PeterRS

Having taken Concorde only once, I'm not sure that comment is entirely true. At least it wasn't for me. I found the seat itself very comfortable for a short flight (in the mid-1990s). It had been well designed, fitted the contours of my body well and was better than the Premium Economy seats I have flown in. They are certainly nothing like today's business class seats and I would easily prefer 10 hours with a flat bed seat than 6 hours in more cramped supersonic seating. I think the main point about Concorde is that no one wanted to sleep. BA had two daily flights to and from New York. The 10:00 am flight got you to JFK by around 08:30 in time for a full day's business. The midday return arrived at LHR around 8:30 pm. For those not yacking about business all the time, the drinks and meal service took up most of the flight time.

For years the Singapore government has been downplaying the effect of Section 377A. The Prime Minster had even stated it would be kept on the statute books but not enacted. If there is ever a reason for not having a particular law, that surely is it! As the eminent French statesman Jean Baptiste Colbert wrote in the 17th century, “If you enact a law and do not enforce it, you are condoning what you condemn.” The basis for keeping it was basically a nonsensical argument that its repeal would be harmful to Singapore's multi racial society. As Hong Kong and Taiwan had shown over the last 30 years a Chinese society as a whole is not against homosexuality - the argument used for many years by Hong Kong's colonial government for not repealing its colonial law until 1990. And with Chinese making up by far the largest ethnic group in Singapore it seeems to have raised little objection over the years. The main fiercely anti-repeal group has been the evangelical Christian churches. It was the same in Taiwan when gay marriage was being discussed. Yet those professing to be Christians make up less than 19% of the population. I am reminded of the great actor Sir Ian McKellen who visited Singapore in 2007 when giving performances of Shakesepeare's King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Appearing on a 'live' television morning programme, the host asked him if there was anything he would particularly like to see in Singapore. He replied, "Well, if someone could show me the way to a nice gay bar, that would be lovely!" The programme controllers were apparently very worried by this remark, which was stupid given that Singapore already had several gay bars, one which I had often visited named rather appropriately given Sir Ian's remark - Backstage! But the past is the past and Singapore is finally taking some positive steps forward on the LGBT front.

Not sure why I do not follow your logic. The topic is about the increase in numbers of flights, not tourists. I can see that 30,137 Chinese per day is accurate but in terms of flights per day, I cannot see that this therefore means 150 flights per day. With your average of 200 passengers per flight, you surely assume merely a one night stay for each Chinese tourist to fill up all those seats. If the average length of stay per Chinese tourist is, say, 5 nights, then you surely have to divide the number of flights by number of nights stayed. Hence my 30 flights from China per day rather than your suggestion of 200.

I guess the best answer I can give is - been there, done that! I was a regular in The Philippines way back in the early 1980s when it was then far more of a gay sex destination than Bangkok and Pattaya. But the desperate poverty both in Manila and the countryside was a real downer. For a newcomer to Asia, it was certainly lively and fun, although parts like the famous Pagsanjan Falls area had a bad reputation with some parents even offering their underage kids to a certain nasty type of western tourist. I believe that has thankfully stopped. Soon, though, I discovered Bangkok and the early years of the gogo bars which were such fun. Later I was to discover the gay scenes in Tokyo and then Taipei. Nothing will now stop my regular visits to those two fascinating cities, both with a thriving gay scene offering much that can be found in Thailand. Also many young guys are keen to meet up with older westerners and will never accept a ¥ or an NT$. Plus I find most Japanese and Taiwan Chinese more fun and interesting to be with than Filippinos. But that's merely a personal preference. Thankfully we are all different.

Unless my maths are very rusty, your calculations assume each Chinese visitor stays only one night. The majority are on some kind of package tour which I assume lasts for several nights. I know other Chinese who travel individually and like to stay at least 5 nights each visit. Much more likely the number of flights was closer to 30 per day split between BKK, DMK, CNX and HKT.

Having lived far from my family for 4 decades, Christmas has come to mean very little to me. Great for kids, but for those without kids it's just a peg on which to hang a great deal of outright commercialism. It's also an excuse for the travel industry and others to raise prices. I think most Chinese around the region are much more practical in celebrating the winter equinox a few days prior to Christmas with family dinners.

We will have to agree to disagree because there is no way I can agree with that comment. The man has been virtually free for a quarter of a century without police protection - at least in the UK and I cannot imagine other countries are going to pay for such protection. If he is invited to address an event in a part of the world he probably does not know well, how can you seriously expect him to be responsible in any way for his own safety? I assume he was put up in a hotel. Would you expect him to inspect every entrance and exit and ask the front desk for a list of all guests in case one might be out to harm him? With respect that's just plain ridiculous! How about the fact that he has openly lived in New York since 2000. His address in Lower Manhattan near Union Square is not difficult to find. Do the New York police offer him round the clock protection? Of course not. He's a private citizen. The simple fact is he was invited by the Chautaqua Institution and his presence in that part of the world was advertised to the world well in advance. The organisers thus became totally responsible for ensuring his safety. I doubt if he actually goes around on his travels announcing his presence in advance. Therefore it would be much more difficult for a potential trouble maker to find out his location. Certainly they failed to find it for decades until last week.

I find that hard to believe. It would certainly be nice to see some facts. As for the mental health issue, I draw your attention to this 2016 CNN article - "The difficulty is that policies intended to keep guns away from mentally ill people who are likely to be violent depend on clinicians' ability to accurately identify them. Research shows that risk prediction, especially for statistically rare events like mass shootings, is an inexact science, 'only slightly more accurate than flipping a coin.'" https://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/25/health/gun-violence-mental-health-issue/index.html I don't like the idea the idea of those odds that I might be shot being the equivalent of flipping a coin! In the absence of proof, there is plenty of proof that reducing gun ownership significantly reduces gun violence. Following the horrific school shoooting in Dunblane in 1996, the UK enacted much tighter gun laws. Private ownership of handguns was banned and the UK now has one of the lowest levels of gun violence in the world. Australia is the same. Following a spate of gun violence in 1996 and 1997, legislation was enacted which included much stricter registration on ownership of guns, as well as a total ban on private ownership of automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. Additionally a mandatory programme bought back roughly 650,000 privately held guns. As a result, suicide and gun violence rates dropped by somewhere around between 45% and 55%. Meantime, there is evidence to illustrate that the degree of shootinig, especially mass shootings including those in the USA, is having an effect on young people with a propensity for violence (for one reason or another) in other countries. The UK has a problem with youths being radicalized. In a police raid on a private home last July, one 13-year old was found to have " a military uniform, a Confederate flag, a hard drive filled with evidence of white nationalist radicalization and a guide to making bombs . . . A youth court heard that police raided the boy’s home after he had sent messages on Instagram saying he wanted to replicate the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado and attack an orphanage." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/uk-problem-radicalization-not-shootings-difference-gun-access-rcna30611 He is a free man who has lived as a free man ever since his contentious book was published. If I happened to be in his shoes and was invited to address a conference, I would totally expect the event to take appropriate care for my safety. I have no hesitation in saying again, any suggestion that he is the one who should have been more careful is twisting the fact 180 degrees!

Glandular fever/Epstein Barr virus can easily be spread through a carrier handling food like salad which you then eat. The difference between this and covid is, I believe, the possibility that glandular fever often has a slight effect on the liver. In a serious case, this can result in jaundice and a slight yellowing of the whites of the eyes. The good thing is that a great many people all around the world get glandular fever in their late teens/early 20s, are virtually unaware of it and it then becomes inactive in the body. I believe it is rare for it then to reappear in one's later life. The major problem is that the period between infection and symptoms being felt is measured in weeks. During this time the infected person can easily infect others. The virus is present in saliva and so kissing an infected person will almost certainly transmit the virus to you. But as with all illnesses, this information should be checked with a recognised medical professional. As for poppers, I have never used them but as I travel regularly I have occasionally brought them in for friends. When I have done so, I usually try to strip the labelling off the bottle and then either put it in my toiletries bag or stuff it into a shoe along with some dirty socks!

Let's remember that when the concept for Concorde was announced and during its development, 18 airlines placed options or orders for the aircraft. These included American, Pan Am, Continental, TWA, United, Eastern, Braniff, Qantas, Japan, Air India and others. I wonder how many of those airlines now takng options on Boom's new product will actually convert them to purchases.

Again the Swiss argument - and sorry to say again it is a false analogy. 25% or thereabouts of Swiss HAVE to own guns for military reasons. Most do not wish to own a gun - it is a legal requirement. In the USA the vast majority of people who own guns - some as many as six guns or more(!) - do so because they WISH to own guns. Now, I accept there are several reasons for this and protection against the prevalence of urban and other violence is definitely one, but that does not negate the fact that there is little or no comparison to Switzerland. You seem to be very selective about where is safe and where could be unsafe. Mr. Rushdie has spent almost 3 1/2 decades as a marked man. For the ten years he was under that Islamic fatwa, he was protected by the UK police (few of whom are armed with more than a truncheon). Since then he has travelled, given talks in several parts of the world and lived his life as best he can as a free man, despite some nut jobs wanting him dead. You state that it was Rushdie himself who "should have known that his life was threatened from showing up at a poorly-guarded even." That is definitely twisting fact 180 degrees. It was the event - one to which he was invited, let us recall - that was perfectly aware of the background to his life and yet made no attempt to boost security in case there was some attempt on his life at THEIR event!

And how precisely do you check mental heath issues? Is everyone's access to internet sites to be monitored for those with tendencies to look up sites about guns or mass shootings? As I suggested, in my view the mental health issue is a total red herring. And sorry to say the Switzerland analogy is another red herring. It is a patriotic duty in Switerland to learn how to use a firearm and even to own one. Switzerland has a very small army numbering less than 135,000. Yet roughly two thirds of Swiss males must undergo mandatory military service when they have to supply there own equipment, including guns. They then remain 'on call' should the need arise up to a certain age which is usually 35 but can be as high as 50. Hence, there are around 2 million guns for a population of over 8.5 million, unlike the USA where there are more guns than citizens. But in Switzerland there are very strict rules and regulations re firearm ownership and storage. Also unlike the USA, the country has not had a mass shooting since 2001 whereas the USA seems to have more than one a week on average. And unlike the USA, the country's overall gun murder rate is close to zero. The Swizerland analogy is a favourite of the US NRA. It is a false analogy.

With respect, I don't think that this is of anyone's interest. All I will say is that this Thai man is not a visitor or a sex tourist. He has spent all his life living in Thailand apart from vacations and business travel. As with most people living in their own home country, he has close friends. One whom he trusts implicitly having known her and her family for six or seven decades looks after his legal affairs as well as his funds and allocates them appropriately.

My friend pays 34,000 baht for his room at the care home. This includes single room with en suite, all meals (western and Thai), laundry and room cleaning service and on call medical familities. In addition his medications cost around 6,500 baht per month.

It's an endoscopy. I've had two done decades apart but the camera went down further to assess stomach issues. Usually done without sedation. The only part I found a bit strange was swallowing the small tube. Or it can be done as part of a combo - endoscopy and colonoscopy for which many hospitals will offer a discount (but the colonoscopy part is a lot more expensive). Sedation with an anaethetist present is usually part of the colonoscopy procedure - at least it is here in Bangkok.

2 years ago Boom announced it had done a deal wth Rolls Royce to develop the engines. If I rememer correctly it was Rolls Royce who designed the engines for the then new tri-jet, the Lockheed Tristar L-1011. The plane was the most technologically advanced of its day - more so than the 747. But Rolls Royce encountered huge problems developing its RB-211 engines, so much so that the company effectively went bankrupt. The rump that was left was split into two divisions. Eventually, 18 months late, its RB-211 engine was delivered and proved to be a major success. However, that delay had allowed the rival tri-jet DC-10 to enter the market well in advance and several airlines switched orders to the McDonnell Douglas plane. Production of the Tristar was ended after only 249 had been sold - well short of the 500 required to make it commercially viable. Ironically the Tristar was a much better aircraft and the DC10 went on to encounter several total loss crashes, at least two as a result of design flaws and others due to poor maintenance. The Trent 1000 engines developed for the Boeing 787 have had two sets of costly issues resulting from firstly a design flaw and then parts which wore out earlier then specified. Some of the aircraft had to be grounded leading to flight cancellations and some airlines having to lease other aircraft to maintain their schedules. Presumably Boom is aware of all this!

Even with an ass that looks clean, rimming could expose you to any and all of the disesases that could be contacted by human feaces. These include a host of bacterial diseases like hepatitis A and B, HPV, parasites which carry giardiasis - and that's before you consider syphillis, chlamydia and gonorrhea. How high the risk is, I have no idea. But there is a risk.

"Take a boat! I did!"

I have been in a taxi passing Pinnacle Hotel quite regularly. It was reported as permanently closed a few months ago and there seemed to be quite a lot of construction equipment around. There is still a website but with no local phone or email contact details. Also in the description it states that nearby is the Lumphini Thai Boxing Stadium (moved about 4 years ago) and the Suan Lum Night Bazaar (moved at least 10 years ago)! Yet the website apears to take bookings and booking sites other than agoda also list it. https://pinnacle-lumpinee-bangkok.h-rez.com/contact.htm

Having once taken Concorde from London to New York, I'll start by saying I loved the experience. The pampering at both ends was also great. Since it was an upgrade, I have no complaints about the price! Did halving the journey time mean much to me? No, but then I was not a businessman in which time meant money. My one dislike was the narrow seat and lack of legroom. Then again Concorde was a design from the 1950s/60s when leg room was not a major issue for relatively short haul flights. According to information put out by Boom, there are 500 over-water routes that can be served by their new supersonic plane. It will cut the time dramatically on trans Atlantic routes. Not so much over the Pacific because its range will require a refuelling stop. Will 6 hours from SFO to Tokyo encourage many passengers to switch from the current 10 hours for subsonic jets? According to the International Council on Clean Transportation it will also burn three times as much fuel as subsonic jets with higher payloads. Its engines are likely to be standard military jet engines which will be quieter than Concorde's engines. But it will not eliminate the sonic boom and so presumably, like Concorde, it will not be able to fly over land.

My understanding is that poppers are illegal in Thailand.

And in the meantime Thailand is proceeding with its purchase of three Chinese submarines!! The reason? Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have subs of their own! The Thai government mght have added that Myanmar also has two submarines - a second-hand one from China and one from India. Offers were made by Germany, South Korea, Russia, Sweden and France. China was chosen - because they were the cheapest! https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/explained/article/3176532/thailands-chinese-submarine-deal-why-it-stuck-limbo-and-will-it?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3176532

Certainly a beautiful city with a wonderful display of eye candy almost everywhere. But you'll need a lot of cash. It's an expensive city. I spent two weeks in Iran almost 4 years ago. I had decided to go only because I was returning to the UK on Qatar and wanted to have a stopover to explore another part of that part of the world. Also, friends in Shanghai had been to Iran twice and absolutely loved it. To say I loved it would be an understatement. I expect the city to which @tassojunior's friends refer is Esfahan, truly one of the world's great cities. Apart from a few sights, I'd give Tehran a miss due to its horrendous traffic, but Shiraz, Esfahan, Yazd and Kashan were quite stunning. I found everyone I met warm-hearted, courteous and friendly. I found this odd given that I am from a country which has placed considerable sanctions on Iran. On talking to some, it was clear to a man/woman they loathe the regime they live under. My guides even openly talked about the extensive corruption of the regime. But while I would happily return regularly, especially to Esfahan, it is not a city I would not consider living in full-time.

There are now in Thailand quite a number of assisted care homes that are far more attractive than perhaps we expect. I know of three just outside Chiang Mai. One elderly Thai friend whose partner had just left him after he was diagnosed with the onset of Alzheimers moved to one on an island just upriver of Chiang Mai 18 months ago. He loves it. He has his own room with en suite, a lovely garden setting, communal dining room, daily nursing care and plenty of buzzers for unexpected emergencies. His facility also has half a dozen daily return minibus trips in to Chiang Mai. Best of all the all-in monthly cost is far lower than he expected. I'm not sure of the exact price but will post it when I next speak to him.

I quite agree. The difference with Thailand, in my view, is that corruption here is totally endemic - it is everywhere from villagers to the highest persons in the land. Of course it is not considered corruption at the lower levels of society. It is a way of helping out and getting things done. But as long as this acceptance of corruption for what it is remains rooted in society, Thailand is not going to change. The Prime Minister has said he will root out corruption in 20 years! By then he and his family along with his cronies will all have made their large retirement piles and it will be left to future governments to solve. I have written before that the model for rooting out most corruption is very close by - in Hong Kong. By the early 1970s the territory was one of the most corrupt in Asia. This extended not just from the triads and their grass roots activities but right up the chain to senior civil servants, the police force and even the judiciary. In 1974 the then Governor, the much respected Sir Murray Maclehose, determined drastic action had to be used to clean up Hong Kong. He stablished the Independent Commission Against Corruption. In essence, this had its own police force recruited mostly from the ranks of British sergeants, a separate group of lawyers and even judges - all answerable only to the Governor. It took a few years, but eventually public trust in the ICAC was established after it had prosecuted many police officers, civil servants and even judges. One judge packed his bags as soon as the ICAC was set up and left the territory. One senior police official fled to the UK. He was eventually repatriated, charged, found guilty and served a term in prison. The ICAC was not a total panacea but it resulted in one of the most corrupt territories in Asia becoming one of the cleanest. At the end of the millennium, the people of Hong Kong were asked what were the most important events over the previous century. The establishment of the ICAC came very high on that poll - around #7.