PeterRS

Didn't something similar occur at LAX a few years ago when a light aircraft piloted by the actor Harrison Ford crossed an active runway as another passenger plane was about to land? Although this was not I believe miscommunication - it was Ford's mistake. At least in that case the two aircraft were much further apart.

I have had no experience of this in Japan but I am sure it must be possible if you pay the two fees.

Having offed somewhere near several hundreds of boys in my time, I can only once recall one who said he could not do what I asked which was to be the bottom that he said he could do. He was a barboy at Classic many years ago and a really lovely guy. I would never go anywhere near forcing a guy to do what he said he could not, and so we spent a very pleasant hour or so in other ways. He must have been quite new to the business because about a year later I saw him in that series of vdos of Thai boys with a farang (was it titled Private Boy Movie?) when the farang went at him pretty hard when topping him. Clearly the boy did it for the money because from his face you can tell he is not enjoying it one bit. I felt very sorry for him.

Can Tho is a large city with over 2 million inhabitants. Vietnamese friends and one from Can Tho I chatted with on one of the apps, tell me there is at least one gay bar and a gay sauna. Sorry, though, that I do not have details. But with a population that size, there should be a fair amount of interest from the apps.

As I have written elsewhere, I gave up going to gogo bars a couple of years or so before covid. Before then I had been a regular for nearly 4 decades. Never once did I state what I wanted from a guy I offed other than to find out if he was top or bottom. In those far off days, I never seemed to notice anyone checking, if only because the boys were supposed to do virtually anything (within pretty obvious limits). Is the desire to have the boy confirm what you would like him to do relatively recent - like in the last 7 or 8 years?

I doubt if more than a few gold chains of hat size are actually pure gold. The gold content probably ranges from 12 to 18 carats. In which case there would have been some metal within the chain which I suspect could have been magnetic.

Agreed. But a rather sick joke given that he would already be dead!

Rather than extend the Air India crash thread, this deserves a new one. A Delta 737 jet with 150 aboard was cleared for take-off at Mexico City and was speeding down the runway when, after it reached about 60 mph the pilots noticed an Aeromexico jet just above them and clearly intent on landing on the same runway. Had that scenario continued, there would have been an almighty fireball with all on board both flights killed. The Delta pilots slammed on the breaks and cut engine power before returning to its gate. Flightradar shows that the planes were just 200 feet apart. Mexico City has two parallel runways. We will have to wait to find out whether this was an air traffic control error or one made by the pilots of the Aeromexico flight. But what is so far clear is that there was some communications failure. https://abcnews.go.com/US/delta-aeromexico-jets-collide-mexico-city-airport/story?id=123974173

CNN has discovered and posted new photos and a video. Although they are taken from the 1990s, they illustrate that Trump and Epstein knew each other and were good friends. Epstein was even a guest at his wedding to Marla Maples. A correspondent called Trump yesterday to ask him about these new images. When confronted with the information that Epstein was at his wedding, his reply was, "You've got to be kidding me!" before calling CNN fake news and hanging up. The mystery deepens https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/22/politics/kfile-trump-epstein-photos-footage

As I quoted, my info came from that site. I gave up on Dept of Ag long time ago. He could easily have answered my simple question as I noted he was on line for an hour after I posted my repsonse. That he failed to make any response at all illustrates that his post was plain nonsense. What he might have said is that Chiang Mai is still a gay city for Thais as there are clubs with gay sections. But foreigners rarely seen. As I mentioend, on Charoen Soi 6 (very close to Le Meridien Hotel) there are several gay bars. When I have visited (only twice) there were few customers and the boys there were all on their phones. I think the New Circle Pub is still open (used to be called merely Circle) with shows each night. And as @Moses pointed out there are still some gay massage venues. But compared to the thriving gay scene that Chiang Mai once boasted and when I was visiting amost every three months, the gay scene is now very sad.

Mozart had a good idea about lists - expose them. In his opera Don Giovanni the Don has slept with most of the women he meets. Just before this short scene he is being chased by a previous conquest and wants rid of her. So he gets his sidekick Leperello to show her the catalogue of all the women he has seduced, high born, low born and everyone in between - a total of 2,065 in various countries which ends with 1,003 in Spain. This vdo shows the rehearsal of a version of the short 2-minute aria "Madamina" recorded for the perfectly wonderful film of the opera made by director Joseph Losey in 1979. "Observe and read with me", he sings. Leperello is sung by Jose van Dam and the lady is played by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Nor do I. Did he mean American football players, I wonder?

Who is writing rubbish? Compared to 15-20 years ago, it's absolutely true. Gay in Chiang Mai has printed a list of all known gay venues and areas in Chiang Mai. Of these below, you can check them all out. All but a handful have closed and have This Venue has closed when you check them on the site. The bars that remain are basically in Charoen Soi 6. Best you do your own checking before making badly informed comments! Or far better to clarify your inaccurate comment with information of what remains of the city's gay venues. 2 Brothers . Adam's Apple . Akha . Attitude Magazine Thailand . Barocco . Bird of Paradise . Black Door . Blues Club . Bon Tong Productions . Chang Puek . Christmas . Circle Pub . Classic House . Club one Seven . Coffee . Coffee Boy . Common Massage . Cream Bar . Cruise Bar . CU Bar . Darling Wine Bar . David Crisp . Diamond House . Eve . Flower Festival . Food . Free Guy Club . Friendship Bar . g-star . Garden Bar . Gay Pride . Gay Soi 6 . Glass Onion . Golden Oldies . grand-arena . Halloween . heaven-massage . His Club . House of Male . in Memorium . jacky bar . LGBT . Lotus Hotel . Loy Kratong . Mandagay . Mandalay Bar . Mango Bar . Mansfield Place . Marn Mai Massage . Marspa . Maya . New My Way . New Year . Night Bazaar . Nimmanhaeminda . Note . One 2 Come . Orion Bar . ozeed . Pandee . Paradise Massage . Pedophiles . Pee Mai Tai . Phuket Pride . Pizza . PJs Place . Powerboys . Poy Sang Long . Quick Guide . Quiz Night . Radchada Cafe . Radchada Garden Cafe . Ram Bar . Relax . Sabaidee Santitham . Santitham . Santitham Guest House . Sarcasm . Secrets Bar . See Man Pub . Shan State . Shan State Earthquake . Sleaze Alley . Soho Bar . soho-lounge . Songkran . soulmates-retreat . Spirt House . Thai Puan . The Edge . The Peak . The Pub . The Wall Massage . Valentines . Victory Massage . Visakha Bucha . Warnings . What happened to . Yaa Baa . Yokka Dok

The BBC website today has come up with a variation on the theory about who said what in the cockpit of the Air india 787 - and why. A Canadian air accident investigator has suggested that assuming it was the captain who turned off the fuel stitches, it could still have been him who asked the "Why did you do that?" question. Both pilots will have been aware of the cockpit voice recorder. Had it indeed been the captain who changed the switches, he could also have asked the question, aware that those listening to the CVR after they were both dead would assume it had to be the co-pilot who activated the switches. Blame would then automatically fall on the pilot flying, not the captain. It's a devious and somewhat Sherlock Holmes-type scenario but perfectly possible and a perfect way to ensure no blame is heaped on your family. Hugely irresponsible and almost criminal in my view, if that is actually what happened. "Even if the AAIB is eventually able to determine who said what, that doesn't decisively answer the question 'Who turned the fuel off?'". "We may even never know the answer to that question." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9yw0rljwvo

It was launched just before the smaller 757. For some reason, Boeing pulled the plug on the 757 early in 2004 whereas production of the 767 is expected to continue for another 2 years. Yet many pilots seem to agree that the 757 was and remains a great aircraft. Well, it would be, wouldn't it, as Donald Trump and his minions fly around in one when they cannot access the Presidential 747s?

The BBC in the UK has a classical music magazine. In 2010 it ran a poll of the world's top 100 conductors of the day (the orchestral not the lightning versions 🤣) asking them to name in their view the greatest conductor of all time. Not an easy task given that some of those working at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries were excellent but no one had actually witnessed their conducting! The top 5 in order were Carlos Kleiber, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Apologies if this is old news for some but the popular - at least it was for many years, the more so as it was relatively close to the University and the 2-for-1 nights were certainly busy - Chiang Mai sauna House of Male has closed. I'm not sure if it happened last year or earlier. It had moved to new premises in 2021. So it joins so many of Chiang Mai's established gay venues that no longer exist. Once a veritable gay mecca Chiang Mai now has so little for the gay tourist apart from shopping and sightseeing - and Adam's Apple! Its one sauna Club One Seven is located in a lovely old teak house right on the river but to the south of town close to the bridge over to the huge Centara Hotel. In addition to private rooms it has a gym and a pool. According to the website Gay-in-Chiang-Mai it hosts naked nights four times a month. In addition to the sauna is has a Lanna style guest house. Whether it is now actually a guest house with a sauna or a sauna with a guest house attached I am not sure. But it is listed as being very gay friendly. I remember many happy evenings at House of Male over decades enjoying sex and simple meals and a wide range of drinks at the bar/cafe. Sad that it is no more. I have read about a branch of the Kaikan bath house somewhere in the city. Hopefully Chiang Mai residents can add more to this news.

Friends of mine are regular visitors at Panpuri onsen in Gaysorn Plaza. it's more expensive but they tell me it is usually busy with a lot of good looking buffed Thais and a few westerners. Like Kaikan the aim is to make contact to meet later, not to play around in the onsen. I have been a few times to another typical Japanese spa - Yunomori on Sathorn Soi 10 Sathorn. It is beautifully laid out and seems to attract mostly young and middle aged Thais, although i have seen some westerners there. I am told there is sometimes some playing around in the steam room, but have never seen it myself.

My apologies. @vinapu is quite correct.

Another 787 problem a couple of days ago when fire broke out soon after take-off on the left engine of a Delta jet flying from LAX to Atlanta. Video here -

He should never have been permitted anywhere near that room. I have annual MRI's at a public hospital. Not only have I to take off everything before putting on the hospital gown and entering the room, no one else is allowed anywhere near it at any time. I am also surprised that when you are given an MRI, you are also given to hold in one of your hands a small circular pump. Squeeze that and the machine automatically stops. Everyone being given an MRI is instructed how to use it prior to the procedure. Why neither the patient nor the technicians used that totally beats me. On the other had, I suppose, that punp may not actually switch off the magnets. I just do not know.

1. I constantly kick myself that I could have attended one of the Kleiber/Domingo performances when La Scala visited Japan. The three-opera season also included one of my favourites, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra with a stellar cast led by Claudio Abbado. With ticket prices so expensive I could only attend one. At that time I was much less aware of Kleiber's brilliance. C'est la vie! I only saw Jon Vickers once and that was in the Royal Opera's Peter Grimes. A shattering performance I will always remember! Incidentally, another reason Vickers would not sing the role of Tannhauser was his very deep Christian faith. He believed the character was immoral! 2. I consider Dame Margaret Price had one of the greatest soprano voices of the century. It was sometimes called "liquid gold". And one of the saddest is that there is so little on vdo available. In addition to the full Kleiber Tristan there is this youtube audio of the Liebestod at the end just before she dies. Is there any better version? I believe not. When he was invoved in casting the recording, he always wanted his good friend Dame Margaret with whom he had not only worked with but knew well as both lived in Munich. DGG executives did not like the idea, but it was a masterstroke. 3. Very few people could understand Kleiber. But as I noted above, he was adored more than any other conductor by orchestral musicians and singers - and indeed those who attended his very few performances. It is thought that he was always trying to be as good as his conductor father Erich Kleiber whom be worshipped, and never felt he achieved that. Yet great though Erich was, his son outshone him. And it may have been that realisation that all but made him a reclusive figure during the last ten years of his life prior to his death aged 74.

SInce the owner is Chinese and from reports quite a number of customers are Chinese, I suspect word of mouth alone should result in it becoming quite busy.

There are still many who believe that the three massive overnight bombings of the city by American and UK aircraft towards the end of the war were in fact a war crime. Many believed that Churchill intended to destroy what was a cultural landmark of major significance in retaliation for the Nazi bombing of Coventry earlier in the war. It was argued that there was little of military significance in the city apart from some railway junctions. I'm delighted you included Fabio Luisi's rendition of the Nozze di Figaro overture. He is one of the true major conductors of today. Some years ago he was hired by New York's Metropolitan Opera as the potential successor to James Levine. He would have been perfect. But the Met's GM, the perfectly dreadful Peter Gelb who should never have been given the job, decided as he has throughout his reign that he wanted someone younger. SInce we are discussing music and opera in particular, one of the finest orchestras in the world is the Dresden Staatskapelle. I am thrilled to have heard it several times on tour in Taipei, the latest with Thielemann conducting Wagner and Brahms. In my earlier post I mentioned Carlos Kleiber. A notoriously difficult conductor for managements (who generally failed to realise that he was a deeply private, sensitive and insecure personality) although utterly adored by singers, he was hired by Deutsche Grammophon for a CD recording of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in Dresden. He wanted a more youthful voice for isolde and chose the glorious Welsh soprano Dame Margaret Price, even though she could never have sung it in a full live performance. The result is magnificent. But Kleiber was unhappy (not unusual for him) and he ended up walking out of the recording before it was complete. He then threatened to sue DGG if they ever tried to release any of it. Fortunately for posterity, the engineers had been recording all the rehearsals as well as the 'takes'. In the end DGG did release the full opera and Kleiber did not sue. Amazingly the full opera is available on youtube. Remarkably, although the accolades for Kleiber as the finest conductor of the 20th century continue, in his lifetime it is extraordinary to realise he only conducted 400 opera performances and less than 100 symphony concerts. Thankfully there are a few videos available, including this of Beethoven's 7th Symphony with Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra. Many regard it as the finest ever recorded. But even for those who would not dream of sitting through more than a few minutes, do tr\y and watch the first five. See how Kleiber is unike almost every other conductor. He is truly living that music. How I wish I could have seen and heard him conduct.

Back in my first years in Hong Kong, the movie "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour was a massive hit in the city. It ran for months and became the longest running movie ever up to that time, even eclipsing Bruce Lee movies. Time! A friend asked me a question the other day that I have been asked a number of times before. If you could turn back the clock to any date and period in history, which would you choose - and why? The first time I was asked this a few years ago I assumed he meant in my llfetime and I had no hesitation in saying the first years I discovered Bangkok with its gogo bars and later the early saunas. Only later I realised the question referred to historical times. And all our memories of what had occurred thereafter would be erased - other than the fact that we knew we were gay. At first the great age of the debauched Roman Emperors, notably Tiberius and Nero, seemed attractive until the deep love of Hadrian and Antinous appeared to usher a period when love transcended lust. Would feelings have played such a large part in my life back in time? I suppose in many ages there was not much else for the well-off to do - and I would only go back in time if I had a certain income to allow me to enjoy myself. I also wonder if I would have known about the often ghastly lives that the majority of populations lived. Could I have survived as a dandy in England living as I wished and enjoying life and all its pleasures especially at a variety of sex clubs at the start of the Industrial Revolution in England knowing that most children as young as 8 had to work often as much of 16 hours a day? Probably only as much as I enjoy today knowing that we live in an era of political thieves and liars, climate change which everyone knows about but about which those in power do all but nothing, wars over religion which are still being fought as they have been for millennia, and massive economic inequality which is leading us down a series of dangerous paths. I'd rather not go back.