PeterRS

Yes, to both. I was outside Paragon early-afternoon a couple of days ago standing on the side opposite hoping to get a taxi towards the centre - nowhere near rush hour. No less than nine empty taxis drove by without even bothering to stop to find out where I was going. One stopped and asked for 200 baht for what would normally be half that. Four others stopped but would not consider taking me to my destination. I finally walked around the corner to the road opposite MBK. The first empty taxi coming from the street next to Discovery Centre stopped, asked me to jump in and although traffic around Rama IV was bad, he got me to my destination with no fuss and less than half 200 baht. He had been super efficient and friendly and deserved the largish tip I gave him. Taxis are certainly cheap in the city and I think the drivers do deserve more. But far too many fail to observe the Transport Authority guidelines. Taxis with the meter showing available (and without the BUSY sign lit) driving past without even stopping to check where you are going are very much on the increase. And those who do stop but will not use the meter are also on the increase. Both practices were supposed to be stopped at the last round of drivers' wage increase. But the police do nothing about it and complaining means reporting and backing up preferably with photos from your phone. Too much hassle, and I am sure the drivers know it.

Today's Guardian newspaper ranks this actor's top 20 movies in order - although who does the ranking is not stated. I had not realised his career and that of his pal Ben Affleck were basically on the skids until they turned to screenwriting and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay with Good Will Hunting in 1997. It achieves #11 on the list. The last two are 1990s movies which I have not seen. #18 is Syriana which I did enjoy. #13, #14 and #15 are three of probably his best-known movies - The Martian, Saving Private Ryan and Oppenheimer in that order. Perhaps inevitably the first three in his Bourne series come in at #10, #5 and #3. Thankfully his last one titled simply Bourne, in my view the worst, is not on the list. But two of my favourites are there. Behind the Candelabra comes in at #6. And for me the most fascinating and the one i enjoyed almost the most is The Talented Mr. Ripley which is there at #1. The Ripley movie is out on Netflix in mid-January. Perhaps of interest is that Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role given to Damon. And Jude Law took a lot of persuaion to sign for the Dickie Greenleaf role. He did not want to be playing what he thought would be a "pretty boy" role - something he stated later was "insane arrogance" on his part. A econd Ripley movie was made with Ripley now living in a mansion in Italy as an assassin with John Malkovich in the lead. The novelist Patricia Highsmith wrote four Ripley sequels and all were made into much less good early movies or later TV series. The Malkovich movie Ripley's Game was in fact based on the third in that series. I wish the director Antony Minghella could have been persuaded to make a second with the adventures of Matt Damon as he develops his role as a serial killer. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/08/matt-damons-best-films-ranked

I often miss the years I worked in Tokyo.

Careful guys! Get on @Olddaddy's bad side and he'll start downvoting all your posts - even those which are 100% true! Funny how some people get their kicks! 🤣

I wonder if they make ones which moan and tell you to go at it harder and how great you are at sex - in Japanese of course!🤣

There used to be a vdo on youtube taken by a bystander in Wellington Street in Hong Kong - not far from SoHo. It was late afternoon and a small crowd had gathered because in an apartment on the first floor of the building opposite two guys were going at it with, shall I suggest, considerable enthusiasm. The problem (for them) was they had left the light on and forgotten to close the curtains. When the deed was done and they presumably went for a shower, the crowd applauded! The vdo was up for some months but then taken down.

Until reading your post, I had no idea that Tyler Wu had been a profesional skater. (Nor that he was in fact born in the UK). He is certainly an excellent porn actor, although I have never liked his vdos when he has had that Prince Edward thing. Oh, and it's your lucky day because I see on the internet that he has his own Tenga now. It is described on the Fleshjack site as - The Tyler Wu Fleshjack: “Skater Boy” Thin, muscular, limber… the prototypical figure skater boy you’ve always crushed on but never had a chance with, is now all yours to enjoy . . . Spread his little twink cheeks and glide into one long narrow textured chamber lined with various crisscrossing textures. Tyler’s Fleshjack texture can best be described as a long cluster of densely-packed diagonal ribs and nubs designed to snuggly spiral around your cock with perfection. https://www.fleshjack.com/blogs/the-daily-jack/introducing-new-fleshjack-boy-tyler-wu

Inside as well as out?

I wonder if this is part of the reason dating the opposite sex and marriage is increasingly out of favour with both sexes in Japan. Young adults in Japan are having less and less sex, according to a recent review (2025) – and we don’t know why. The review estimated that around half of Japanese people reach their mid-twenties with no sexual experience at all, and approximately 10 per cent reach their 30s before having sex. Even those who have lost their virginity don’t seem to be having much sex. Online surveys from the 2020s indicate that around half of Japanese adults aged 20–49 are sexually inactive, meaning they haven’t had sex in the past year. https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/japanese-people-sex-inactivity-inexperience

I think most viewers assume the same. I cannot speak for skaters but with ballet dancers it is - generally speaking - not the case. Many male ballet dancers have female partners and children, at least according to one of the female dancers I met several times. On the other hand, the exceptions have included some of the greatest male dancers of all time including Rudolph Nureyev, his long time lover Eric Bruhn, the great Australian dancer Sir Robert Helpmann, Jorge Don, Wayne Sleep, Vaslav Nijinsky (although it is just possible he was bisexual before his career ended in his late 20s and he became confined more or less to sanitoria for the mentally disordered), and some of the great choreographers like Jerome Robbins, Sir Frederick Ashton, Alvin Ailey, John Cranko and John Neumeier. There is tale featuring Robert Helpmann which, given how camp he became, may well be true. He was choreographing a ballet for one of the New York companies. Crossing over one of the broad avenues at Central Park South en route to the State Theatre in Lincoln Centre, he did not realise he had dropped his umbrella. Seeing this, the big burly cop on traffic duty shouted to him, "Hey fairy! You dropped your wand." Whereupon Helpmann turned around, gave the cop a withering stare, picked up the umbrella and with a broad sweeping Harry Potterish motion shouted, "Vanish!"

The problem with warning notices is that the determined thrill seeker usually pays no attention to them since they all usually say roughy the same thing. One warning notice i did actually read was when I had the great pleasure of being invited to meet the late Princess Galyani, the elder sister of the late King. She lived in a large house off Sukhumvit that could I suppose have belonged to almost any rich person. It certainly was not a palace. As you entered, apart from two soldiers, you could not fail to see a large notice which read: DO NOT BEWARE OF THE DOG - BEWARE OF THE OWNER!

Come to think of it, if he decides to shoot himself in the head, I suspect there will be a great deal of blood spatter to be cleaned up. With the gun up his ass, talk about spreading the shit!

I suppose in a thread about forum members passing, mention of other old television series they will have loved is not so much of a tangent. We could therefore mention some of the finest from British TV: namely Porridge with Ronnie Barker and the excellent Richard Beckinsale who died far too young aged only 31; Rising Damp with another marvellous ensemble cast including Beckinsale, Leonard Rossiter and Frances de la Tour; the great, unbeatable Fawlty Towers; and then the one that the direction of this thread has seemed most like, although that was in a gentler, less abrasive way, the classic Are You Being Served? I wonder who is playing Mrs Slocombe and who Mr. Humphries? And who owns the pussy? On the other hand, the madness of Monty Python does also spring to mind!

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it is against the rules of the Board to publish PMs.

Totally agree with charging those who deliberately endanger themselves (in the eyes of others) for the cost of rescue. Rather like the vacationers who total their motorcycles in Thailand and end up having to pay a great deal for medical treatment and/or repatriation. There seems to be a small breed of people who take note of written warnings but assume that they are for beginners - not for experienced climbers like them. As we know, bodies can lie albeit mummified for 5 millennia, as evidenced by the man found in 1991 - Ötzi, also called The Iceman, was discovered in a melting Swiss glacier 5,300 years after it is estimated he died. Because of wounds on his body, researchers know that he was with at least one other person. They therefore knew where they were going as presumably did others!