PeterRS

Was that on the A380 super jumbo? After the 747 I just love the Emirates A380s, especially if one can afford business class upstairs with the flat bed seats, huge video screens and the great stand up bar at the back serving premium brands and snacks. Sadly Airbus roled out the last ever A380 just a week or so ago. With fuel prices about to rocket, it was just the wrong plane launched at the wrong time. Part of me hopes that once the pandemic is finally in the background there will be such a demand for travel that the aircraft will keep flying for many more years. At least one of the aircraft on the several daily flights out of Bangkok could hold 615 passengers.

I am sure you are correct - provided there is not another Max crash. Let us hope that does happen. Even so, given all we now know about all that aircraft's production problems and Boeing's relatively new corporate culture, I will never fly the plane. I just believe the design is fundamentally seriously flawed. Those larger engines that now jut above the wings should never have been fitted to what is a 1960s airframe. That may seem strange because I remember making a detour just to fly the MacDonnell Douglas DC10 between Geneva and Zurich. This was after its first major crash - a 1974 Turkish Airlines flight outside Paris, a result of a poor cargo door locking mechanism. The subsequent decompression buckled the passenger cabin floor and severed most of the hydraulic lines. The pilots could no longer control the aircraft. All 346 on board were killed. Most passengers had not been booked on that flight. They had been transferred from a full British European Airways flight to London which was stuck on the ground due to a strike. There were more DC10 crashes and a short FAA mandated grounding before production ceased and the revised similar MD11 version was rolled out. I flew this a lot and really liked that aircraft. Perhaps it's just age and experience that have resulted in my decision never to fly on the Max.

Yes, the design and production of the 737-Max was crappy as has been proved by the FAA investigation. But to suggest the crashes were the result of being flown by "developing-world airlines" is frankly nonsense. That has already been proved. Plus there were about 200 prior complaints from US based pilots about problems with the Max which went unaddressed. In the light of the electrical issues addressed in the original post, not only Southwest but also United and American withdrew 17 and 16 Max aircraft respectively from service. The problem was serious enough for the FAA to issue another directive on April 30 stipulating further modifications before the aircraft could fly again. To be fair, that has not stopped Southwest from ordering even more 737-Max aircraft. The fault was eventually traced to poor electrical bonding resulting in improper earthing which could affect certain systems resulting in the loss of critical functions including de-icing. One 737 Max critic has been Ed Pierson, a former Boeing employee who has basically maintained the 737 Max was pushed back into service too quickly. Earlier this year he published a report that explicitly linked production pressures with electrical anomalies and flight control system problems that occurred in both the Lion and Ethiopian crashes prior to the fatal accidents. As he states - “Yes, MCAS caused the airlines to pitch down and crash. But it was an electrical system malfunction that likely caused the angle of attack sensor to send faulty data to MCAS.” He further claims that the 20-month recertification process focused on software design and pilot training but failed to address the impact of production standards at the factory. As for Boeing in general, The Seattle Times has had the most regular and knowledgeable reports throughout the Max crisis. An article on May 9 states - “This latest problem adds to the long litany of missteps currently afflicting Boeing. “Manufacturing flaws have grounded more than 80 of the widebody 787 Dreamliners for months; design flaws mean the vision system on the Air Force’s KC-46 military aerial refueling tanker must be completely revamped; and quality issues have delayed the Starliner spacecraft program. “And in a previously unreported problem, Boeing recently found a potential defect in a batch of 20 to 40 motors that move the horizontal stabilizer on all 737s, including the MAX and earlier models. “This motor — manufactured by Eaton, a supplier headquartered in Ireland — is part of the system that pitches the airplane nose up or nose down. Boeing said seven of the aircraft with a stabilizer motor from the defective batch are MAXs. “Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal said the defect potentially affects the reliability of the component. The motor ‘has been replaced in five of the MAXs already and the remaining two airplanes will have the parts replaced before they fly again,’ she said. “Kowal said Boeing is continuing ‘to evaluate any potential impact to the 737 NG fleet.’ “American Airlines spokesperson Sarah Jantz said two MAXs in its fleet had their stabilizer motors replaced as a result of Boeing’s directive, although neither had experienced any issues. (Both those fixed MAXs are now grounded by the new electrical power control unit problem.)” https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-jet-deliveries-in-may-hit-by-latest-787-snag/ It is the problems affecting the 787 that seem the most worrying now. Defects in the joins to the various fuselage sections resulted in deliveries being halted for 5 months at the end of last year. Resumed in March, they were again halted on instructions from the FAA after only two were delivered in May. Now once again the problem seems to be electrical in nature. Boeing has still not resumed deliveries.

When I left University and started work, I was informed - I believe in some form of leaflet - that the National Insurance contributions of myself and my employer would ensure two things: I would receive the state pension after I had paid in for the required number of years, and I would remain eligible for treatment under the National Health Service. I seem to recall there were three levels of contribution. After I moved overseas to work, I moved down a notch and elected to continue in the scheme by paying my own personal contributions. These were at a fixed amount per year rather than dependent on employment income, since the UK does not tax non residents earning overseas. Some time in the mid 2000s, I wrote to the relevant department just to make sure my contributions were up to date. I got a letter back informing me that I was underfunded and would need to pay an additional £7.38 to ensure my eligibility!! At some point I became aware of the fact that the monthly pension rate would be frozen without indexation the moment I started to withdraw it. Two things of which I was not aware was Margaret Thatcher withdrawing my right to vote because I was living overseas for more than a certain number of years, and then Tony Blair introducing legislation to ensure I would no longer be eligible for National Health Service treatment unless I returned to live in the UK for at least six months each year. No government department informed me about these major changes. We were all just supposed to learn them for ourselves, which is a disgrace. The freezing of the pension of someone living overseas makes absolutely no sense to me. We have contributed in full to the NI scheme. By living abroad we cannot now make use of the National Health Service even if we wanted to unless we do return to the UK. We place no burden on the state, but the state penalises us for reasons it will not give us. And then, having contributed in full to the NI scheme, what possible rationale is there for backdating the denial of eligibility for perhaps an occasional use of the NHS (or for even longer in the case of treatment for a severe illness) in the case of those who were in fact eligible when starting to make contributions? That is even more of a disgrace in my view.

Usually I am one of the worst investors. But I did manage to take advantage of the Asian Economic crisis. In 1999 I put some cash into a Thailand Growth Mutual Fund when the stock market was hovering around 200. I also put in around $300 per month thereafter. But then when the market's upward trajectory started to stagnate a few years later with the market around 700 or so, I took the money out. I had made a very sizeable profit. Of course, had I just left it in, I could have at least doubled that. But then I am one of those who gets a bit panicky when the financial outlook seems bleak!

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

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

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

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

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

I have shown my age!!!! I just always use my small phone.

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

Sorry, I did not even read the bit about the Australian divemaster! I was too taken up with the pool deaths and how suspicious all that seems. But I wonder why the divemaster would use his iPad to make the phone call. After all, he had his phone with him. Although he could probably make app calls on both, why would he take up the bigger device yo do so? Or have I missed something else?

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

Fell overboard into a hotel swimming pool? That's a new one on me

I agree, but as I stated in the earlier post, the Court could not be told about Turing's achievements. To the judge he was merely someone who had broken a long standing law which had convicted tens of thousands before him. We really must also recall the times. Britain - and I believe the USA, Australia and other countries - were extremely homophobic in the early 1950s. In the thread related to Movies about Maurice, I write about the first mouth on mouth male kiss in British movies in the 1971 Sunday Bloody Sunday. I see that there is a youtube clip in which one of actors, Murray Head, looks back a few decades to the times when they made that movie. Although the actors thought nothing of it, many of the technicians working on the film were all but horrified. As they were filming the scene, the cameraman suddenly put his hand in front of the camera and asked the director, John Schlesinger, "John, is this really necessary?" And for weeks afterwards, technicians working on the movie would go up to Head and say something to the effect, "We know your are an actor but that moment when you kissed Peter Finch - ughhh!"

I only just realised that Sunday Bloody Sunday was released exactly 50 years ago. I was reminded of this by an article in The Guardian which is worth quoting. "Some people mark wedding anniversaries with flowers. But in this house, we do things differently. On the morning of our 15th wedding anniversary last week, my domestic colleague staggered into the room carrying a poster for the greatest film about a love triangle that I know: John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, starring Glenda Jackson, Peter Finch and Murray Head. Believe me – I’ve hardly stopped staring at it since. "As it happens, Sunday Bloody Sunday celebrates an anniversary of its own later this year, when it will be 50 years old. I hope someone makes a fuss of it – this movie is so timelessly gorgeous and wise and still so utterly modern. Its screenplay by Penelope Gilliatt, then the film critic of this newspaper, is sharper, wittier and more finely wrought than Pinter’s Betrayal, which it slightly resembles. All the Fleabag in the world won’t prepare you for the moment when the beautiful, mesmerising Finch breaks the fourth wall to talk of his character’s particular heartache. "When contemporary audiences saw him, as Daniel, first greet his lover, Bob (Murray Head), in the hall of his London house – they share a casual, hello-darling-I’m-home kind of kiss – it must have been electrifying; it would be another 16 years before two men kissed on EastEnders, when the tabloids went mad. "But even now, it still has an effect: this is a film that is content to deal in complexity and you feel it from the start. As Gilliatt once wrote, Sunday Bloody Sunday is a grown-up movie about compromises; about what is enough and what is too little; about decisions “both impossible and necessary”. Thinking about it, which I seem to do a lot, only its title doesn’t quite work now. The heart will always have its unfathomable reasons, but the feeling induced by that dreaded day of stasis and gravy is well on its way to becoming ancient history." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/02/fifty-years-on-this-film-is-still-sunday-bloody-sunday-best So another short excerpt from Sunday Bloody Sunday illustrating what a superb actor Peter Finch was. It is the last scene of the movie. We first see him trying to learn italian. He then looks at the camera and reminisces about the love that he has now lost - he has decided to leave for a life in New York, about how he had only met the Murray Head character when he came to his surgery for some pills for a cough.This section lasts from only 1'04" until 2'40". The credits then follow to the music of the glorious Act I Trio from Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutte. Apart from the lovely music, it shows that several of Britain's finest actors also appear in the movie, including Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Tony Briton, Frank WIndsor and the bisexual Maurice Denholm who sadly died of AIDS.

Not sure if that review is personal or from an official reviewer but the comment about the first depiction of two men kissing in a positive light in a British movie being in My Beautiful Laundrette is not accurate. My Beautiful Laundrette came out in 1985. The first lips to lips male kiss (with meaning!) was in John Schlesinger's 1971 movie Sunday Bloody Sunday. (He had earlier directed Midnight Cowboy). There are also several scenes with the two men in bed. The actors were the very straight ladies man Peter Finch as a gay doctor and the equally straight Murray Head here playing a bisexual. The movie also starred Glenda Jackson as the third in the love triangle.

Although we may all rightly despise the law passed in the 1860s that condemned known homosexuals as criminals, the fact was that many so-called upright [sic] Victorian, Edwardian and later gentlemen were up to their necks in homosexual activity. That they came from privileged backgrounds and were married with children meant that their 'misdemeanours' were passed off as mere uncharacteristic incidents, assuming, that is, that others in 'society' were aware of it - as indeed many were. Had Alan Turing come from the upper classes with friends in high places, it is highly unlikely he would have been charged with anything. If a long-standing member of Parliament, Lord Boothby, was known by many - although not publicly, for the media gag laws in those days were draconian - not only to have engaged in numerous scandalous homosexual affairs, but also enjoyed a multi-decade romance with the wife of the soon-to-be Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, to the extent that many believed Macmillan's youngest daughter had been sired by Boothby, many blind eyes should have been turned in Turing's case. Regrettably his arrest and subsequent conviction were a result of several extremely unfortunate occurrences. First he had only recently commenced a romantic affair with a 19 year old youth. One evening he returned home to find that his home had been burgled. His emotional boyfriend admitted to Turing that he knew the name of the burglar but informed Turing that if he told the police, he would 'out' him as gay. Since nothing of significant value had been stolen, Turing should just have let things be. But he refused to be threatened in such a way and did report the robbery. As the police were searching his home and realised that he was gay, his legal position was untenable. Any other man with such wartime achievements could have called on his wartime superiors to speak on his behalf and mitigate whatever the Court's sentence might have been, if anything. But Turing has signed the Official Secrets Act in order to get into Bletchley Park. Everything he did there was covered by the Act. Officially he had never worked there. As I think he is informed in the film on his last day, officially you do not exist! Had he chosen to go public and broken the Secrets Act, he could have been sentenced to up to 14 years in jail. Despite his wartime successes, he would essentially have been regarded as a traitor. Finally, it was his solicitor who advised him to plead guilty rather than try to fight the charge in the hope of getting a reduced sentence. Had Turing just had someone to advise him not to report the burglary, it is extremely likely that he could have enjoyed many more years of life, as well as the gratitude of hundreds of millions as his exploits were eventually declassified.

Perhaps not in Thailand - yet. But there were definite leaks from quarantine hotels in both Melbourne and Taipei which resulted in repeat lockdowns and other consequences. Given the ease with which the son of the Central Department Group Chairman beat the quarantine system on his return from Cambodia and thereby helped cause the current spike, does anyone really have any confidence that a brown envelope padded with cash will not again result in someone beating the quarantine system, even in Thailand hotels? This from The Australian - "Shocking new analysis has revealed just how far from “fit for purpose” Australia’s hotel quarantine system really is. "Researchers from the University of Melbourne have found that for every 204 Covid-19 infected travellers that have undergone their mandatory quarantine in Australia there has been one leak. "There have been 21 'failures' in Australia’s hotel quarantine system between April 2020 and June 2021, including eight in NSW, five in Victoria, three in Queensland, three in Western Australia, and two in South Australia. "Many have prompted snap, or extended lockdowns in major cities." https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/univeristy-of-melbourne-researchers-say-there-has-been-one-hotel-quarantine-leak-per-204-covid19-infected-travellers/news-story/951cb9b018cc47b11bf681c0a2651be6

It is well worthy of two mentions!

Alan Turing was one of the true heroes of the 20th century. His accomplishments were so significant it is appalling what his government then forced him to do. What makes it even more so is that Turing had discovered there was a Soviet spy working in his group at Bletchley Park. He planned to expose John Cairncross but was told by Cairncross that if he did so he would then be outed for being gay. Turing elected to remain silent, partly because the Chief of his Section knew about Cairncross and wanted him to continue leaking documents to the Russians who were by then the UK's ally in the war against Hitler. This decision was to return to haunt the UK government. For those unaware of the Cambridge Spy Ring that rocked both the UK and the USA in the 1950s and later, in 1951 two high ranking UK diplomats fled to the Soviet Union. Donald Maclean and the notoriously gay Guy Burgess had been converted to communism whilst studying at Cambridge in the 1930s. There were always rumours of a "Third Man", but nothing - despite a mass of evidence - was proved. Eventually, following the defection of a Soviet KGB officer to the USA, Kim Philby, a former diplomat and then a journalist, fled from Beirut to the Soviet Union. He had been the notorious Third Man. But then there were rumours of yet a Fourth and perhaps a Fifth spy as part of that Ring. A closeted gay, Sir Anthony Blunt had recruited spies for the Soviet Union. After the war, he held high positions in the art world, notably working at Buckingham Palace as the Surveyor of the Queen's Art Collection. He received a knighthood for his work. He was unmasked in 1964 but that was kept secret. In return for his confession, he was given immunity for 15 years, a guarantee of secrecy during that time and he was able to continue with his high society art work. In 1979 he was finally outed as the Fourth Man by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech in parliament. He was stripped of his knighthood and all his art positions. The identity of the Fifth Man remained uncertain until another KGB defection in 1990. Finally John Cairncross, Alan Turing's colleague at Bletchley Park, was unmasked. His later autobiography is titled "The Enigma Spy." One wonders what might have happened had there been no anti-gay law at that time and Cairncross had been unmasked. Many UK and US secrets might not have found their way to Moscow. While Turing's life was cut so desperately short, his life is finally being recognised in some ways. He had received a Royal Pardon in 2013, a relief to surviving members of his family. After much delay, in 2017 the British government abolished the law that had punished gay men under the Offences Against the Persons Act of the 1860s. Some 50,000 men, including Oscar Wilde, were pardoned. That law has become known as the Alan Turing Law. Ridiculously, the mandarins in Whitehall rather emasculated the original Bill by adding pardons would not be given to those who had importuned sex in public places. So Sir John Gielgud, one of the nation's greatest ever actors, was denied a pardon. Importantly for those who believe Turing must be remembered, his face and the detail of some of his work are featured on the nation's new £50 note that enters circulation on June 23.

After four years of Trump and with the Republican Party now in thrall to a self-centred 'Emperor has no Clothes' moron, I cannot help wondering: why is it that with so many investigations into his businesses and his own dirty deeds that have been going on for years, still no charges have been brought against him? The Manhattan attorneys have been investigating Trump for years, but still nothing has happened. How come? His Finance guy Weisselberg has finally been hauled before a Grand Jury, but what about all the other people supposedly involved? What is happening about the Deutsche Bank investigations? What is happening about all the Russians who bought Trump properties in Manhattan and Florida? I find it almost impossible to believe that investigations take so long even to drag up just one piece of evidence of illegal shenanigans.

I wish it could be a four way bubble with vaccinated citizens being able to travel between all four countries even if restricted only to certain cities/islands. If only the TAT could organise a Korean Boy Band Festival in Bangkok, that would certainly lift the present gloom

I asked but was told they do not yet know. My taxi driver had been given Sinovac - that's all I know.