PeterRS

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.

I cringe every time I read about "inflated rates". There is no such thing as an infated rate. The tip you pay is your way of thanking the boy you have just been with. If you are basically in the category of being poor, it will inevitably be on the small side. If you are well off, it ought to be much higher - although there are skinflints everywhere. In my decades of bar hopping in Bangkok, tips were generally on the low side - but that was because there were too many young guys in Thailand in those years for whom the alternative to bar work was working in the paddy fields or in the village shop. Laterly I paid according to the experience I had just enjoyed. We already know from posts on this and another chat Board that there is quite a variance between what posters regard as a minimum tip. But since this keeps coming up on posts, why not pin a small post at the top of the Thailand thread that the "usual' minimum tip for young guys from the apps is X and from the bars is Y - with stress that this is a minimum tip! Now I can see our friends @vinapu, @ChristianPFC and others jumping in to say this is a lousy idea. I look forward to such responses. And I hope those in Bangkok will realise that it is a large spread-out city and accept the point made in an earlier post by @Olddaddy

Do you always bring politics into a post dealing with sport? I don't recall any comments by you during the Winter Olympics or any other major sporting event? Nothing about the Iranian Women Football players who recently took part in the Women's Asian Cup? Or Chinese payers who now dominate World badminton, diving and table tennis? Or even when Venezuala participated in the Summer Olympics. Just because the USA got beaten, perhaps?

I fail to understand why anyone should think that whoever honours the life and work of a great actor would be in bad taste. The focus should be on the deceased and definitely not on the living.

The chatter about Chalamet has recently mostly been about his remark to Matthew McConaughy on TV when he basically trashed opera and ballet performances in saying that he did not want to be working in dying art forms which no one cares about any more. Leave aside it was a very stupid comment considering his mother and sister were trained at one of America's most prestigious ballet companies and worked in ballet and dance. Leave aside the actual numbers which prove that ballet and opera audiences, whilst often intensely loyal to their art forms, are indeed falling. Let's just recall that movie stars in general have never been to a performance of either art form. I remember when the BAFTA Awards ceremony moved to London's Royal Opera House in 2008, Stephen Fry was the host. In his inroduction, he told his audience how wonderful it was to be on the same stage where Nijinsky sang and Nellie Melba danced. There was not one titter from anyone in the packed theatre. Yet it was a joke. Nijinsky was arguably the greatest male ballet dancer the world has ever known and Melba, whose name is carried forward in Melba Toast and Peach Melba both created in her honour by the renowned chef Escoffier, was one of the greatest opera singers.

So after 47 games around the world in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, Venezuela won. It beat the USA 3 to 2. There's some justice in the world - but sadly not much.