PeterRS

The article was nothing about Jakarta. It was specifically about HIV cuts affecting only Trump's own people in the USA.

Of course getting a country's finances in order is one of the prime duties of an eected government, one too many leaders do not take seriously e.g. Britain under the last lot of incompetent leaders. But how does cutting the minuscule budget for HIV research have any effect whatever, other than to make life more miserable for more Americans in the long run? This is more true when you consider that Trump will undoubtedly, as he did in his first administration, cut taxes for the mega rich? So with one hand he saves a bunch of tiny peanuts and with the other he doles out massive amounts of government money which he fails to tax. Wasn't it Warren Buffett who said that his secretary paid more in taxes than he did??? Similarly the cutting off of aid to Myanmar, a country so desperate by decades of a brutal civil war the likes of which the world has rarely seen since WWII, is surely self defeating. Not providing aid for earthquake relief is bad enough when other smaller countries have tried to help as best they can, albeit with no assistance whatever from the Myanmar military government. In the longer term, strategically and historically both Democrats and Republicans have done virtually nothing whatever for Myanmar other than ensure that it is likely to end up in China's camp eventually. Given that it is the fourth largest country in East Asia, that seems exceedingly foolish. A plague on both their houses!

As I have previously written somewhere, this is the height of stupidity! Expats who live here already have to complete an online form not later than 36 hours after each arrival back in Thailand. This requires exactly the same information as the TDAC but has our address automatically included. So in future we'll have to lie about our residence prior to departure for Thailand and then be honest with a different address after arrival. Ridiculous!

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If Trump 2 is anything like Trump 1, Musk will probably be out the door sooner rather than later! 🤣

Why does anyone actually take the time to watch @bucknaway's silly vdos filled with hate speech. it just encourages him. His childishness becomes obvious with the volume of these posts. Just ignore him and ignore them! Children like attention. Don't give it to them and they go away and sulk!

I used to love just wandering along the little paths through the rice paddies hearing in the distance the faint sounds of gamelan orchestras practicing, first on one side, then on another. It was all so calm and peaceful. In the evenings, we'd join villagers for shadow puppet plays or the dancers who put on displays of various dances, including the young boys who danced the warrior Baris Dance. I read somewhere that Walter Spies had choreographed along with a Balinese the wild Kecak Dance. During my first visits, these would involve up to around 100 men. When I returned in 2005, there were perhaps only 30 or 40. I wonder if you remember the artist Antonio Blanco. He lived in a house just across the bridge on the left side amost opposite the Tjampuhan Hotel. I paid a visit to his studio one day and was slighty surprised to see that all his female helpers were naked to the waist. But they were all very beautiful. Directly across that little river was Murni's Warung where I would go to eat quite frequently. Fresh fruit with honey and her homemade yoghurt was wonderful!

I was very surprised that, for whatever reasons, he did not take part in the film docudrama based on Randy Shilts masterful account of the AIDS crisis, "And The Band Played On". Given his star popularity I am sure he must have been asked. Many gay and non-gay actors willingly participated in the filming and helped to bring the AIDS crisis to more and more people around the world. Alan Alda, Richard Gere, Mathew Modine, Ian McKellen, Lily Tomlin, Phil Colllins, Steve Martin and Anjelica Huston were just some of the 'names' who took part. But no Rchard Chamberlain!

I was hooked as a 17-year old on my first visit to London. The hit show of the day was Lionel Bart's "Oliver" but it was sold out. So I got a ticket for his second show "Blitz". I recall little about the production apart from the enormous stage sets and two huge banks of spotlights all round the front of the Proscenium Arch. Until then, lighting units were basically unseen by audiences. The visual effects were amazing. ALW also came something of a cropper when he was casting the show which followed "Phantom", "Aspects of Love". It's a much smaller musical and I consider it one of his best. Unlike others which followed "Phantom", it had a moderately successful first run. But without a producer as savvy and experienced as Cameron Macintosh, he had started his own production company within his oddly named Really Useful Company (frequently renamed The Really Useless Company!) As with "Sunset", for the opening London production he made a weird decision by putting Roger Moore, the former James Bond, into the cast. Like Dunaway, till then I think his singing had been confined to the shower. After "Aspects" had been in rehearsal for six weeks in the Prince of Wales Theatre, Moore himself realised that he just could not sing! "I was having nightmares of the worst possible kind over this show . . . Once we were in the theatre with an orchestra I knew it would be impossible for me to continue. The only polite way out was to leave while there is still time for them to find someone else". At least he did not have to be paid off! His understudy Kevin Coulson came out of "Chess" to take over.

Since not all are on Facebook, can you kindly provide either a screenshot or simply copy and paste into another post.

I managed to see that production of "Anything Goes" at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in New York before Elaine Page saw it and decided with Tim Rice to take it to London. Patti Lupone was the lead at a time when she really reigned supreme over Broadway. I had dear friends living in New York and often they would arrange Broadway tickets for us all when they knew I would be visiting. That afternoon prior to seeing "Anything Goes", they had taken me to see David Henry Hwang's excellent play "M. Butterfly" with B.D. Wong and John Lithgow. Such a pity that John Lone was badly cast in the movie version. But for me, that was an epic day on Broadway! Re Ms. Lupone, you may recall Lloyd Webber's troubles after casting her as Norma Desmond when Sunset Boulevard opened in London. This was to be his new blockbuster show which backfired quite spectacularly. Given its history as an iconic movie, the show's American premiere was actually in Los Angeles instead of Broadway with Glen Close as Norma. Patti Lupone had already opened in the original London production and her contract stated she also open as Norma once the show got to Broadway. However, the producers did not like Lupone's characterisation (frankly, nor did I!) and fired her from Broadway. This resulted in a legal batle in which Lupone allegedly walked away with $1 million. It was then decided that Glen Close move from LA and open the Broadway season. To replace Close, Lloyd Webber staggered everyone by casting Faye Dunaway, an actor who had never sung anything, anwhere! We can teach her how to sing, was Lloyd Webber's refrain. Even as production rehearsals had started, the ALW team were still saying Dunaway would be great. A day or so later they fired her and closed the LA production. Another legal battle ensued with Dunaway walking away with rather nice compensation! Even though "Sunset" ran on Broadway for two years, the total losses on the US productions was estimated by the New York Times to be $20 million. I did not see Glen Close but heard she was excellent. I believe the best Norma was the American Betty Buckley.

It's getting harder for reasonable people outside the USA to have any other than aggressive feelings against the recently elected President. Near Thailand, the cutting the USAID budget has affected hundreds of Myanmar reporters camped out on the border with Thailand on whom the world has depended for months if not years for news of what has been happening re the ghastly civil war in that country. USAID paid their salaries. This started weeks before the present earthquake. Now no more. Worse, The Guardian today has informed us that Trump and his cohorts have made "Sweeping HIV Research and Grant Cuts." This will "decimate" progress on elimiating the pandemic. Let's not forget that in his State of the Union address in 2019, Trump said his actions would eliminate HIV in 10 years -. “Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach,” said Trump in his address. “Together we will defeat Aids in America.” We all know the man is a liar, a cheat, a misogynist, a narcissist wth a foul mouth and a pussy grabber. Now he adds the dubious distinction of being the man who is likely to increase the prevalence of HIV, at the least in his own country. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/31/trump-administration-hiv-research-grant-cuts

Senior care, as opposed to medical tourism, requires long term visas. Nothing so far leads me to believe that the Thai government is doing anything that would make this any Baht less than the present retirement visas. I have an Australian friend with whom I used to work for several years who has been suffering from Alzheimers since early 2019. It's desperately sad that he no longer has any memory at all but he and his partner live in Chiang Mai. Their combined income is under the Bt. 65,000 per month each. I do not want to intrude on their privacy by asking how they get round the retirement visa regulations. Certainly they could not take the 800K route nor the Thailand Elite/Privilege. Given that senior care for most involves two people, it is wholly unrealistic to expect all to tall under the present financial guidelines. That's certainly true for most in the older generation from the UK and some parts of Europe. Rather than first announce an intention to go after the senior care market, it would have helped if the government had announced how they would make this financially possible visa-wise. But then expecting the Thai government to be logical is a perfect example of the illogic.

I had the pleasure of working with him when he, along with Elaine Page and Colm Wilkinson, stepped in at last minute in Hong Kong for a gala which was aupposed to be with Danny Kaye. Kaye had just had open heart surgery (during which some believe he was treated with HIV infected blood) and had to cancel. Tim Rice manfully took over and presented one of the funniest shows I have heard interspersed with songs by two of the West End's great singers. It was thanks to him that I was given seats for "Chess" for myself and my young nephew and niece. He is a lovely man with virtually none of the ego displayed by many in the musicals business.

Plenty of countries have changed either their names or names of cities since the end of colonialism. Does Fox News still refer to Bombay as Bombay rather than Mumbai - or the tech hub as Madras instead of Chennai? Do they still call Ghana. the Gold Coast? Or Zimbabwe. Rhodesia? Of course they don't. And I'll bet the US government was none too happy with the last two changes either, but they use the modern names! When Barack Obama visited Burma in 2012, he used both Burma and Myanmar in public speeches. In one to students at the Uiversity of Yangon, he claimed, "“one of the things that we can do as an international community is make sure that the people of Burma know we’re paying attention to them, we’re listening to them, we care about them.” He added that the USA was committed to continue to work “very hard to strengthen bilateral relationships so that we can promote progress." Those words certainly came back to haunt him! Given that all of the bar boys will have been born after their country's name change, to call their country Burma could be regarded as wrong! But since the two names sound amost similar in one or other form of the Burmese language, it is unlikely offence would be taken if you use Burma. personally I aways use Myanmar with my partner and his famiy and friends. It is nothing like what happened during British colonisation. The British refused to call Burma by its name of Burma. They called Burma a Province of India and Rangoon a "suburb of Madras". Only as their Empire was about to come to an end did the British use Burma from 1937.

Yes, I know! What has one of the most popular disco numbers of the 1980s to do with Gay Icons? I wonder how many are aware that this song comes from a Broadway musical? "Chess", with lyrics by the chess-loving Tim Rice who in the 1970s had made himself a nice fortune as the lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita" and then later for Disney with lyrics for Elton John’s “The Lion King” and other shows, was one of Tim Rice’s pet projects and very dear to his heart. I saw the musical in its first month in London in 1986. To write the music, Rice commuted to Sweden to discuss it with the ABBA boys, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. They liked the idea. In the view of many, including me, their music for “Chess” remains one of the greatest Broadway scores of all time. 18 months prior to opening, the producers issued a concept CD with the full cast and the London Symphony Orchestra. This raised expectations for “Chess” to a very high level. Murray Head’s “One Night in Bangkok” became a massive worldwide hit in terms of record sales and radio plays, as did the lovely duet sung by Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson, “I Know Him So Well.” Head was well-known to cinema audiences as having been part of the first mouth-to-mouth gay kiss in the John Schlesinger 1971 movie “Sunday Bloody Sunday” when his other party was none other than the almost aggressively heterosexual actor Peter Finch. Sadly for “Chess”, though, internal Broadway feuding and international rapprochement as Gorbachev's star was rising and the Soviet Union soon to collapse, rendered Tim Rice's book and lyrics about a Cold War love affair set alongside a chess match between a Russian and an American all but redundant. It struggled along in London for three years but then flopped spectacularly on Broadway with a loss of over US$6 million. Some years later Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love", his first post-"Phantom" musical, lost $8 million after it too died on Broadway, thus becoming Broadway's most expensive flop up to that time. This was massively eclipsed by the $60 million loss after “Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark” also collapsed in 2017. That sure-fire hit had become a legendary debacle. Broadway can be an unforgiving beast. “Chess” also faced a major problem when a much bigger disaster hit the world. Apart from groups of doctors in New York and Los Angeles, no one thought much about HIV and AIDS when it first started on its train of devastation. As more and more information came into the public domain, suddenly gay men in particular started to fear this new illness for which there was no cure. One who contracted it was Michael Bennett, the hugely successful producer/director who had pioneered a revival of the dance musical with “A Chorus Line”. Audiences on Broadway and in London adored "A Chorus Line". Unfortunately when the movie version was on the drawing board Michael Bennett turned down the role of director when the producers would not accept the changes he wanted from the stage version. So iconic was the stage musical that many established directors also turned it down. It was only when the producers reached Richard Attenborough whose “Gandhi” had recently won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, that he accepted. Many felt this was an unwise choice. A very British director for a quintessentially American musical. The sceptics were proved right. The film version was neither a critical nor audience hit. Tim Rice had loved “A Chorus Line” and was certain that Bennett was the right director to get “Chess” on to the stage. Bennett agreed and started working on casting the show and having very expensive large and unusually tech-heavy scenery constructed. Bennett’s vision was essentially a multi-media show. Some found this odd given that Rice’s book is set in a small Swiss village in the Alps. Then disaster struck. Bennett’s illness had progressed and he was forced suddenly to resign from the production. To take over, Rice was able at short notice to sign the director of “Cats” and "Les Misérables", Trevor Nunn. It quickly became known that Nunn hated the high-tech design, but he had no choice. He had to work within it. The show’s first night had the critics divided. Some loved it; others panned it, mostly because they felt the book was a mess. The undoubted star of the show was the then relatively unknown Swedish singer Tommy Körberg who played the part of the Russian in the chess contest. Audiences seemed to like the show but there was no rush for tickets. Allegedly it was the large weekly advertising budget that kept the show running for three years. For its later Broadway run Nunn was retained, but he had the book and some songs rewritten, the show was recast and it had little in common with London. While the history of “Chess” illustrates the complexity and risk involved in getting a musical from original idea on to the stage, it also illustrates how much the world of entertainment needs musicals. For if Broadway IS New York, now it also belongs to the world. Musicals had always toured internationally, mostly in locally produced versions often quite far from the Broadway originals. When Andrew Lloyd Webber teamed up with the struggling gay London producer Cameron Macintosh, though, a new idea was born: cloning musicals. Macintosh realised that audiences in Sydney, Berlin and Tokyo not only wanted to see a hit show, they wanted to see exactly the same show as audiences in London and New York. Thus the musicals' franchise was born. The result: everyone involved in their shows - "CATS" and "Phantom of the Opera" (and let's not forget that Cameron had also produced on his own two other blockbusters, "Les Misérables" and "Miss Saigon") - started achieving profits earlier producers could not even dream about. Some years ago Forbes Magazine estimated Macintosh’s wealth at over US$1 billion – and this was a man who had started his career as a stage hand in one of London’s large theatres with just a dream to become a producer! Years earlier Lloyd Webber had hit the billion mark. Mackintosh was a visionary in more way than one. When he wanted to take “Cats” to Japan, no theatre owner would give him more than four weeks. This was the custom in Japan for Broadway shows and no owner considered a western show like “Cats” might play for longer. Mackintosh and his Japanese partner in the show decided to mount it in a large marquee on a vacant plot of land in Shinjuku. The first "Cats" tent in Tokyo: Photo by Masanobu Yamanoue So successful was it, it ran there for two years. When the landowner decided to develop it, Mackintosh just took the show to Osaka, brought it back to Tokyo and then to various other cities. Now it has not only been seen by well over ten million people in Japan, there is a specially built CATS theatre where it continues to run more than 40 years after its first performance. How those theatre owners must be kicking themselves! Worldwide, “Cats” has generated US$3.5 billion in ticket sales – and that number is still rising. As the relatively recent book "Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway" by Michael Riedel illustrates, the relationships between theatre owners, producers, directors, PR teams, performers and critics have usually contained far more drama offstage than on. Perhaps less so in its beginnings during the Great Depression when all audiences wanted were bright lights, glitz, glamour, chorus girls - and more chorus girls! Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II changed all that. When the curtain went up on their first collaboration "Oklahoma" in 1943, the audience literally gasped, for this show and four others that followed from the same team transformed the musicals' genre from musical comedy to serious musical theatre, with real story lines and real people living all but real lives. A string of great musicals followed, starting with "West Side Story" by the gay quartet of Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), the book by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein's gorgeous music and stunning choreography by Jerome Robbins. Others included "My Fair Lady" and "Fiddler on the Roof". Soon thereafter the Dance Musical came to the fore with the brilliant - and gay - Michael Bennett conceiving and directing "A Chorus Line" and David Merrick producing "42nd Street". But as if in a flash Broadway itself was threatened by one of the world’s mega-disasters. The sexuality of those on Broadway has always been the stuff of gossip. The distinguished British actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft once said, "Of course I knew Laurence Olivier and Danny Kaye were having a long-term affair. So did all of London. So did their wives. Why is America always the last to know?" Perhaps it's the Puritan streak in America that encourages people to look the other way. Those who faced up to reality knew full well that Broadway and the Broadway musical had always relied on gay men and women for its success, and the toll of those who died in the early years of AIDS was horrifically high. It was not just the male dancers and the dozens of boys in the chorus who were dying by the week. Directors like Michael Bennett, actor Tony Richardson, Joe Layton ("Barnum"), song writer Peter Allen, Larry Kert who played Tony in the original "West Side Story" and the lead in Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”, lyricist Howard Ashman, choreographer Michael Shawn, publicist Frank Nathan, set and costume designers - the obituaries just went on and on. As my little memorial to all those who died, here is the Anthem with its stunningly beautiful melody from the “Chess” concept album, fabulously sung by the Swedish singer Tommy Körberg whom I saw in the original London production. It was written specifically for his voice and Benny’s smile in the control room at the end says it all! Although this is not a typical Broadway song I believe the melody is a fitting tribute. After all the crying and all the funerals, the Broadway musical picked itself up. To this day it continues to present some of the finest entertainment in the world. More recent shows are the talk of the town – “The Lion King”, “Wicked”, “Hamilton” and others along with revivals like “Cabaret” at Studio 54 which I saw around 25 years ago with the androgynous Alan Cumming superb as the Master of Ceremonies. Before the pandemic, 70% of all New York visitors attended a Broadway show. That equates to more than forty million seats sold - many to tourists! So I salute Broadway and its musicals as my final Gay Icon. Of course there are dozens more. But I wanted to keep the list relatively small. I could have added icons like Bette Midler, Judy Garland, Elton John and even Dame Julie Andrews. As discussed in an earlier post the ‘Divine’ Ms. Midler owes much of her fame to gay audiences. But others can now take over this short series if they wish. Finally, since much of this post has been about “Chess”, rumours of yet another revision of the show and a return to Broadway have been around for years. Now, Sir Tim Rice has confirmed that it will open this autumn but no further details have yet been provided. Will it open? Once the curtain has risen, will it succeed? No one ever knows. When the curtain rose of the opening night of “Phantom of the Opera” in London, neither composer Andrew Lloyd Webber nor producer Cameron Mackintosh could bear to watch. They were terrified. They spent the evening walking the streets of London. When they returned for the final curtain, they knew they had not just a hit, but one of the greatest the world of musicals was ever to see. But the unforgiving beast that is Broadway did not escape Lloyd Webber. As he stated in an interview in London’s Daily Telegraph, after “Phantom” he wrote six more shows, including “Sunset Boulevard”. All flopped financially!

There are several tall bulldings under construction in Bangkok and many recently completed - Bangkok One being a prime example. One wonders why this particular building under construction seemed to pancake down from the top rather like the buildings in the Twin Towers in New York, and yet no other building seemed to suffer damage. With no knowledge of construction, I would have thought ground shaking would have started in demolition from the bottom up, or would it have been progressively strengthened as the building got higher?

The private partner is Asia Era One, a company established only in 2019. One has to wonder who is on the Board and how the company beat out other more experienced contractors in rail construction and management. Brown envelopes?

Not carping at all. It was indeed Victoria station. If memory serves me better, I think I was confused because the man who found him gave him the name Worthing only because he happened at the time to have a first class ticket to Worthing in his pocket!

I fully agree there is doubt about what the writing on Queensberry's note actually says. The Club porter could not read the writing either, and it was he who testified at the trial that it was "ponce and somdomite". Yet I don't think it really matters as the words "Oscar Wilde" are obvious and the final word is either "Sondomite" or "Somdomite." I doubt if any lawyer could have argued successfully in court that either did not actually mean Sodomite. And so Wilde was probably within in his rights to sue for libel. As I believe, the act of suing a man like Queensberry was the height of stupidity. Wilde's vanity and Bosie's urging got the better of his more rational mind. Robbie Ross and others had urged Wilde to put the matter out of his mind and flee to France for a year or so, at the end of which time it would all have blown over. By the time of his eventual return, Wilde would have been able to witness Queensberry's own slowly declining health. He died of syphillis ten months before Wilde's own death. Following Oscar's death, Bosie went to considerable lengths to conceal the truth of the detail of his relationship with Wilde. Indeed, he spent much of his time attacking Wilde. In one court case in 1918, he was asked by the barrister Noel Pemberton Billing about Wilde. "Noel Pemberton Billing: Do you from your own knowledge know that Oscar Wilde was a sexual and moral pervert? "Alfred Douglas: Yes, I do, He admitted it; he never attempted to disguise it after his conviction ... whoever was there, he always began by admitting it, glorying in it. "Noel Pemberton Billing: Do you regret having met him? "Alfred Douglas: I do most intensely... I think he had a diabolical influence on everyone he met. I think he is the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last 350 years ... He was the agent of the devil in every possible way. He was a man whose whole object in life was to attack and to sneer at virtue, and to undermine it in every way by every possible means, sexually and otherwise." On another occasion he claimed they had never had anal sex, merely mutual masturbation which he stated he did not enjoy. He added he did not like sex with Wilde because he was too old. He preferred men of his own age. Yet in 1902 he marrried and had a son. When linked with Wilde in a manner which he disliked, he had no hesitation in suing the magazines. He also made his loathing of Robert Ross known, partly through more libel cases in which he attacked Ross as being homosexual. Not known before Lord Queensberry became involved with Wilde was that Ross and Bosie had jointly engaged in a sexual tryst with two underage schoolboys aged 14 and 15. Both boys confessed to their parents. Meetings were held with solicitors who made it plain to the parents that if the case went to court the boys would almost certainly be regarded as having led the older men on and therefore go to prison. In general, it came to be realised that Alfred Douglas was a consistent liar incapable of telling the truth. For a time he edited an anti-Jewish magazine. In one article he libelled Winston Churchill for which he was sent to prison for six months. He became thoroughly disliked as a person. At his death in 1945, only two people attended his funeral.

Having been in many earthquakes including one when in an office less than 50 kms from the main 6.9 San Jose earthquake in 1989, I know only too well that aftershocks are to be expected and can continue for many days. However, analysis of most aftershock activity seems to suggest that, while that can be sizeable, their geographical area is limited to much closer to that of the main quake and not nearly as widespread as that initial quake. I believe Bangkok did feel some of the effect of the first large aftershock - even if I did not. However, I also believe that none of the other aftershocks have been felt here. Certainly today Bangkok was operating all but normally. The Skytrain and MRT were running and both Silom Complex and Paragon shopping malls were fully open and doing good business.

Apologies for for one glaring error in the above article. In the last line of the fourth last paragraph, it should read 'Queensberry family feud'. It had nothing to do with Lord Rosebery (whose title is also mispelled)!

He was a writer, a playwright, an aesthete, bon vivant, dandy and absolute master of the pithy epigram. The title of this article is one. Even better known perhaps is, "I can resist everything except temptation!" He was also gay - although not initially so. For a time, he was the toast of London and its high society matrons and their rich husbands. Eventually leaders of that society were to turn on him with a viciousness more suited to a violent criminal. He was disgraced, tried in a court of law, found guilty, imprisoned and died in exile in Paris. But his story is a great deal more complicated than these simple facts. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde came into this world in Dublin in October 1854. After a stellar success at the universities in Dublin and Oxford, he moved to London. With his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde quickly became one of the best-known personalities of his day, much sought after at soirées given by the great and the good. Following a brilliantly successful lecture tour of the USA and some time in Paris, he married and had two sons. By this time he had begun earning a reasonably decent income, but it was his wife Constance who had the real money, an inheritance from her grandfather whose investments provided her with a regular income. For four years he lived in what appeared to be a loving family relationship. He had written some poems and stories, none of which had much success. Then came his first novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” which illustrated his verbal wit and intellectual playfulness. The novel became particularly important for two reasons. First, the theatre producer George Alexander suggested that he write an entertaining and modern social comedy for the stage, This was to result is “Lady Windermere’s Fan” which became a huge success. My favourite Wilde epigram comes from the play, “What is the difference between scandal and gossip? Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.” The other result of the novel was that it all but bewitched a young Oxford undergraduate, Lord Alfred Douglas, known to his friends as Bosie. It is alleged he read the book 15 times. Douglas was determined to meet Wilde. They had a mutual school friend in Lionel Johnson who quickly arranged an introduction. The meeting took place in the Wilde home in London’s Tite Street. By all accounts it was both amusing and lengthy. Yet as they discussed the novel, Wilde was almost overcome as he gazed at Douglas with his extraordinarily good looks and mop of blond hair flopping over his eyes. Although Wilde at that stage was still married to Constance, he had begun to develop an interest in young men. In 1886 aged 32 he had been seduced by a 17-year old Canadian Robert Ross and they entered into an intense relationship. In some respects, he felt family life had started to constrain him both in terms of his work as a writer and as a sexual being. Ross opened up for him a whole new life, one of excitement and freedom. Having studied classics at university, he was well aware that relationships with young men had been part of and central to Greek intellectual life. That in the England of the late 19th century it also carried dangers appeared only to add to its charm. The friendship between Wilde and Ross was to last for the rest of Wilde's life. Yet it was soon Bosie with whom he became utterly infatuated. An early photo of Wilde and Bosie At the time of their meeting, Bosie was in fact being blackmailed over an indiscreet letter he had sent to another youth an Oxford. He needed financial help. Intrigued and excited, Wilde went to Oxford, arranged a solicitor and paid the blackmailer the requested £100 (a great deal of money in those days). Thus a sort of shared danger not only ignited their love, it developed quickly into a passion. Soon he discovered that sexually Bosie was far more experienced than he. The sense of excitement he had felt when they had first met was enhanced when Bosie introduced him to some of London’s seedy gay underworld. Wilde unquestionably felt more alive than ever. That Wilde loved Bosie there can be no dispute. In one letter he wrote, “You are so dear, so wonderful. I think of you all day long, and miss your grace, your boyish beauty, the bright sword-play of your wit, the delicate fancy of your genius, so surprising always in its sudden swallow-flights towards north and south, towards sun and moon — and, above all, yourself.” In another, he ends with the line, "Always, and with devotion — but I have no words for how I love you.” This new sense of freedom found its way into Wilde’s writing, Within little more than three years he had capitalised on the success of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” with three more plays – “A Woman of No Importance”, “An Ideal Husband”, and the most successful of all, “The Importance of Being Earnest”. Even if you have not seen the play or one of several films made of it, almost certainly you will have seen this short clip from the 1952 movie with the incomparable Dame Edith Evans uttering arguably Wilde's most immortal line. The formidable Lady Bracknell has just been told that her ward’s paramour was not born in a hospital or even a bed. He was found in a handbag in the lost luggage department at Worthing station. Wilde was now earning far more money than he ever dreamed of and his fame was rising rapidly. in another of his epigrams he writes, "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best!" Finally he was able to indulge Bosie’s most extravagant whims including spending weeks at a time at one of London’s most fashionable hotels, The Savoy. Being seen by so many in society, however, meant that gossip naturally followed. Another of Wilde's epigrams ends, "A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." It was to prove prophetic. Bosie's father was the Marquess (often spelled Marquis) of Queensberry, a man's man who had drawn up the Queensberry rules used in the sport of boxing. He had an intense dislike of homosexuality which bordered on an obsession. Queensberry was an arrogant, unpopular brute of a man whom no-one in the establishment liked. As an atheist, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen – he called it Christian tomfoolery – and was not permitted to take his seat in parliament. He particularly disliked the Prime Minister, a fellow Scot, the 5th Earl of Rosebery. Rosebery was certainly bisexual if not homosexual and always surrounded himself with handsome young men. Queensberry called him a “snob queer”. For some time Rosebery’s inner circle had included Queensberry’s eldest son and heir, the Earl of Drumlanrig, as his Private Secretary. Queensberry must certainly have been aware of the strong rumours of a homosexual affair between his son and Rosebery. This may have fed into his anger towards the influence he saw Wilde exerting over his third son. He confronted Bosie and told him he must never see Wilde again. To which Bosie replied with the equivalent of “Fuck off!” Then in October 1994 just as Wilde’s last play was about to be rehearsed, tragedy struck when Drumlanrig died with a single gunshot to the head, a suspected suicide. By now fully aware of Wilde's gay reputation, Queensberry was incensed on learning that another of his son’s relationships might have developed into a sexual one. Unable to find Wilde when trying to warn him never to see his son again, he left his name card at Wilde's club, adding "For Oscar Wilde, ponce and somdomite (sic)." It seems clear to us today that Wilde should just have let the matter pass. After all, few had actually seen the card. Even if Club members were to hear and whisper about it, the chance of it going further into the public domain must surely have been slim. Oscar, though, was a proud and vain man. He was not going to let this man he so despised get off scot-free. Encouraged by Bosie but very much against the advice of his lawyers, he sued Queensberry for libel. That was his biggest mistake, Not only did he lose his case, within hours Queensberry had counter-sued - and won. In court a succession of private detectives hired by Queensberry during the first trial exposed all the detail of Wilde's promiscuity with young men and boys, all with dates, times and places. The jury in the case could not come up with a verdict. At the retrial Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labour. For Wilde the entire series of cases had resulted in appalling ruin and bankruptcy. Rather than stand by his lover’s side during the trials, Bosie fled abroad. Yet on his return he tried hard to arrange clemency for Wilde. One of those he petitioned was even Queen Victoria. Wilde on the other hand had begun to believe that his ruin was all a result of the Roseberry family feud which had pitted Bosie against his father. Thereafter he never wanted to see him again. But he was soon to change his mind. Each realised he missed the other. They travelled clandestinely to Naples where they hoped to find a way of living, both having been cut off from their own inheritances. Soon their love was downgraded to friendship. They continued to meet both in Naples and in Paris to which Oscar had moved. Throughout the trials it had been the ever-faithful Robert Ross who had supplied Wilde with emotional encouragement. To this was added financial assistance when he moved to Paris. It was Ross who was at his side when he died and Ross who had been made Wilde’s literary executor On the 50th anniversary of Wilde’s death in 1900 aged 46, an urn containing Ross’s ashes was placed into Wilde’s tomb at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Here he was in the company of such luminaries as the composers Chopin, Rossini ("Barber of Seville") and Bizet ("Carmen"), pop singer Jim Morrison of The Doors, authors Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust, artists Seurat, Pissarro, Delacroix and Corot, and perhaps most appropriately of all, the Irish revolutionary William Lawless. Wilde may not have fomented revolution, but through his manners, his openness and his writing he came to present a complex problem for the establishment of the day. By failing to play by their rules, he ensured his own downfall. The establishment always won. In 2012, Wilde was in the first group to be inducted into Chicago's Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display which celebrates LGBT history and many of its personalities. In 2017 he was one of up to 60,000 thousand homosexual men given a posthumous pardon by the British government under what has become known as the Alan Turing Law.

I just came across this thread. What @Marc in Calif describes about Ubud is so sad. In the early 1980s I visited and stayed in Ubud ten times, once for as long as three weeks. It was such a beautiful town. I stayed in the former home of the gay artist Walter Spies who had helped develop the Balinese style of naif painting. The hotel was just a series of very simple huts on the hillside, no windows only scrims covering the gaps, no proper showers only buckets with holes on the bottom and a rope. But the Balinese were so friendly, peaceful - even joyful. I adored my visits, especially at 5:00 pm each day when older boys and young men would go to the spigot near the little pool, strip off and wash themselves after work. Utterly beautiful brown naked bodies. I returned in 2005 with my then bf who really wanted to visit Bali. I did not want to return, fearful that overtourim would have quickly spoiled it. I was right. Ubud was a mess and I could hardly imagine the town with which I had fallen in love. I decided I'd never go back - and never have.

Another sad example is the August 1985 crash of another Boeing 747 in Japan after taking off from Haneda to Osaka with 524 on board. Some years earlier, that aircraft had suffered a tail strike which Boeing had repaired. Or assumed it had repaired. In fact the repair was faulty and some bolts holding the aft pressure bulkhead were omitted. 12 minutes after take off there was rapid decompression. The aft bulkhead had broken away taking some of the tail vertical stabiliser and hydraulic power lines with it. This rendered the aircraft uncontrollable. With great skill, the pilots used the engines as a means of trying to regain some form of control. They were successful for a full 31 minutes. They almost managed to get the stricken aircraft near an airport but then crashed into a hillside at an elevation of around 1,500 meters. The US AirForce base at Yokota had been monitoring the distress calls and prepared an emergency rescue team. Still in daylight, one if its helicopters spotted the crash site 20 minutes after the event. Unable to land because of the terrain, seeing no survivors the crew reported to their superiors and the Japanese authorities. The Japanese managers of the rescue team then decided not to mount any attempt to reach the aircraft remains until the following morning. When they arrived, they found four passengers alive. One of those rescued was an off-duty flight purser. She reported that throughout the night she heard screams from other passengers. It was perfectly clear to Japanese doctors that had the Japanese rescue efforts started the following evening, other passengers could have been saved. But a decision had been made and no out-of-the-box thinking persuaded any of the team to question the manager's decision.