PeterRS

For long the Church of Norway has marginalised the gay community. In the 1950s it had described our community as "a social danger of global proportions." Not that this was unusual for it was a position many recognised churches around the world adopted at the time. Even though same-sex partnerships were made legal in 1993 and same-sex marriage since 2009, Norway has now joined a number of countries where Official Churches have apologised for their earlier stance. In 2023 the Church of England apologised for its "shameful treatment" - but still will not permit marriage in church. Last year it was the turn of the Methodist Church in Ireland - but it still maintains that marriage can only be a union betwen a man and a woman. This year it was the turn of Canada whose general secretary said, "We have wounded people instead of seeking fogiveness. We are sorry." In his apology, the Church of Norway's President said – “The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain. This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/16/church-of-norway-says-sorry-to-lgbtq-people-for-shame-great-harm-and-pain

A splendid new book featuring a gay historical figure who himself may not be very well known but who played a massive role in the life of a King. When Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne of England, the country was still torn between the two main religions: the long established Catholicism and the relatively new English version of Protestantism established by her father King Henry VIII. Those intent on ensuring the abolition of Catholicism had one basic fear: that there was a rival Catholic claimant to the throne of England. When Henry divorced Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, some considered the marriage had never happened and therefore that child was illegitimate. When his two older children died young, the Protestant Elizabeth had been crowned Queen. Bear with me just a moment. Henry VIII had a sister and she had a son who was effectively the grandson of Henry VII. Some considered that his being male meant the grandson had a better claim to the throne of England. Scotland and England were still separate countries, each with its own royal family. Henry's sister had married the Catholic King James IV of Scotland. Their son became King James V of Scotland who went on to marry a French noblewoman, the very Catholic and well-connected Mary of Guise. They soon had a daughter whom they also named Mary. Poor Mary was just six days old when her father died and she became Queen. We know her today as the romantic figure Mary, Queen of Scots. Fearful of the spread of the new religion in Scotland, Mary's mother had her sent to the court in France. When just six she was betrothed to Francis, the son of the French King, and spent the next ten years in Paris after which she and Francis were married. The following year on the death of his father Francis became King and Mary was therefore Queen of both France and Scotland. But Francis had been a sickly child and he too died little more than a year later. He was just 16. The politics at the French court made it clear her presence was not desired in France. So she returned to her native Scotland. What she had not realised was that Scotland was in the process of becoming much more Protestant than Catholic. Still in her early 20s, she remarried and she had a son also named James. Years later she was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne and her son became King James VI of Scotland when aged just 13 months. But James was brought up as a Protestant and never wavered in his religious affiliation. He also never wavered in his preference for male company. Only with the necessary marriage to ensure the royal line did he seem to have feelings for his wife, Anne of Denmark. She too was frequently sickly but they did produce several children. In the meantime, Mary had taken a small army and marched on England. She was captured and when aged 44 Elizabeth had her executed. Since Elizabeth never married, thoughts turned to the accession. The only possible choice by now was Mary's son James VI. Thus history accords him the title: James the VIth and Ist. Before his marriage, word had been spreading about James lust for beautiful young men. When 15 he met his first love whom he created the Duke of Lennox. The "carnal lust" that seemed to feature between them had some other noblemen concerned. After a year they forced Lennox to leave Scoland. But James was surrounded by a group of page boys. A companion of the King since childhood, Richard Preston the Earl of Desmond, was with James when he moved to London as King of England. As with many of his favourites, James showered Preston with gifts and lavished honours on him. This started gossip about his relations with younger handsome men which covered effeminacy and same-sex desire. In 1607 aged 40 he happened to see the 20 year old aggressively handsome Robert Carr at a jousting contest and they started a relationship. James eventually created him Viscount Rochester and later to the more noble title of Earl of Somerset. He then promoted him to one of the highest offices in the land, Lord Chamberlain and showered him with gifts. But Carr got involved in a lurid murder case and was confined to the Tower of London for some years before James pardoned him. Even before Carr found his way to the Tower, James had fallen big time for another courtier. The last love of his life and by all accounts the most intense seems to have been 22 year old George Viliers. James by now was 48 and he fell head over heels for Villiers. James soon knighted him and over the next 8 years promoted him through the ranks of the peerage - successively as Baron, Viscount, then Earl, then Marquess and finally the highest in the land, a Dukedom. That they slept together is well documented. When Anne finally died in 1623, James wrote to the Duke to tell him he was looking foward to getting married to him at Christmas. Letters between the two still exist and are proof of the love they had for each other. These are not just the usual flowery letters between courtiers and a King. They express real love. They were constant companions. And it was known beyond the shores of England. The 17th century poet Theophile de Viau wrote in a poem " . . . And it is well known that the King of England Fucks the Duke of Buckingham." Earlier this century a secret tunel was discovered linking the bedroms of Buckingham and the King. When news of James death reached Buckingham in France, he broke down in tears. He continued as a more masculine advisor to James' son King Charles I until he was assassinated three years later aged 36. And the Court scandals of the day in addition to the politics of the time were to lead to the English Civil War which was to lead to the public execution of Charles I just 14 years later. This background forms the basis of a new book about the Duke - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett. A kindle edition is available on amazon.com

And he has to be given enormous credit for that. Singapore was basically a marshy swamp when the British left. Lee felt Singapore could never survive on its own which is why he entered into an alliance with Malaya - the SI in Malaysia basically represented the Singapore element. But it was never going to work. After WWII bankrupt Britain was desperate to hold on to Malaya as it needed the profits from its rubber and tin. The Malays then fought a long, bloody indurgency with the British to gain their freedom. This period in British history is one of its least distinguished. Two of their atrocities were herding up to one million into concentration-type camps and being the first nation to use an anti-foliant similar to Agent Orange. Even before the main insurgency ended in 1960, Malaya had achieved its independence in 1957. Its leader Tunku Abdul Rahman was a wise and much admired leader who knew he had to balance a clutch of ethnic groups - largely Malays, Chinese and Indians - along with varous Kings. Put simply, he wanted greater autonomy for ethnic Muslim Malays. Lee wanted greater prominence for the minority Chinese population. The alliance would never have worked even in the medium term. So Lee broke away and started to lead his independent Singapore in 1965. Starting virtually with nothing, Lee built one of the world's great small nations. As @Marc308 points out, he could not do that using western democratic principles. To all intents and purposes he was a benevolent dictator whose benevolence only went so far. He was a visionary. He intended to ensure that vision materialised. And he was perfectly open about it. Two of his famous sayings were - “We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins.” And if we think that is pretty draconian, he followed that in a 1987 Straist Times interview with these words – “I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters – who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.” If that had been said in any developed country, Lee could never have survived. Even as Singapore started to prosper mightily later in the century, he would lecture western leaders who admired him about democracy and how multi-party western democracy could not work in Asia, especially in developing countries. In 1998 he was still in favour of his brand of autocracy. He rather sat on the fence as to whether democracy was beneficial to India or not. But absolutely convinced that China could never be democratic. In his 2013 book One Man's View of the World, he wrote - "I don't believe the Chinese people themselves believe that with 1.3 billion people you can have one man, one vote for a president."

For years he had a fake covers of TIME adorning his office andgold clubs. Now he hs made the cover of TIME this year he's pissed about it. The Donald hates the photo. It's "super bad" and "Maybe the worst of all TIME." “They “disappeared” my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one I'm surprised he is not flattered. It could be a halo

That seems to me extraordinarily - extraordinary long! Before the expat price rises, I wanted a retina check since I have had a small tear in one for decades. I had to wait about 3 weeks to see an eye doctor who then referred me to a retina specialist. That wait was about a month. If Mac has some form of simple dental problem, a wait of over a year is nonsense. Decay can ruin a tooth in that time and that's before all the pain! If on the other hand he wanted an elective procedure like a perfectly good tooth crowned I can understand why there could be a longer wait - but more than a year? Sorry but I do find that very hard to believe.

Next he'll be awaring it to himself. After all he did avoid an assassin's bullet - or so the MAGA crowd claim.

There was a thread quite recently about scam centres largely in Myanmar. According to AFP and other media outlets, Thailand, China and Myanmar had promised to crackdown on these earlier in the year after it came to light that a popular Chinese TV star had been trafficked to work in one. That crackdown quickly fizzled out and the number of scam centres is rapidly increasing. Most tend to use Elon Musk's Starlink satellite service. Although warned by California prosecutors last year, the company's parent SpaceX did not even reply. Now a joint Committee of the US Congress has finally got its act together and is calling Musk to give testimony with a view to taking action. This should have been done well over a year ago since the majority of those scammed are elderly Americans. Now the US government has seized more than US$14 billion in bitcoin and charged the founder of its Cambodian Prince Group empire, UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi, with allegedly masterminding a "massive crytocurrency scam." The UK government has also seized 19 properties it owns in London, one allegedly worth $133 million. US prosecutors say it is one the biggest financial takedowns in history and the largest ever seizure of bitcoin, with approximately 127,271 bitcoin being held by US government . . . the DOJ alleges that it runs one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organisations . . . Prosecutors alleged that the company built and operated at least ten scam compounds throughout Cambodia, according to court documents seen by the BBC . . . Accomplices allegedly procured millions of mobile phone numbers and set up "phone farms" to conduct call centre scams, according to the court documents, dated 8 October. Two of these facilities had 1,250 mobile phones that controlled around 76,000 social media accounts for scams, the documents said. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70jw436n0yo

He sounds a gem.

You will love it. Not sure how far north you plan but I'd be tempted to start in or near Florence and work around from there, leaving Venice and further north to another year. The towns I listed, apart from perhaps Perugia, can all be visited from Florence but it helps if you drive and can hire a car. Not sure how interested or otherwise you may be in art, especially of the Renaissance, but there is so much to see and be amazed by. Forgot to add in my earlier list the amazing city of Siena. Quite glorious - but eating and just having a coffee in the main Piazza del Campo is expensive. I had friends who had converted a 16th century farmhouse on a hilltop near Monterchi (close to Arezzo). They had even dug their own quite large swimming pool! Having a barbeque dinner with them poolside on my first evening, I was blown away by the fireflies in the poppy fields stretching down to the valley below and the lights from a couple of small towns on neighbouring hilltops. Magical!

What a shame that you are not going north to spend time in some of the glorious hill towns. I loved my various visits to towns like Perugia, Assisi, Spoletto, Spello, Pienza and others in Tuscany like San Giminiano with its skyscrapers (!), Montepulciano and Montalcino. Preferred them to a large city like Milan. Or perhaps you have already 'done' northern Italy.

Darn it! Obviously must have confused it with my first ever flight - in a DC3 across the Wellington Strait in New Zealand.

Sorry, I had not realised that when I should have. I wonder if Mac had first registered as required in his own home locality. Apparently that is nesessary for the free healthcare scheme. If his home is/was in Bangkok, then it would have been easy to register in the city. But if he was born much further away, perhaps he had not registered. Just a guess.

It may be that their rescheduling methods changed partly as a result of my Hanoi disaster! It was some years ago. But Air Asia had both my phone and email. They told me they had phoned when the schdule changed about two months before the flights bur they could never get an answer. They then sent me their so-called proof of phoning, but they had stupidly got one digit wrong! So I asked why, since i had paid for my tickets, they had not simply emailed me. No answer other than "we always tell customers by phone"! In complaining i had also sent by courier three letters to Tony Fernandez in KL, the CEO. Not one was acknowledged let alone answered.

The free healthcare is for Thais as they are the ones that pay taxes. We know that many non-Thais are denied treatment if they cannot afford the fees. And that is far from unique to Thailand. One point, though, is that the government seems to have followed up on a decision made a couple of years or so ago - to increase the fees at public hospitals for foreigners. For example, I have had annual MRI scans at King Chulalongkorn public hospital since 2001. These have always been a fraction of the price I would have to pay at a private hospital. The MRI fee has remained constant throughout this time. On the other hand, the fee to the doctor who analyses the result has gone up from 250 baht to 850 baht. This is true of another doctor I have seen there. This compares with 1,000 baht (plus a 350 hospital fee for taking your blood presure, temperature and checking your height and weight) for a doctor I saw in May at BNH. Although treatment at a public hospital means lots of waiting around, the doctors are excellent. Many spend just 2 or 3 days at the hospital and are specialsts at private hospitals for the rest of the week. The only problem is that, apart from real emergencies, obtaining appointments for a relatively routine illness is extremely difficult at short notice. Plus the phone operators speak very little English. For these, attending a private hospital is almost essential. Lastly, medicines prescribed by public hospitals and obtained from the hospital's own pharmacy seem a great deal less expensive than those from private hospital pharmacies.

Have you had any problems with airbnb in Italy so far? I had a strange one in Bologna a few years ago. I liked its location near the station and had no problem walking there. As requested I had called for instructions about the code to open the main building door and then a second code to get into the accommodation which had four bedrooms. Having gone across the road for a quick dinner, everyting worked when i returned. The following morning, though, it all went berserk. I could not get out! There was just a simple button to press to open the apartment door. It did not work. I tried calling the owner but it took 25 wasted minutes of no answer until the maid arrived. Turned out there were actually two buttons and the one labelled "Press to exit" was the wrong one! Yet it had worked the previous evening! When I got back that evening, this time I could not get into the building. They changed the exterior door codes weekly and had not sent the new one to my phone! This was infuriating, even though the room was large and pleasant. Thankfully I was only there for 2 nights.

Re @iendo's earlier post, with those cheap special offers, as he states be prepared to pay a good deal more because chances are things will go wrong. I realise that millions fly Air Asia and are happy with the airline. I ended up having so many cancellations and lengthy delays that now I just refuse to fly them. And judging from Skytrax comments, many thousands are furious with them. Once my bf and I had flown to Penang for a long week-end. As the airport is about an hour away from our hotel near Batu Ferringhi and there was only a morning or late evening flight back to Bangkok, we were up around 5:00am to get there on time. A long queue had formed but no staff. Eventually another passenger directed my attention to a sign. Flight cancelled! Everyone rebooked on 9:00pm flight! In KL for a fun few days, I had a 1:00pm flight back to BKK where I had an important business dinner over a contract. In the queue for the flight, I happened to be looking at the departure board above the check-in desk. Suddenly that 1:00pm departure flipped over to 4:30 pm departure. No announcement. No nothing! Since my dinner was vital, I had no alternative but to race over to the main terminal and purchase a very expensive ticket on TG. The worst, though, were flights to and from Hanoi. Months earlier I had purchased one of these crazy ultra-cheap returns departing on the evening flight on a Wednesday with the return flight later on the Saturday evening. That gave me almost three full days in Hanoi and I booked a non-refundable 2-night stay deal at a good hotel and one night in Halong Bay. Some weeks later later I was invited to speak at a Conference in Singapore on the Monday and Tuesday. So I booked Cathay Pacific's cheap once daily flight which would be returning to BKK around 2:45 pm leaving me about 3 1/2 hours before the Air Asia flight. Two weeks before the Hanoi flight, I decided to check Air Asia's site in case there had been any change in the departure time. It was only then I discovered the evening flights had been cancelled. Without ever informing me, they had booked me on to morning flights. But that Wednesday I'd still be in Singapore when the flight departed. I was livid. But of course with low cost airiines there is nothing you can do. Just check the conditions of carriage! I ended up having to cancel the Air Asia flights without getting a refund, take Tiger Air from Singapore to Hanoi and then an expensive Air France return on the Saturday evening after returning from Halong Bay. I complained several times to Air Asia's head office in KL. The first was by phone. After holding for about 35 minutes, someone answered and said she'd put me through to the relevant department. The lady whom I then spoke to said she had no idea why I had been put shrough to her. She was a gate agent. "They aways do this", she explained. After several letters, I just gave up. Some weeks later Thai Air Asia called to offer me compensation of a one way ticket to Chiang Mai which I'd have to use within 3 months. I was very far from polite in my answer!

Apart from landing at Paya Lebar, I only have a few memories of early visits. I do, though, recall very clearly attending a Stevie Wonder concert at the open air stadium. I was far at the back with a group of friends and we were all dancing and they were smoking weed (I skipped the weed as I do not smoke at all and could not inhale!). So much for Singapore's anti-drug policy, I thought. The only gay bar then seemed to be the small Vincent's Lounge in Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road. I only went a couple of times for there were few other guys there. The gym and sauna at the Westin Stamford where I often stayed were supposed to be quite gay, but I never had any luck there. I also recall quite vividly visiting a couple of clubs. One was the Boom Boom Room in the early 1990s which was a sort of cabaret hosted by a talented comedian named Kumar. The venue was packed with young people but I struggled to understand much as most of the dialogue was in Singlish. The audience absolutely loved it. The other around the same time was a recently opened very large nightclub named Zouk. It was a fantastic place which friends and I visited often. It had a gayish section. One evening I ordered Sex on the Beach not even sure what it was. The half dozen or so shot glasses with that vodka based drink that came as the order nearly knocked me out! Never tried out sex on a real beach, though, as those were the days when handsome young plain clothes policeman roamed around to entrap gay men who approached them. I guess my most abiding memory was staying at the recently opened Pan Pacific Hotel. Apart from its gay Sunday afternoon "tea dances", I once ordered room service breakfast. The waiter was ultra cute and I made clear my interest. As he laid out the trolley, he asked if I'd like him to come back. Wow! I always understood staff in 5-star hotels were not allowed in guest rooms other than for work. But he came back an hour or so later after his shift was over - and boy did he work! He was amazing!

While not disagreeing in general with your observation, I think this answer would be more accurate to say that "respectable society" made sure it became impossible. The "social order" campaigns of the first Thaksin government and his religious homophobic minister of the interior were intent on getting rid of at least some of the gay nightlife. So virtually at a stroke, the government changed what owners could offer to the public and where what remained could be offered. That inevitably is a bit of a generalisation and I believe it affected Bangkok (where several bars had to close for quite a few weeks) more than Pattaya. But the offerings in Bangkok's gogo bars certainly were affected. On the other hand, had those changes not taken place in the early 2000s, you are no doubt correct that over the longer term the tolerance of Thai society as a whole (especially the elites) was in the process of changing. The quite rapid growth of the economy and the similarly rapid reduction in child bearing since the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997 helped play their parts. Yet the sleaze bars continued in Pattaya until much later. Only in bars like Nature Boys and Golden Cock did it survive in Bangkok.

I used to visit many dozens of times. On my first visit the airport was still at Paya Lebar and a road had to be closed when an aircraft was taxiing!

Just a quick question for @jason1975. How long have you lived in Singapore? And did you live in Asia before then? If not, did life in Singapore take some getting used to - apart from the eye candy along Orchard Road and elsewhere which can be amazing!

This adds to a thread about Time Out's Coolest Places in Latin America. And they will probably surprise many as most will know nothing about most - including me!. Jimbōchō, Tokyo Mullae-dong, Seoul Nakatsu, Osaka Nguyen Thai Binh, Ho Chi Minh Former French Concession, Shanghai Bencoolen, Singapore Kemang, Jakarta Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur Mehrauli, Delhi Poblacion, Metro Manila The "Coolest Lists" seem aimed primarily at residents and concentrate on quality of life, including bars and restaurants, book stores, trendy art galleries etc. How they are selected beats me. The only one I know well is the older area of Sheung Wan in Hong Kong. Click on that location and almost all you get is a list of trendy restaurants and a few bars. Sheung Wan also has several gay bars, but not one is mentioned. And it strays off the Sheung Wan beaten path by listing several places further up the hill in Hollywood Road which is categorised as being in Mid-Levels, not Sheung Wan. Nothing here for gay visitors unless you are a foodie, sadly. Similarly, the French Concession in Shanghai is an extremely pleasant place to visit, and no doubt to live if you can afford it, but there really is not much here for the tourist apart from visiting Sun Yat Sen's house which is located here. https://www.timeout.com/asia/news/these-are-the-11-coolest-neighbourhoods-in-asia-in-2025-100325

Is there now any bar that can compete with the raunchiness of Eros and Happy Boys?

I have written several times before that there have always been plenty of guys in Bangkok happy to meet up with westerners on a no MB basis. The problem with some is that they are students or work and so hook-ups might have to wait til the evenings or days off. in my wandering days pre-covid, I only ever met one who was considerably older than his photo and I did not particularly enjoy the coffee with him - best always to meet first outside hotel or apartment. That particular assignation ended there with my giving him his transport money. On the other hand, I fully accept that some visitors believe an MB experience gives greater satisfaction and at a time suitable to them. One does not rule out the other.

With respect to @khaolakguy, I first read this - and its succeeding sentence "a compensation for not being able to walk the streets of Silom himself"- not about me as a tourist but about me as one who in fact does live here but has chosen after decades of visiting most bars, saunas and spas not to do so after entering a long-term relationship. Now I am not so sure. I can walk down Silom any day of the week! I think some version with a little less filtering might be more pertinent.

First, let me congratulate @jason1975 on this deeply considered analyses of various members of this Board. Although I think my post itself is a little over the top, I feel honoured to be part of this select group. As for @jimmie50's request, my input can only be extremely limited as I believe @jason1975 has captured much of the essence of both my posting style and my personality. Yes, I do love history and in particular the history of gay Thailand, especially of the 46 years in which I have had the pleasure and the joy of experiencing it. The only slight correction I would suggest is that this part in paragraph 5 "a world he clearly loves but may not be able to visit as frequently as he would like" is only partially accurate. It is certainly true that over the past few years I do not visit the gay scene. I certainly regret the passing of the 'days of old', but having lived in Bangkok for 24 years my recent absence from the gay scene is a conscious decision based largely on account of my being in a long-term relationship. On the other hand, as I have stated elsewhere, I am let off the hook, as it were, when I travel and I have written quite a lot about my sexual escapades, especially in my many visits to Taipei and Tokyo. But then I believe the above analysis was based on Thailand posts and so that comment is probably irrelevant!