PeterRS

I write little about sex in Thailand now - certainly compared to the more than three decades prior to the mid 2010s - but only, as I have written several times, because I am partnered and neither my partner nor I feel the need or desire to experience the local sex scene any more. On the other hand, we both travel a bit and have an agreement that we can be free to indulge in our sexual desires if we so wish. The key to the arrangement is that we always explain later to each other what we have done and we practice safe sex. That out of the way, I had several longish relationships with guys from countries outside Hong Kong where I was based for much of my career. The first was a 25-year old Japanese a few years younger than me who taught me something I had never really encountered before - passion in a relationship. That can be unimaginably great when you are together and yet almost frightening when you are not. I could only meet him once a month, although he did come to stay with me for three weeks. I learned from his friends that his feelings for me were almost as strong as mine for him. But when we were apart he did play around whereas I did not. And the more often we were apart, the more difficult I felt. Jealousy, I know. Jealousy can be very difficult to overcome. As it turned out, while he was never jealous, he needed sex more than I and eventually hooked up with an older Englishman in Tokyo. I was mortified - but I had learned a lesson. The problem with this and other relationships was that I fell for too many guys who lived outside Hong Kong. Since I travelled regularly, sometimes that was not a problem. But that little germ of jealousy was never far away. And I suppose it was only when I was with a Taiwanese guy who really did not play the sex scene that I had my most successful relationship. Five years is not so long, but at that time it was for me. I have never been in a relationship with a bar boy. Some here have and are wonderfully happy. I wish yours will be the same.

Thanks to the movie, we all know how Alan Turing suffered and then took his own life after admitting he was homosexual. And thanks to years of campaigning, he was been given one of the extremely rare official royal pardons in 2023. He is admired today for his code-breaking skills which helped shorten WWII. His photo adorns the back of the UK's £50 notes. In today's Guardian/Observer, there is another somewhat similar, but very different, historical case of a civil servant being hounded to death. But this case remains an open sore. Sir Roger Casement was knighted by the King for distinguished Imperial Service in 1911. As was discovered in his diaries after his capture, he was also homosexual and proud of it. As the Guardian article points out, Casement remains a taboo subject, "A can containing too many worms." Born in what is now Northern Ireland, the British were adamant that Ireland as a whole remained part of its Empire. Learning of an impending rebellion in Dublin against British rule, Casement returned to the country in an attempt to get the organisers to call it off. He had reckoned without the British Head of Admiralty Intelligence, an eccentric and ruthless Reginald "Blinker" Hall. Casement grew to abhor Britain's imperial rule and eventually earned a distinguished record of service exposing atrocities in the Congo and Peru. He was eventually to be described as the "father of twentieth-century human rights investigations." But he was also an Irish patriot and nationalist. After resigniing from the Foreign Office in 1913, he gave his time to fostering Irish Independence which set Hall against him. He travelled to Germany to win support and gain military aid, mostly by recruiting Irish prisoners of the Germans. He heard about an Easter Uprising against British rule due to take place over the Easter weekend in Ireland in 1916. He was deeply opposed. A cache of arms was sent from Germany but Casement set out at the same time to persuade the leaders of the Uprising to call it off. Landed by a German submarine in Ireland in avdance, Casement was suffering from a recurrance of malaria and too ill to meet the leaders. He could have been rescued but these leaders had insisted that not a shot be fired in advance of the Uprising in case it was discovered by the British. The Uprising took place. It was mercilously crushed by the British. Captured, Casement was accused of high treason, sabotage and espionage. During the trial, excerpts from his diaries were released to various sources alleging that Casement was also a "sexual deviant, fond of young men, especially teenagers, and usually paid for sex." Found guilty, he was hanged on 3 August 1916. Several investigations during the rest of the century came to the conclusion that the diaries may have been forged after his death. Yet that has never been proved. As Turing is regarded as a gay martyr in Britain, so Casement is being considered the Irish Turing. Yet Ireland is less willing to reopen the Caement issue, that diary being its main reason. Turing was convicted for having sex with one adult man. That Casement may have lured teenagers into his bed is not acceptable in Ireland. Was Casement a rebel or a traitor? We really do not know. All we do know is that he was gay and may have been officially murdered for that reason.

To me that is still not a valid argument! Passengers from 'suspect' countries are already singled out and sent to a separate queue for special screening. That even used to be the case for flights which originated in Bangkok until the turn of this century! My guess is that with most air travel being in, to or from the USA in the early days, no one even considered the possibility of connecting flights. Then Canada came into the mix. Instead of altering airport designs, some bright spark came up with the idea of installing US customs and immigration facilities at the major Canadian airports. It happened once in Europe when BA ran a 737 out of London's small City airport with a short stop to go through USA customs and immigration at Shannon. Personally I know of no others.

Good advice. Is there a reason why US airports do not permit international to international connecting flights like almost every other nation?

Seiji Ozawa ued to do this sort of stripping down once each year with his New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Tokyo. With the cast in costume, simple scenery, props and lighting in front of the orchestra, these proved very popular. He also did some of these with the Boston Symphony.

So true. And when we near the end of life, we often do not have the cash or the energy to complete the bucket list. So don't put experiences off. Enjoy life while we have it.

Doesn't that more or less say it all?

The problem for opera companies is that new productions take vast amounts of planning time - at least two years - and then equally vast amounts of cash to build newly designed scenery, create new costumes, props, lighting and other technical issues - and that is all before you add in a 3-4 week rehearsal period for everyone involved. including a very expensive orchestra. Most revivals can virtually be thrown on in a fraction of the time thereby saving a lot of money. That's not much help to those who have already seen productions, though. Recent decades have seen the collapse of the New York City Opera - a result of its idiotic Board Chair abandoning collegiality and hiring a controversial European Artistic Director who had demanded an annual budget of US$60 million. City Opera had never operated on more than $30 million. It crashed. Now the New York Met is in very serious trouble - and again primarily because of its Board. When its previous very savvy General Manager retired in 2006, it appointed a man who had never run any performing company, let alone such a huge one as the Met Opera, and had no experience of opera apart from selling programmes as student. But he was a pal of someone or other. He said he aimed to make opera more popular. All he has done is reduce audiences (fair point - covid did not help), reduce the number and amount of donations and drawn down roughly $100 million from the Endowment after promising the Unions he'd increase it by £200 million! Arts management professionals worldwide have called him a charlatan and clearly stated he should have been dismissed years ago, but he seems to have some hold over the Board who keep extending his contract. When he presented a Wagner RIng cycle by Cirque du Soleil's splendid director Robert Lepage early in his tenure, one of the horrendous problems that dogged this production was that no one, least of all Gelb, had realised that the scenery weighed 45 tons, cost US$16 million and was way too heavy for the stage structure. This then had to have an extra $1 million spent on it to support its weight. Idiocy!

I always wonder why the US makes passengers do this. I once planned an RTW trip. To maximise miles, I took Tokyo to DFW on AA and then AA to Vancouver. I had no idea i'd actually have to enter the USA and then exit again at DFW. For transit passengers, that just seems ridiculous. Why the airline had not red-flagged this to me when I booked I totally fail to understand. With long queues to enter DFW, I assumed I'd miss my connection. I just made it.

The station's entrances can be slightly confusing as one is at each end of the line. The one you want is the one in the middle Exit 3. Depending on where you get off, the only way to switch platforms is by an underground passage which takes you to Exit 3. As you exit, just keep walking straight ahead for about a minute.

May I ask if the Etihad fare links your departure point with Thailand as the destination after a plane change? The reason I ask is that Emirates and Qatar have resumed a small number of flights out of Bangkok, but only as far as Dubai and Doha. You can not book through tickets to other countries.

Excellent news. I know you are aware of the pitfalls but lock them in the back of your mind. Concentrate on the positives and the future potential. I have just a sneaking feeling you might be back before November!! I wish you the very best of luck and happiness.

I'm really surprised this site is still alive given that PBM stopped making movies years ago. Although he did have some good models, he treated some pretty badly. There was one who used to be the barman in Classic Boys who was a top and never liked to bottom. Presumably because of cash, he was pesuaded to bottom for PBM, loathed the experience as you can see just by looking at his face during the deed. That he got away with paying only 6,000 baht is scandalous. I knew a barboy who had posed for photos two or three years before PBM arrived on the scene. He got 30,000 baht for pics and a vdo. It died almost as soon as it started airing vdos. You can still occasionally come across just one vdo on some websites, but the boys look very amateur, the camera work is boring, and I think the site never lasted more than a year.

I have quite regularly seen actors in a stage production which I have later tried to find on line. What I dislike is plays, revues and other staged events where the actors are totally naked virtually throughout, even if I like one of them. I saw Oh Calcutta in London and Naked Boys Singing in New York and the nakedness merely bored me. A bit of titllation is much more exciting! Rather like Equus where the boy has to strip naked or M. Butterfly where the alleged wife has to strip naked - but both with their backs to the audience.

You misunderstood my post. I referred to connections to London from Helsinki. Helsinki is a very plasant airport which I have used quite a few times and it is generally easy for connections.