PeterRS

Yes, Mr. President! (Although the meaning of "fear" in my post is not quite the same as the use of "fear" in your post 🙏)

Cartoon: Cleveland Plain Dealer

In attempt to halt the surge of asylum seekers fleeing from Russia, Finland has closed 4 of the crossings along its 1,340 km border with Russia. Around 300 have arrived this week alone. No doubt part of the reason is those Russians fearing conscription for the illegal war in Ukraine. Finland has claimed that Russia has deliberately targeted these crossings due to Finand recently joining NATO. TASS, the Soviet New Agency, has quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov as saying - "Russia has never in modern history threatened Finland, we had no reason for any confrontation. Now they have chosen this path. From our point of view, this is a big mistake." Well, it may not have threatened Finland but that did not stop it making Finland part of its Empire for more than a century until 1917. This is perfectly obvious when one just wanders around Helsinki's city centre where you canot miss the Russian-built Uspenski Cathedral to look down over it in 1868. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67459141

Typically known around the region as a form of hot pot, I believe?

I believe your anecdotes are correct. The question is, though; do any of these young Asians contribute to this Board as members? @macaroni21 clearly beliees they do and i sincerely hope he is correct. Unfortunately I regret that through my observations it is not so and that the younger Asian readership of this Board hardly exists. I WISH I could be wrong, and I would love it if the Moderator would confirm from his membership list that I am indeed wrong. But I fear i am not.

Funny you should mention that. Don't you recall a post I made specifically about the maiden flight of a new Russian-made passenger aeroplane which you trashed by saying it was not new - wrong! - and then turned the thread into a diatribe against both Boeing and Airbus. Threads morph often in weird and wonderful ways. But I note you say nothing about the facal expressions of Putin and his minder 🤣

But as was discussed some weeks ago, this has always been the case with a number of airlines, especially BA. When it was started it was something to do with feeding passengers into long haul services and away from their national airlines. But I cannot believe this is the reason for its being continued today. The Japanese airlines regularly did this back in the 1980s and 1990s. Hong Kong to JFK via Tokyo return was often 40% or more cheaper than just Tokyo to JFK in all classes. And in those days you could tear up the HKG/NRT coupons without that affecting the rest of the flight - which of course one can not do today.

Funny how if anyone is terrified it is clearly President Putin. After all, he is guarded day and night and travels on his own special luxurious armoured bulletproof train. All of his residences are lilnked by railway lines enabling him to reach them on this train. With the invasion of Ukraine, he is afrad to travel by plane. Former bodyguards for Russian President Vladimir Putin have gained immense power in exchange for their unquestioned loyalty. Many have also accumulated vast wealth, exemplifying how Russia’s newly ascendant class has exploited a system meant to protect the old. An investigation by Novaya Gazeta, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, shows who paid the price: more than 1,100 ordinary people who had worked for decades on a giant poultry plant outside Moscow. Some were decorated World War II veterans whom the Soviet Union had promised lifetime employment and pensions. But in the newly independent Russian Federation, there can be no such guarantees. During the 1990s, these workers say, a small clique of powerful businessmen and criminals used manipulation, forgery, intimidation, and even beatings to seize their land. The dozens of hectares were then divided into smaller plots and eventually doled out to a cohort newly empowered by Putin: officers in the Federal Guard Service and the Presidential Security Service. The above is part of a long article pubished by Novaya OCCRP, Russia in 2019. In the light of @Moses comments on the looks of those around Biden, who looks terrified here - both men! Putin and Viktor Zolotov, the Director of the National Guard! LOL Photo Credit: The Kremlin https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a42930300/putin-russian-bulletproof-train/ https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/putins-bodyguards/

Going through some files of old, interesting photos, I came across this one. I have no idea where or when it was taken although it is clearly in Japan. And it reminded me of a bar I occasionally frequented in the Shinjuku ni-chome gay district, although we are talking a good 30 years and more ago. Apart from the main streets in the area, there was a small one linking two others that had a dog leg in the middle. In that little linking street there were several bars including one which only had room to seat a few patrons at the bar and a couple of tables. Apart from it being a location where porn movies were made after hours, sometimes with a few customers seated a couple of guys would end up naked and be going at each other on the bar top. Sometimes the guys were young and cute. At others, less so. This was no go-go bar or sauna or hatten-ba - just one of the normal tiny-size Japanese bars, some of which have or had themes. The fact that this occasionally had "performances" seemed to be no big deal because there was never any kind of rush to come in to watch it. The only people interested seemed to be the mama-san and those actually sitting there when it all began to happen. Although this was a bar primarily for Japanese custmers, I - and other occasional foreigners - was never stopped. With around 400 bars in ni-chome in those days of which foreigners were welcome at probably not many more than a dozen, I have no idea what might have gone on in other bars. Would it happen today? I very much doubt it, but there is always a lot going on in Japan which foreigners know little about.

If that is the case, then I gladly acknowledge and thank him for his contribution. But is this in fact the case? It may be, but I was under the impressions that it is the gaybuttonthai board which has several times called for his assistance and which I believe @Gaybutton will no longer attempt to resolve re any future issues without having them sorted out by @Moses. Perhaps the moderator here can advise us.

I hope some others may wish to post vides of their favourite classical singers here. One of the excellent features of this Board is the wide range of topics it permits even though there is no specific connection to gay guys and gay sex. But many gay men and women do have a special love of opera. Two more from me - and both happen to be sopranos. When I first heard the von Karajan recording of Die Walkure way back in the 1970s, I was blown away by the crystalline purity of Gundula Janowitz' voice in the role of Sieglinde. This is a short aria from Part 1 of Haydn's masterpiece The Creation recorded in the 1960s with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. (He made a second recording quite a few years later which is nowhere near as good). In May 2009 I had the great joy of being present at the quite glorious Haydnsalle in Eisenstadt where Haydn premiered most of his works (although not The Creation) for a special performance of the work on the exact date and time of his death 200 years earlier. Ms. Janowitz was by then retired and the soprano did not quite match her performance. But it was a perfect morning and an amazing experience! The other is in my view one of the greatest voices of the 20th century - and sadly very underrated. I believe this is because, unlike most opera stars today, Dame Margaret Price decided to spend most of her time in very few Opera Houses - Cologne, Munich and San Francisco - with only occasional appearances elsewhere. Initially known as a Mozart singer she took on heavier roles as her career progressed. When the great conductor Carlos Kleiber was finally persauded to record Tristan und Isolde in 1982 with the Staatskapelle Dresden he told the Deutsche Grammophon producers that he did not want a heavy soprano voice as isolde. He wanted a lighter, more pure sound. Having worked with Dame Margaret in Munich he wanted her, even though it was a role she could never sing on stage. Often regarded as the finest conductor of the 20th century, Kleiber was adored by his musicians and singers and loathed by managements - because he was by nature a very difficult man. He proved this again as he walked out of the Tristan recording sessions vowing never to return and to withhold his permission for DGG to issue anything from the sessions. Fortunately DGG had enough recorded material either completed or from rehearsals. The engineers were able to piece together a complete recording which was issued a year later. Kleiber dd not sue! In terms of the orchestral playing, Kleiber's conducting, the orchestral playing and Dame Margaret's singing, this version of Tristan is one that most Wagner lovers treasure and the closing "Liebestodt" is wonderful.

Having proved that he knows little about the aircraft business, @Moses now sets himself up as some form of amateur psycholoigist. Clearly time he gave up. Better he posts on his own board Sawatdee in future where he is not likely to get criticism for whatever silly things he wants to post about.

The heyday of the castrato voice in opera was the first half of the 18th century. Mozart never intended Cherubino to be sung by anyone other than a soprano or mezzo-soprano female voice. The castrato voice was becoming less popular by the time Mozart's genius was recognised. In his early operas written before he was 25, he certainly did include roles for soprano or contralto castrati. Therafter he only used one once again in his last opera Clemenza di Tito. He never used any in arguably his best-known and finest operas: the three with libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte - Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte - or in Magic Flute. I suspect this is because by this time he had become far more aware of the vital importance of the dramatic action happening on stage. The voices in his early operas included both soprano and contralto castrati. Nowadays some of the soprano castrato roles are at the very highest range for a counter-tenor and so are almost always performed by female sopranos. Incidentally, the famous motet Esultate Jubilate was composed when Mozart was 17 for the celebrated castrato Rauzzini. The counter-tenor voice did not gain popularity until around the mid-20th century with Russell Oberlin in America and Alfred Deller in the UK leading the way. Essentially this is a falsetto voice. All males can create such a falsetto sound but it requires years of technical and vocal training to develop the sound, to make it 'even' and develop character if you wish to become a professional singer.

Those of us interested in opera or just the vocal arts will certainly have their favourite singers. The discussion in the Boy's Penis thread concentrated on castrati and mezzo-soprano voices. So I want to add a couple of favourites of my own, to add to the wonderful Teresa Berganza who passed away a couple of years ago. I had seen her as Cherubino in Salzburg and also at the Edinburgh Festival where a few years later she had a stunning triumph in her debut in the role of Carmen. But sometimes we come across voices that we have not heard before and which make us wish we had. During the pandemic I heard one which I have raved about ever since. The Staatsoper in Munich was streaming a lot from their back catalogue. One was Gluck's Orfeo from around 20 or so years ago. I had never before heard of the Bulgarian mezzo Vesselina Kasarova who sang the title role. In her mid-20s she had won one of the world's top singing competitions and immediately been engaged by the Vienna State Opera. She was to sing in all the world's top opera houses including the Royal Opera in London and New York's Met and at many of the major Festivals. Yet she did not want to spend her whole life singing and preferred to dedicate part of it to helping her husband and raising their son. Some years ago she returned to Bulgaria to take charge of the Opera in Sofia. Now aged 58 she has returned to the opera and recital stage. Clearly she is not only a stunning singer, she is also a consummate actress. I'm going to add two clips from this Munich Orfeo. I believe the version is that arranged by Berlioz who absolutely adored Gluck's operas and was to become his champion in France. The first is the aria at the end of Act 1. This is a regie-theater style production - i.e. modern stage directors who want to say something, often totally at odds with the music. At least this aria is sung in front of the curtain. I have heard this sung by several mezzos including the great Dame Janet Baker. But none comes anywhere close to this version. Even Dame Janet sounds slow and rather 'heavy' when she sings it. The second excerpt is arguably Gluck's most famous aria. It takes place just after Orpheus has been down to Hades and led Euridyce back to earth. But he forgot the instruction that he must never look back or he will never see her again. Overcome with emotion, he does just that and Euridyce is gone. Back on earth he wonders what life will be like without her. Often known as "Che Faro" it became popular in the UK in the 1950s thanks to the great English contralto Kathleen Ferrier. Ferrier had a unique voice and after WWII her career took off spectacularly. In 1953 she gave the first of what were to be four performances of Orfeo in English at the Royal Opera House. Not known to most of her colleagues was that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer some months earlier and had undergone a mastectomy. Although the first performance was a major success, she had been physically weakened by prolonged radiation treatment. At the second performance her femur partially disintegrated. With the help of other cast members, she managed to complete the performance before being rushed to hospital. She died later in the year at the early age of just 41. The public was shocked at the news and tributes flowed. Perhaps the greatest came from one of the top conductorsof the age, Bruno Walter. He said, "The greatest thing in music in my life has been to have known Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler - in that order." Many rushed to purchase her recording of this aria which she had made some years before the staged performances. And one last video. Talking with a conductor a good 15 years ago, he suggested I try and hear the Polish coloratura contralto Ewa Podles, another singer of whom I had heard nothing. He had just made a recording with her and spoke glowingly of her three octave voice. Since then I have found several you tube videos and curse myself for not having mde more of an effort to hear her. somewhere. She is now retired. This is the same first Act aria from Orfeo in a concert performance recorded in 1994. It is very different from that of Kasarova, but equally mesmerising for what she does with the voice.

I'm going to add three more vdo clips of extraordinary female voices, but in order not to derail this thread too much, I have added them in a new thread under Theatre, Art, Movies and Literature.

Moreschi was in his mid-40s when that recording was made and he was apparently petrified about the whole business of recording. He was probably never a more than an average singer and that recording is of interest merely because it highlights what a castrato sounded like virtually at the end of his career. It lacks the warmth, depth, fullness and beauty of a true castrato in his prime. As an historical record, though, it is fascinating. When he joined the Sistine Chapel Choir aged around 25, there were only six other castrati in the Choir, although its Director had once been a castrato Chorister himself. The year after the recording was made all the castrati in the Choir were pensioned off and employment of such voices in future banned.

Welcome to the joys of eating Asian-style!

The castrati came in different vocal styles. Gluck was the famous opera reformer and his most popular work today is Orfeo based on the tale of Orpheus who goes down to the underworld to take back his beloved Euridyce who has died. When first performed in Vienna in 1762 a few years after Mozart's birth, the title role was written for the famous mezzo-soprano castrato named Guadagni. When it was revised and performed in Italy some years later, the role was rewritten for a high soprano castrato Giuseppe Millico. There were also contralto castrati such as the hugely popular Senesino for whom Handel wrote many of his major operatic roles. Senesino was based in London for about 16 years where Handel then lived. As for Cherubino, this has traditionally been played by a woman with a mezzo-soprano voice. In the opera Cherubino is a teenage boy besotted by teenage love and is one of quite a few "trouser" roles in opera. Another teenage role is Octavian in Richard Strauss' most popular opera Der Rosenkavalier, always sung by a mezzo. There he also plays a teenager in love with a woman but who is much older. Indeed, the opening scene sees them in bed together after a short orchestral prelude depiciting their passionate love-making. As one critic wrote, that Prelude concludes with "four quick upthrusts on the horn"! I have never heard of counter-tenors singing the role of Cherubino. Much as I love Philippe Jaroussky's voice, the vdo is of a concert performance. He has never sung the role in a staged performance. I suppose somewhere in Germany there will be an opera house or two where directors trying to be modern have used counter-tenors in the role. But oddly, in the youtube excerpts I have listened to, the counter-tenor voice sounds less like that of a youngish boy! One of the greatest Cherubinos of the last century was the Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza. Not only was she relatively small and therefore physically more suited to the part, when you listen to the subtlety she brings to the aria it's surely clear this is the voice Mozart intended foe the role.

What utter nonsense you spout! Since you do not understand the airline business, better you do not comment on it.

I have heard of this type of voice but never heard one. It seems to be a result of certain medical malformations - as, for example, a larynx that has not completely developed. This enables the normal chest/head voice to reach much higher than a normal tenor. Can't add any more. There was another voice - the super high tenor. This was very common in France, especially in the 19th century when composers like Berlioz wrote for it. This was a natural tenor voice but trained go considerably higher up the scale than a regular tenor voice. But the fashion for this high voice died out, perhaps as a result of the rise of the counter-tenor voice in the mid-20th century. The tight cord method certainly seems to have been used by the Ottoman Turks. But it took a long time for the genitals to finally fall off and I believe it was actually a more painful process than the knife! Castration was also practised in many dynasties in Imperial China. It was also sometimes used as a punishment. Because of the Chinese belief that the body must be buried whole, the excised organs were kept in jars, presumably with names stuck on them! Korea and Vietnam are two other countries where castration was not uncommon, especially in the Imperial courts. The French colonial power sometimes used castration as a means of degrading individual Vietnamese.

You obviously need a lesson on aircraft production. When a plane is in development after disucssions with customers, the manufacturer receives a number of orders. As it nears production, orders increase. Once it actually makes its maiden trial flight, orders continue to increase. There were more than 4,000 firm orders for the 737Max before the first one was delivered to an airline. And that had absolutely nothing to do with either covid or the two early crashes. Those at the end of a queue for new aircraft by both Boeing and Airbus are perfectly well aware that they will not have delivery of their orders for years and large orders will be spread over a number of years. Got it? So the comment about 6,000 orders and less than 1,500 manufactured is utterly meaningless!

Perhaps interesting that in the 17th and 18th centuries when boys with particularly beautiful voices prior to puberty were castrated to prevent the voice breaking into a lower register, they also had no anaesthetics. It will seem odd to us nowadays but castrati who became successful were virtually the pop singers of their day. Castration not only prevented the voice from changing, it did not stop other parts of the body from developing. Most castrati were known for their long limbs, tall bodies and incredible lung power. Women who attended operas or who had been successful in inviting a castrato to sing at one of their private soirees (for humongous fees) were aghast that a note could be held for well over a minute often with a crescendo starting in the middle and ending very loudly. Many would faint. Some sought them out as lovers for clearly they were considered "safe"! The few who reached the top earned fees akin to those earned by a Paul McCartney or an Elton John. Only a few did reach that top. Many boys were castrated by poor parents in the hope that fame and fortune would follow. For the vast majority it was merely poverty and a ruined life. Yet the top castrati virtually ruled the world of opera for a century from around 1680. The most famous was Farinelli whose life as a boy with a beautiful voice, a castrated singer and a sensuous lover whose brother would be a party to his seductions by quietly taking the place of Farinelli to achieve climax was made into a successful movie in 1994. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. To achieve the vocal sound, the technicians married the voices of a low counter-tenor with a high soprano.

I'm 100% with Barry Kenyon on this issue.

Obviously it was the bigger windows 😵

Sadly I have heard worse. Back in the early 1990s a group of teenage Hong Kong schoolboys returning to their housing estate were having an argument about A having "stolen" B's girlfriend. The argument became heated. A few got into a lift to go up to their homes. Two friends of B then held boy A down while B pulled down his shorts and cut off his penis. I was friendly with the Justice of the Peace who had to preside at the court trial and who told me the gory details when we were both having lunch in a nice restaurant in Tokyo! He said it was one of the saddest cases tried before him. The remains of the penis were never found and at that time the boy clearly had a pretty miserable life ahead of him. (Please, no jokes about a future as a ladyboy. This was much too serious an event.)