which imposes severe sanctions on the Iranian people, not one person was anything less than extremely hospitable. One morning I was so coffeed out from the free cups offered to me I simply had to start declining future offers. Most Iranians were perfectly happy to chat with me. The one thing I realised is that they have no real anger towards the west. But they all loathed the regime. They knew it was massively corrupt, even down to the Supreme Leader pocketing around $13 million in illegal gains daily. That many are now back on the streets in massive demonstrations against the regime is surely one mark of that loathing. I hope so much that this time they are successful and can start living more normal lives. Iran has a quite extraordinary history. Its people are extremely cultured and poetry is adored by most. Seeing the crowds reading poetry at the mausoleum in Shiraz to one of its most famous poets, Hafez, was very moving. It also has a rich cultural history in the arts, music and especially architecture. The huge main square in Esfahan is one of the most extraordinarily beautiful anywhere in the world.

WIth the XE currency converter presently showing 37.5, the Bangkok Post prediction might be a bit late. Looks like the rate will hit 38 by the end of this month. Lucky for some.

It's the rainy season! Does anyone NOT expect occasional flooding in Pattaya and Bangkok? The article is incorrect, though. What it fails to point out is that Monday's very heavy rain was not due to the monsoon. Rain during the summer monsoon period comes from the west or south west. Monday's was the result of the tail end of a serious typhoon hitting the country from the east. Earlier it had dumped a great deal of rainfall over central Vietnam. You cannot always trust what is written in some newspapers - and the Pattay Mail is hardly the most respected organ in the country for the quality of its news!

I can remember switching on the television just after I had arrived in San Francisco around 1986 or 87. On the screen was President Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everett Koop actually discussing HIV and AIDS at a time when the administration had remained silent on the issue for several of the early years. A devout conservative he finally put his medical knowledge above his conservative values. There he was on TV discussing means of transmission of the disease. He was particularly strong on the danger of transmission of HIV and other STDs as a result of rimming. Given the lack of action by the administration, I thought it extraordinary that Reagon's Surgeon General would actually come out with such gay sexual detail on public television.

In the UK he attended the spartan Gordonstoun School in the north of Scotland. This was founded by a German who left Germany in 1933.

You echo the sentiments of the 17th century French statesman Jean Baptiste Colbert. He wrote "If you enact a law and do not enforce it, you are condoning what you condemn."

I think your fact is very wrong. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal the Castro regime was responsible for 10,723 deaths from 1952 up to 2016. The dreadfully corrupt and in league organised crime President Batista's dictatorship having turned Cuba into a police state massacred more than 20,000 in 7 years. Many were first tortured in the most ghastly way imaginable. This is how TIME reported the American Bay of Pigs disaster at the time. "In the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson labored to explain to the world what was already self-evident: that the U.S. considered Castro a clear threat to hemisphere security and encouraged the Cuban exiles in their attempt to bring him down. Speaking with unusual intensity, Stevenson sought to accent the positive, reassuring Latin America in particular that the U.S. had no intention of reviving Yankee imperialism, but was acting in the interests of freedom after extreme, prolonged, unceasing provocation." So Batista's police state dictatorship represented "freedom". Just like Marcos murdering dictatorship in The Philippines, I expect. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/counting-victims-of-the-castro-regime-nearly-11000-to-date/ http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,897732-3,00.html