PeterRS

The extraordinary journey of Pope Francis continues as his final will has become public. This man who gave up his US$32,000 per month salary and all other manner of perks made arrangements for the funds to go into a Trust. That trust was given to his younger sister after his death. This equally modest woman had never once played up her connection to the Pope. Equally neither brother nor sister had forgotten the other as they corresponded weekly. He asked her not to attend his coronation so as not to draw the media sttention away from his Church. She never flew to be with him in Rome and he never visited her in Argentina. Yet their bond was unbreakable. When she saw how much he had left her to head up a Trust made up of other good men and women she cried. This was not money for a statue, a church or some other tangible symbol of his position as Pope. It asked her to continue his mission by spending the money on the poor, the homeless, education and other issues close to his heart. Money from many other sources is now flowing into that Trust. I beieve this has made Pope Francis unique. His life was one of simplicity, generosity of spirit, kindness, love. Now in death his legacy will ensure that his life's work continues.

For a dozen years I would blow miles on a biz class round trip to spend Christmas or New Year with friends in Sydney. Every year I tried Qantas months in an advance and could never once get a seat. Thankfully BA then had a flight to BKK that went on to Sydney and I was always able to get a seat on that carrier.

When I first flew on Qatar in 2009 to LGW I had completely forgotten to fill out the loyalty club application. I did so on the final leg back to Bangkok, enclosed the four boarding passes, sealed it and sent it off. QR received it for they gave me a loyalty club number but they said they never received the boarding passes. I offered to send them the baggage tags which quite clearly mentioned my name, flights and date. These were not acceptable although QR never explained why. So I decided not to put mileage on to QR instead sticking with CX's Asia Miles. But I now get endless QR emails to loyalty club members but have never accrued any mileage on the airline!

Wonderful film with as @BjornAgain points out amazing acting from Hopkins and Coleman. Hopkins was the oldest to win the Best Actor Oscar in the year everyone thought it would go to the late Chadwick Boseman. But also more than a little frightening. It reminded me of the Judi Dench movie "Iris" where she pays the novelist Iris Murdoch as she first realises she has dementia and follows her through that horrible journey. Jim Broadbent, so good in so many movies, plays her husband determined not to leave her in an institution, the role which won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Masterfully directed by Richard Eyre.

Returning to @bkkmfj2648's point, Japan has a huge sex industry. I recall reading somewhere that it contributes somewhere between 3% and 5% to GDP. Of course, most of this is for local consumption but anyone who has been to the foreigner-welcome bars and the main saunas will know that there is a large number of tourists and foreign residents. And the gay scene covers many of the country's cities. Yet, few consider Japan a sex haven. That is the sort of image Thailand's elite want. Keep the sex if you must but keep it well away from the front pages.

On one occasion I was surprised when I looked at my mileage statement - but for very different reason. There seemed to be too many miles! I was on one of those really useful round-the-world tickets. When I got to London I was asked by a client to meet up in Palm Springs. Since I still had some spare coupons, before flying to the US I went to BA at Heathrow and had return flights from LAX to Palm Springs on AA added. No problem. In any case it's less than 200 kms between the airports. Arriving back at LAX I was flying up to San Jose where AA had recently started a non-stop flight to Taipei. I then ended up with a stop-over in Hong Kong before getting home to Bangkok. The airport code for Palm Spring is PPS. For some reason, AA had inserted into the mileage computer the outward ticket as LAX to DPS. Why no one wondered that the next flight was PPS back to LAX I have not the faintest idea. But did I care? DPS is Denpasar, Bali. So I gained 4,000 miles.

Thanks for the information.

Great to see comments. but please remember I asked for just one sentence to explain the reason for your preferring a particular movie. It concentrates the mind on why you really like it!

Not necessarily. It's a reason those who pay have decided to pay. if there are your type of guys willing and able to fulfil your desires just to fulfil their own, why pay? Again I disagree. It's a common argument, I admit, but I do not agree that it is valid in many cases.

The Tourism Authority may be keen on doing something but the government definitely will not. There are still far too many in the elite who loathe - loathe - Bangkok being called the sex capital of Asia. And by Bangkok they mean the country as a whole. As Alex Kerr wrote 20 years ago in his perceptive book "Bangkok Found", the elite want sex out of the picture. Gay Pride marches and international World Pride events are great for image and they will go along with that. Promoting gay gogo bars are no-nos for them.

This was basically an English language remake of the Hong Kong movie "Internal Affairs". It won a ton of awards at the Hong Kong Film Festival, just as "The Departed" won top awards at the Oscars.

Using scissors? To reach the heart, he'd have to break through the rib cage. That's hard enough with surgical instruments. How do you manage that with scissors?

In my younger years, I loved the smorgasbord of gay sex that was available in many Asian countries. And I was happy to pay what for me were extremely modest fee requests. After I moved to Thailand more than 2 decades ago, I was again happy to pay for sex here. Strangely, though, free gay sex had become much easier in countries like Taiwan, Japan, China and even Singapore. I could never figure out why guys there were merely happy to find an older westerner and together enjoy a great time without any financial transaction. Only very occasionally would the cost of transport or a meal even be requested - and sometimes when offered it was declined. I stilll find this extremely common in Taiwan and to a slightly lesser extent in Japan. My last trip to Singapore was about 7 years ago - same with a young student who happened to be walking outside my hotel when I was on an app. Being partnered in Thailand for some years, I have given up my playing around. But I am allowed off the leash (as it were!) when I travel and remain constantly amazed by what is available free despite my advancing years. I find that usually guys seeking free sex are more fun to be with (as opposed to guys I want to chase after) - but each to his own.

Saw this young man with his horribly wide short jeans on the MRT yesterday.

I know that many more recent readers are no doubt fed up hearing from old stagers like me about the gogo bars in the 1980s, 1990s and even part of the 2000s and how much more fun they were with nudity, much more inventive shows and bars packed at the weekends with a wide mix of Thais and foreigners. As complaints started to appear in this forum about how all bars (with very few honourable exceptions) were following the same old formula, at some point - I think in the mid-late 2000s - one poster, shamelessmack in his first incarnation I believe, made a long and detailed post of how he would like to see a gogo bar operating. He ilustrated this with drawings of floor plans. It was a fascinating and different slant that could have perhaps enlivened what was starting to become a very slowly dying scene, but of course none of the bar owners put it into practice, although none had probably seen the post in the first place! Somewhere on my computer I still have that gogo bar model but I believe it should be replicated by its originator should he so wish. But I expect it is too much out of date. Times have changed. Government, police, army attitudes have changed. The gay scene for non-Thais in Chiang Mai is all but dead. Soi Twilight is no more. Many other bars have closed. The more regular customers are much less the older westerners now replaced by the growing number of younger Asians - including in some bars, women! So I am wondering. Given the changing times, in an ideal world what would you like to see offered in a gogo bar? What would make you wish to return regularly? Rather like everyone seemed to return to Barbiery in the 1980s and 1990s. Or are you happy with what is presently on offer?