PeterRS

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.

Absolutely agree. Much of the information at the start of an event like an earthquake is often speculation rather than fact - if only because facts are usually difficult to obtain. We can tell from reports here that some felt the earthquake was centred in or near Bangkok. Perfectly understandable given the videos we were seeing and the shaking most were feeling, Yet the fact that Bangkok is not on an earthquake fault line, unlike Chiang Mai and the north, was rarely mentioned in the early hours. Where Bangkok is susceptible to earthquakes is from relatively near fault lines. After living in the city for over 23 years, I can only recall one other earthquake emergency - from the massive 9.2 earthquake off Indonesia's Aceh Province in December 2004. That was roughly 1,250 kms away, yet apart from tall buildings swaying and evacuations, I cannot recall any deaths or disasters in Bangkok. The epicentre of yesterday's quake in Myanmar was almost 1,000 ks away. Vitually the same distance. So one question that needs to be asked is: why did the Myanmar quake with a lesser magnitude of 7.7 compared to 9.2, the third most powerful the world had witnessed - greater even than the devastating 2011 quake off Japan, result in much greater damage in Bangkok? Perhaps it is partly the depths of the two quakes - Aceh being at a depth of approx, 30 kms underwater whereas yesterday's is estimated as a mere 10 kms below the surface. Eventually the experts will inform us of the exact reasons. One thing must surely be certain, though. If a quake 1,000 kms away on a recognised fault line can cause the damage and panic it did in Bangkok yesterday, building codes will need to be revised. How many of all the recent tall buildings constructed in the last 30 years or so are effectively earthquake proof? As we saw in Nepal in 2015, devastating earthquakes do not just happen years and decades apart. They can happen in consecutive months. Worrying! And thank you @reader for your personal comment. I apologise for my earlier comments which may have cast doubts over your original posting.

The gospel according to @Department_Of_Agriculture. What a load of utter garbage! According to him we can soon expect to see most of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Qingdao, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou and hundreds of other Chinese cities lying in ruins.

I'd go a little further. The concept of heaven and hell was an invention to keep the mass of the people in line. Do good on earth and your place in heaven is all but guaranteed. Do bad and you descend into the fire of hell. After all, was not life for the mass of the people on earth little more than miserable? And was this not the promise of Pope Urban II in 1095 when he persuaded all manner of thieves, vagabonds, adulterers and general riff raff to take part in the First Crusade to free Jerusalem from the Muslims who had invaded and taken it over. The leaderhip of the Crusade was mostly in the hands of noblemen, generally second sons with no rights to the lands of their fathers iin Europe who sought a new life with land they could own in the Levant. Urban told a tissue of lies about the acts of terror then in Jerusalem - a total fiction as the Muslims, Jews and Christians were all living side by side relatively peacefully - and basically promised all who took part a free ticket to heaven. Thus this rabble hoard looted and plundered its way across Europe and the Byzantine Empire in what turned out to be a successful, if temporary, result. Once in Jerusalem, as one commentator of the time put it, the streets ran with bood for days. Jews were hoarded into a large synagogue which was then burned to the ground. Muslims fared no better. So much for the all-loving Christian God! But it is also the concept of purgatory which conerns me about the Christian religion. Does this appear anwhere in any part of the Bible? No! According to the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii, St. Patrick received divine guidance about purgatory from God in the 5th century. This state of being neither in heaven nor hell became increasingly popular. St. Augustine of Hippo had earlier argued that there are some "who have departed this life, not so bad as to be deemed unworthy of mercy, nor so good as to be entitled to immediate happiness." By the Middle Ages purgatory is found all over Christian writings and tradition. To me it seems clear it was yet another means of keeping order on earth and had nothing to do with the Christian religion!

Nitpicking? Curious word to choose. I'd have thought the simple act of checking would be more approprite. With less than two hours left in the day, I will enjoy it for sure. Thank you.

What i was trying to say is that there is so much about Christianity which - to me - remains questionable. We know the Old Testament is especially questionable. We know that what is in the New Testament was largely determined by a group of religious leaders three centuries after the death of Jesus. How much of what is included is the actual truth. Much was excluded. What? And why? GIven that, I fail to understand why western nations over 2,000 years have in general adopted Christianity, in some cases virtually as a state religion. Why not Zoroastrianism? Why not Buddhism? What makes Christianity more important? I hope that helps.

I am not on Facebook but I would query Khun Paiboon's assertion. As a non-Thai, I sometimes attend a public hospital and I have to pay the same published rate as for Thais, even though most Thais will have enrolled in their vastly cheaper medical scheme. I cannot understand why Myanmar workers as well as those from other neighbouring countries would not have to pay for medical treatment the same as any other non-Thai. The point about Myanmar boys taking jobs away from Thais is patently nonsense, for the reasons outlined in the last sentence of the article.

Fair point. But where does it end?

We'll have to agree to differ, the more so when the title of that other article not only mentions earthquake in the title but also in the main text - and the post includes a vdo!

I knew virtually nothing about the religion other than the opening of the Richard Strauss tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" where Zarathustra in Nietsche's epic poem is the prophet, Zoroaster. In Iranian history, Zoroaster founded the religion of Zoroastrianism of which the God of Creation and the Sky is Ahura Mazda, the wide-winged creature that is quite commonly known. All those who attended Bangkok gogo bars for decades will know the opening of the Strauss work as it preceded the start of almost all shows. The symbol of Ahura Mazda Goodness and Purity are key elements of the religion of which fire is the most important. In the Iranian city of Yazd the Zoroastrian temple has a fire which allegedly has been alight for 1,500 years. The fire of Zoroaster When I realised that Freddie Mercury's family were of the Zoroastrian faith, I investigated a little more. Most Iranians of the faith eventually moved to India where they were called Parsis. Now there are very few in Iran, most living in Yazd, although the religion is protected by the state. Entering Yazd you pass two 'Towers of Silence' on which the dead are placed left uncovered. During the era of the Shah, this practice was forbidden. Now families wishing bodies to be buried in this manner must send them to Mumbai. One of the Yazd 'Towers of Silence'

The question I always ask is: why not?

Surprisingly I felt absolutely nothing. As I wrote, I had just walked out of the building when i heard the bang from the electric substation. At that I turned around to see if there was a fire. There must have been some movement at ground level but I was not aware of it, perhaps because I was turning around and more concerned about the consequent lack of power in my condo. This is on the top floor of an 8-storey buiilding - not high. On my return I checked for things like plaster cracks. No problem at all. Had the building been much higher, I am certain there would have been some damage. I was very lucky.

Apologies - duplicating was perhaps an unfortunate choice of word. But I still think if there is a major actual event happening anywhere in Thailland, with many posters living or visiting Bangkok there has to be a very good chance that someione else will also have picked up the information and might - stress might - have posted it in one of the sections. I'm sure you will agree that a quick check would avoid what could become two threads dealing with the same issue.

I had literally just got out of the lift in my condo and walked outside when I heard a loud bang. It was the nearby elecricity transformer. I was on my way to do some shopping on SIlom and Sukhumvit. When I got a taxi, the driver was almost screamng at me - "Aftershock! Aftershock?" I stupidly did not understand what he was saying because I had actually felt nothing as I was walking. Then my partner started sending me X videos of water like a waterfall coming from a skyscraper swimming pool, and then another of a tall building under construction that was collapsing. I then realised there had been an earthquake. But that's odd, I thought, because Bangkok is not in an earthquake zone! The traffic was becoming bad and eventually my taxi driver dropped me on Saladaeng Soi 1 saying he had to get home. Not even having had breakfast, I was hungry. The Skytrain and MRT plus shopping malls were closed. Fortunately, market stalls were open, and then I found some guys drinking at a tiny Spanish restaurant on Saladaeng. They told me it was still serving food. I therefore enjoyed an excellent lunch. By this time the internet was working again and I could see that the quake did not occur in or near Bangkok. It was a major 7.7 quake situated close to the surface near Mandalay in Myanmar. That's a big one, bigger than the 6.9 shock I had experienced near San Jose in 1989. It was felt all over west Thailand and in China's Yunnan Province. The only other time I recall Bangkok ever experiencing such a shock from a quake was the one off Aceh Province in indonesia in December 2004. Shopping abandoned, getting home was the problem. Silom was choked with traffic for the most part not moving. Taxis and motorcy taxis were impossible to find. So i walked down Convent and eventually found one motorcy driver on Sathorn prepared to take me the 4 kms or so to my condo. He wanted Bt. 20 more than I offered which i was delighted to agree. Weaving through the enormous traffic jams on both Silom and Nanglingchee was sometimes scary but the driver knew what he was doing. I got back safely - only to find the lifts were still out of action! 8 floors later and an exhausted owner finally was home and ready for whatever water was left in the shower! But still no aftershocks, and I expect there will be none as they will usually be much closer to the quake's epicentre. We would certainly have felt a few by now if we were going to get any.