PeterRS

There were three movies made about Thatcher. If some misunderstand your comments, it is because they are usually so short and cryptic and it can be difficult to understand what you are trying to write.

Sorry but I canot agree. The movements may be quite similar but just looking at faces and dress and listening to the sound makes it obvious which is which. Interestingly Korea's most famous pop band BTS reunited last night after each member had done his mandatory military service. As CNN reports, an audience of up to 260,000 assembled in Seoul for the concert in front of the 14th century Gyeongbokgung Palace, many having flown in from all parts of the world. They are as big as Taylor Swift, if not bigger. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/21/style/bts-arirang-comeback-concert-korea-intl-hnk

And that is another piece of @Keithambrose nonsense. Proof is the currency of a lawyer's business! Whom have I driven OFF the Board? And when, as you have done with my PM, have I betrayed a confidence by publicising anothers PM? Pot calling something . . .? Sorry, I was wrong in an earlier post. I have been the Asian CEO of two major international franchises. An apology would be in order, but coming from you? Little chance.

Sorry I have never been. The area has several hotels each with hotsprings, most of which are open to the public. The shuttle bus takes you to this hot spring resort and probably others- https://www.volandospringpark.com/en/about-wulai This is a very upmarket resort but has a public hot spring. The Singapore gay chat site from which I took the information has been free to read for about 15 years but I see it has now gone private and I have no wish at present to join.

You cannot be so totally dumb. Extending a business and franchising a business are both well-known means of increasing income from a business - if that is the objective. Ask the executors of Ray Kroc of McDonalds, 7-11, Walt Disney, Hello Kitty and a vast number of others, large and small. And you are wrong. I did work for the franchise of a major international company. Do not pontificate by making incorrect assumptions! Childish, again!

But let's remember that Korean girls are as quick to go under the plastic surgeon's knife as the boys.

When Churchill uttered his famous phrase about democracy, he is usually misquoted as the first and final parts of that quote are usually left out. What he actually said was - No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. There seems little argument that democracy in 2026 is well and truly fucked and definitely not working. We have an elected criminal from a tiny country in the Midde East (elected?) sucking up at every turn to the elected criminal of the world's largest military (elected?) with the result that illegally this known idiot from the second country joins in a war against a third without consulting the rest of the world. And several of the key countries spread around that third which has a culture and history dating back millennia have mostly borders determined solely during the British colonial era by a British woman, Gertrude Bell, and which were acually created little more than a century ago. Putting militant theocracy to one side, does not Iran/Persia deserve its place in that part of the world? And had it not been for the USA backing the Shah to the hilt and beyond despite being fully aware of his megalomania and his reign of terror, the militant theocratic state which emerged after the Iranians took maters into their own hands and themselves threw out the Shah might have earlier emerged as a form of democracy with which its neighbours - all of them - might otherwise not have been displeased? The democratic system in the USA which often sees one rigid set of views replaced by a very different set of rigid views is, frankly, nuts in this day and age. Naturally it was not always so, but times change and if people and systems do not change with them, chaos frequently results. The Middle East cannot be compared to Asia many of whose own countries were also founded milennia ago. Importantly, Asia's 20th century wars have largely been dictated by the external circumstances of nucear reality and the Cold War. But back to the subject. If democracy is nearing disaster, with what do we replace it? We talk ad nauseam about democracy requring democratic institutions, free and fair elections, a free press, a legal system beyond reproach and so on and so on. If these are indeed the requirements, democracy already has one foot in the grave in most of the world. It is surely the nuclear issue which now makes an answer to that question almost impossible. History has always been shaped by wars and the weapons of war that have been devised over time to give one side an edge until the next lethal instrument is devised. When an instrumewnt now exists that technically could wipe out humanity, what comes next? Nothing! We are fucked!

Plastic surgery is the name of the game for most young Korean entertainers - and for many others in Korean society in general. South Korea is known as the "Plastic Surgery Capital of the World!" https://www.kayatexas.org/blog/plastic-surgery-south-korea

What a ridiculous childish response!

Funny question since you brought up that particular Streep performance.

And what has that got to do with my earlier post? Nothing!

Great Report, thank you!

But not as many! I aso think - personal view - that when you are imitating a living person or someone who is omnipresent on fim you are not creating another persona as most of the other actors listed above, you are merely imitating. Streep was good as Thatcher - but not nearly as good a some of the other characters she has performed over a lifetime in cinema. Not so many Hollywood actors have made it in UK movies as UK actors in Hollywood, even allowing fo the fact that there are far fewer UK movies made now.

Seems you have not opened a business. Sure, if you are happy as you are you can keep it as a one man shop. But you can also develop it through wholly owned shops with your own trained staff or you can franchise it. Either way, you end up with a great deal more profit, provided the end product remains high and price is more competitive than similar shops.

Progressive lenses included in a 9,000 baht bill? This guy should open shops all over Bangkok where I Iast paid around 25,000 for frame and progressive lenses!

Not betraying himself, i think. More he is seriously denying himself the opportunity of getting more parts, no doubt better paying ones. An actor has to be versatile in almost all respects (although not necessarily THAT one!). Think of the British actors who have made it in the US - and not always playing English-accented roles. The late and much lamented Alan Rickman as the German in the first Die Hard Movie. Sir Laurence Olivier as the Nazi dentist in Marathon Man. Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich and the Bourne series. The wonderful Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Derek Jacobi, Jonathan Price, Anthony Hopkins, Brian Cox, Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Day Lewis, Ewan McGregor, Jeremy Irons and a very long list of more British and Irish actors who have made it in Hollywood movies. This is partly I believe because of their excellent training and then their early careers in weekly rep where they learned that essential versatility. An actor who deliberately decides not to train his voice does not deserve to call himself an actor!

Never touch gin! Vodka puhlease! And I dislike tomatos. I will take an extra dry vodka martini with a lemon twist every time, thank you.

There are many regional variations of the "Chinese one". I have never seen one look as bland as in the second photo in all my 37 years living and working in Hong Kong. Hong Kong restaurants cater to all tastes and varieties and most serve exacty as in the photo above which @mauRICE has labelled "Thai"!. But I note this photo was not taken not from his own experience but from a website with one chef's own particular version of chicken with cashew nuts. It looks fabulous but hardly typical Thai! https://www.eatingthaifood.com/thai-cashew-chicken-recipe/ Nothing wrong with that but it might have been a courtesy to mention it. Naturally we all have different culinary likes and dislikes.

Old 2014 movie that garnered a lot of positive attention when it first came out.

That used to be quite common in Taipei years ago. If you saw a barber's pole outside, you knew sex was avavaible on the pemises

I suspect @vinapu has not been to Hong Kong because there is no question the best chicken with cashew nuts is found there - and in London at some of the non-Chinatown restaurants north and west of Hyde Park. But I bet there are some great similar dishes at other Chinatown restaurants in Sydney and elsewhere around the world.

Sorry but i can not agree. Dancing is dancing. What you describe about a bar counter is more often than not a sort of non-existent soft shoe shuffle - the boys there for punters to see their various assets and not to dance.

There is a degree of something akin to racism in that post. I suggest you talk with @FFbtm1974 and try one for your self and then decide.

Very amusing article in today's Guardian that puts America's performance into some kind of perspective. A lot of griping within the team during the tournament, and then this about the end - In the final, when Harper’s dramatic two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth tied the game at 2-2, his celebration of choice rounding third was a military salute to the Team USA bench and a stare into the television camera, pointing at the American flag shoulder patch on his jersey. Suddenly, it was the 9/11 era all over again. Except that it wasn’t. The gestures were hollow, performative. The Americans peacocked, on guard in a constant state of war. America alone, standing guard when everyone else was having fun. At the WBC, Team USA seemed not part of a baseball celebration but doing their part for a nonexistent war effort. Only the camo was missing. The article with its many truths ends - During a fortnight that beautifully celebrated the national pastime, one memorable image will be of Venezuela in the sunburst of joy. Another will be that of America alone, the hosts masquerading as toy soldiers, at home and painfully out of place. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/18/world-baseball-classic-usa-venezuela-trump-war

Fair point. In framing my post I was thinking of American (and some other countries') adventures that start out linking sport and politics and then suddently the politics part disappears. Is any country more guilty of sportswashing than Saudi Arabia? For many years regarded as some kind of enemy to be kept at arms length, Saudi Arabia is now a leading soccer, snooker, golf (the massive salaries on the LIV tour are entirely funded by the Saudis), F1 racing, boxing and e-sports country among others. Yet how many years have passed since the country was condemned worldwide for the brutal slaying of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a massive number of human rights abuses? Linking sports to human rights frequently has zero effect.