PeterRS

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.

I used to be a regular visitor for more than 30 years and stayed in many of the city's hotels as well as once at PJ's guest house which was quite near the pleasant SoHo Bar and not too far from House of Male. I remember those bars at the Night Bazaar as well as those in that sleazy alley behind the D2 hotel. As you surmised, all gone. Adam's Apple still going, though, and seemingly thriving. The main gay bars around the city have virtually all closed as well. There are some dotted along Soi 6 Charoen Pratet Road almost opposite the main road from Le Meridien hotel. We went twice and frankly found them boring. Boys with their eyes glued to their phoes and a few expats sitting at the bars. Other reports are of more activity. In another thread, one poster mentions a number of clubs and gay bars. But as he agreed, these are primarily aimed at Thais and westerners generally never hear about them unless they live in or near the city. But if as a tourist you can actually find them, apparently they do welcome foreigners.

Dubai had become the playground of the rich and relatively famous - as well as vastly underpaid sub-continent workers who had built the place. I wonder if those who bought there expecting a life of luxury and safety are now having second thoughts. If so, and they want to sell, the property market must be desperately low at present. And I wonder if the city-state will ever again regain its popularity.

I can think of another part of the anatomy if broken would be far more effective

Much more simple! Pad Thai with a vodka tonic! LOL

I wonder to what authority you refer because I have it on legitimate authority - stress - "legitimate" - that the original attack by @bkkmfj2648 on me was in fact an unwarranted attack. But I accept this drama has run its course and failing further attacks on this subject, I will cease. I hope @bkkmfj2648 contnues posting and it will be without comment from me.

Reference this disgraceful legal event highlighted by @Keithambrose, the events described did in fact occur but in real life settings. There is a chilling book The Abuse of Power by Anthony Daly about a major scandal in London's SoHo in the 1970s when young men were routinely picked up and led into a life of utter degradation. I stress young men and not young boys - although there also seems to have been a lively trade in picking them up from train stations. The author was an Irishman who came to London aged 20 to work in its leading book store Foyles. Yet he still got sucked into a life of extreme and utter debauchery headed almost entirely by aristocrats, MPs, senior police officers, judges and celebrities, some of whom are actually named. It is an excellently written if often painful read.

Written by a poster whose posts are usually just one line agreements or disagreements. Funny he only started bashing me after we had met for a meal a couple of times and then he broke Board rules by publishing details of PMs. Fire away Mr. Lawyer. But you are not the judge!

Excellent perceptive post.

Of course not. It takes two to end a controversy - as you might wish to remind Trump.

You may well be right! 🤪 Mea culpa! Sadly I never made it to Colombia. Fabulous sing fabulously sung.

But I do hope this stupid controversy will now fade after going on for about a year.

Britain has had not just a signature but a photo of a man who admitted to being gay even though it was against the law at the time on the back of its £50 notes for quite a few years.

That's kind. But sorry to say @Enchanted_Elixir is still on some sort of silly crusade, so I have been forced to respond by opening a new thread in the hope that the whole matter is very soon at an end.

SInce @Enchanted_Elixir is determined to continue this argument and since so few readers based in Thailand had obviously read the original posts, let's recall precisely what was written - using what he calls the "shocking" Search Engine, which is anything but. The relevant thread is The Dangers of Columbia which was started on May 25 2025 by @neygar. The basis of the thread was Dangers and related specifically to sexual adventures. On 5/27/2025 at 4:53 AM, @vinapu wrote: where I'm even thinking if I should be concerned about security I consider compromised. On 5/27/25 @bkkmfj2648 wrote this response - Hallelujah!! I thank you for saying this, as this is also my exact philosophy, and is the primary reason as to why I have not yet ventured to some of these South American countries. I truly do not enjoy any experience where the hairs on my neck or arms feel the need to stand up - it is just not worth it, if I cannot relax and enjoy the environment that I am in, - especially as an elderly retiree, with who knows how many years are remaining in my life - why accelerate the eventual end by venturing into a perhaps dangerous situation?? Life is already too short. I responded on the same date - Merely out of curiosity, is sex an essential part of your travelling? I spent a fabulous month travelling around four South American countries and sex was rarely on my mind. It was a fabulous trip and I saw so many natural wonders.The only time sex came into view was on arrival in Cuzco in Peru. With the short 45 minute flight taking you from sea level to almost 3,500 meters up, everyone told me to do virtually nothing for the first 5 hours while the body acclimatized. For a while I lay on the bed reading, then got bored and hit a couple of apps. Ended up chatting to a delighful student who worked in a bar in the centre of the city in the evenings. He was keen to meet, so the next evening I went for a drink. He was lovely, was obviously well known to the other bar staff and so he came back to my room for a short time. Lovely little interlude! In response to a question from @floridarob about my age when I travelled around South America, I replied on 5/27/25 60. I do go on other trips where sexual adventures are part of the agenda. For South America, the only reason was sightseeing. I had never been before, knew no-one and spoke hardly any Portuguese or Spanish. 9 cities/locations and 16 flights over a month (including 4 getting there and back) and each day was packed with activity. No time for anything else - except in Cuzco which was a complete although very pleasant surprise! This was the response made by @bkkmfj2648 a day later on 5/28/2025 - Dear @PeterRS, Your condescending question, framed as a mere curiosity, carries an unmistakable whiff of superiority, as if the pursuit of physical intimacy while traveling is somehow beneath the refined appreciation of culture you so clearly pride yourself on. It’s a tired trope, implying that those who acknowledge sex as part of their human experience are somehow less enlightened or incapable of savoring the world’s deeper offerings. This condescension, cloaked in intellectualism, betrays a rather narrow view—one that dismisses the complexity of human connection in favor of a self-congratulatory asceticism . . . It was your choice when you went on your South American tour to not have sex. For myself, I don't like these types of limitations - as it is often sex with the locals of a country that you are visiting that allow you to have genuine connections and experiences with the local community. I close by asking you to STOP making condescending remarks towards my person in this forum!!! Readers can easily go to the thread in question to check the acuracy of what I have written. I then question readers - 1. How my question condescending? 2. Where is the "whiff of superiority", the more so as I stated I had had sex in Cuzco? 3. Given 2. above, where is the "beneath the refined appreciation of culture"? 4. As i stated, I did have sex in South America. @bkkmfj2648 was wrong in his statement. 4. Where is the "self-congratulatory asceticism"? 5. In my response to @floridarob in this thread as written above, I had very clearly made the point as many readers are aware that "I do go on other trips where sexual adventures are part of the agenda." So what on earth prompted these "condescending remarks" about me from @bkkmfj2648 ? And what reason did @bkkmfj2648 have for posting what was a diatribe against me?

You fail to read posts and then call me pompous? More siliness. Actually if you had been reading as carefully as you claim, you would know I havebeen on this board around 20 years. But clearly members are getting fed up of such arguments which started when you made claims about @ChristianPFC. I have made my points and you have yours. As you suggested some days ago, let's finally agree on this one to disagree.