PeterRS

How funny that @Department_Of_Agriculture downvotes the post that is 100% true! Takes all sorts!

Clearly his life was very far from the proverbial "bowl of cherries." I wonder how much his experience in playing Tadzio in the movie really did affect his life thereafter, and how much his family circumstances of, for example, losing both parents before he was ten (it was only later he learned that his mother had committed suicide) have to be factored in. Since he wanted to become a musician, he cannot have been the withdrawn, introspective type. Clearly, though, he absolutely hated all the hoopla surrounding him and the movie around the world, especially in Japan where for several years he was treated like a pop star. As he relates in a Guardian article four years ago, for him it was "a living nightmare." “I don’t think it’s ethically defensible to let a 16-year-old bear the burden of advertising the damn film,” he says. “Especially not when you come back to school and you hear, ‘Hi there, angel lips.’ A guy who’s in the middle of his own teenage hormone tempest doesn’t want to be called ‘beautiful’.” He thinks the adoration inhibited his development. “When you snap your fingers and you’ve got 10 chicks running after you, there’s no need to learn any social skills for dealing with the opposite sex.” He says it took him until 1992 to finally rid himself of all the demons, horror and memories that had plagued him since Death in Venice. The memories naturally remain, but he is no longer frightened by them. As the directors of the documentary claim in their film, "He had the feeling of being used. He was packaged as an object." He allowed the directors of that documentary to follow him for six years and he is happy with the result. It made him feel that finally Tadzio was dead. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jul/15/death-in-venice-screwed-my-life-tragic-visconti-beautiful-boy-bjorn-andresen

Just remember some rooms have no window - mostly the cheaper ones I guess.

Many airlines abandoned loyalty decades ago. At the start of the 1990s, Cathay Pacific, my home airline in those days, offered lifetime Marco Polo Club membership with access to first class lounges whichever class being flown to those who reached 2 million miles within the decade. As a constant traveller, getting the miles was not very difficult. By mid-1998 I was up to around 1.7 million miles and confident I would reach that 2 million miles mark. Then in early 1999 CX cancelled the scheme with no perks even for those who had almost reached 2 million. That was when I switched my airline loyalty scheme for more than a dozen years. As for the horrendous price hikes mentioned by @unicorn, I fear more airlines will jump on the same bandwagon. As the seats in business class are upgraded virtually to individual suites, so the total humber of seats in that cabin decline. And since it is the seats in the front of the plane that make a route profitable, the cheaper business class seats that many have got used to will disappear from many of the airlines. Another reason for price hikes is less popular routes. I have no idea how popular or otherwise LAX to VIE might be, but I suspect not especially popular. Although a one-stop flight is boring, I wonder if LAX to MUC might be a good deal cheaper. If so, a second MUC to VIE flight might make the trip cheaper. On the other hand, I thoroughly recommend picking up a car and driving to Vienna, perhaps with an overnight stop en route. It is a beautiful drive.

While we focus in The Beer Bar on the death of the Swedish actor from Death in Venice, another popular actor has passed away, one who excelled in a totally dfferent genre. Asked to name the most famous TV comedy series of the 1970s, most will probably name Fawlty Towers with the dithering, accident-prone John Cleese trying to manage a small hotel. Partnering him was Prunella Scales as his much more practical wife, Sybil. A consummate actress, she was 93 and had been suffering from dementia for many years. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the airing of the first Fawlty Towers series. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjd0yn5gyndo

Andrésen came to hate having been part of Death in Venice. Not gay himself, he was surrounded in that movie by gay men, principally the director Lucino Visconti and the lead actor Dirk Bogarde. Visconti's production team was also mostly gay but Visconti had warned everyone not to put a finger on his young star. As Andrésen himself said, once shooting was complete, Visconti took everyone to a gay bar in Venice. He was just 16. Andrésen hated it, thinking everyone was looking at him like their next "meaty dish". He felt Visconti "didn't gave a fuck" to what he himself might be feeling. After the movie Visconti never spoke to him again. Unlike many young aspiring actors, Andrésen had never wanted to be on the stage or in film. An accomplished pianist and musician, he loved music and wanted that to be his life. It was his grandmother (his parents had died when he was young) who pushed him to audition for the role. What he thought might be "a cool summer job" ruined his life. He hated the title accorded him "The Most Beautiful Boy In The World" and all the worldwide publicity and particularly gay attention that was focussed on him after the movie. In 2003 the Australian feminist author Germaine Greer wrote a book titled The Boy that featured the 15-year old Andrésen on the cover without his permission. He was furious. Yet by this time he had accepted that this would be the title of a documentary about his life made in 2001. This shows much of the tragedy he endured. His marriage and subsequent divorce, lying quite drunk next to his beloved 9-month old son only to wake and discover he had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He entered a period of major depression and became an alcoholic. Yet he told the directors of the documentary that he regretted little in his life apart from a year in Paris in his early 20s. Promised a role in a film which was never in fact made, he was installed in an apartment by an older man and paid a generous stipend. I read somewhere that he did have one gay experience which he did not enjoy. I suspect this probably happened during that Paris sojourn. He continued to make music and the occasional movie, The last was in 2019 of him as an old man who tries to commit suicide. It is tempting to think that this photo below was taken during the filming of that role. But it was actually taken two years later. I wonder what other readers thought of Death in Venice. I loved it when I first saw it in the cinema. Visconti had an eye for capturing the beauty of the Venice of that period and those who visited it. And that long, long opening shot of the steamer gradually appearing out of the dark morning mist sets the tone perfectly. Bogarde also gives a masterful performance as Aschenbach and the use of the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony with its underlying emotional intensity was perfect. But in watching the DVD a few times with friends, I am struck by what appears to me a sense of artificiality in Andrésen's performance. I feel that too often Tadzio gives Aschenbach a sort of "come hither" look which is not in Thomas Mann's novella. Sometimes its just a gaze - as on the beach; at others a hand resting on the hip when on the hotel terrace. It may be that Visconti intends this to be only in Aschenbach's mind. Whatever the reason, to me it goes just a shade too far in making Aschenbach realise the essence of beauty and perfection that his music has lost. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT/Shutterstock https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/28/bjorn-andresen-obituary https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/bjorn-andresen-dead-death-in-venice-most-beautiful-boy-1236410476/

Apologies - this was duplicated in a slightly later post.

A photo has appeared on the BBC website showing Harvey Weinstein with Epstein and Maxwell at Andrew's home, Royal Lodge. When his daughter Beatrice held a masked ball in Windsor Castle to celebrate her 18th birthday in 2006, it was known that all three were on the guest list. Not known was that all three had earlier visited Prince Andrew's home at Royal Lodge during that visit to London. Now the information and a photo have been leaked. The date of the birthday was two months after the warrant for Weinstein's arrest had been issued in the USA. Echoing his comments on the now infamous BBC Emily Maitlin interview, Prince Andrew said he "wasn't aware of it." Maxwell was a relatively frequent visitor to royal residences. The BBC has also re-published this photo of her and actor Kevin Spacey sitting on the Queen's thrones in the Buckingham Palace thone room. The photo was discovered by The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the early 2020s. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g7d39n6vgo Meantime, the King was yesterday heckled after an engagement in the Midlands. During a walkabout, one man shouted, "How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?" He then twice asks, "Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew?" The King must surely realise that the 'Andrew' issue has to be resolved faster than perhaps he would have wished.

In Kuala Lumpur this week, Trump co-signed what he termed "another peace deal", this time to solve the Thailand Cambodia border hostilities. Naturally Trump called it "a momemtous occasion" and claimed credit for having stopped the hostillities. Only, as the BBC correspondent notes, the deal does not solve the root of the century-old problem. It merely pushes a solution further down the road. As Thailand's Foreign Minister told the BBC, it is not a peace deal but "a pathway for peace." What the deal states is that both parties will withdraw their heavy armaments and permit an ASEAN observer team at the border. As importantly they agreed to coordinate in removing land mines from the vicinity. At least the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahmin, in the late 1990s the chosen successor to then PM Dr. Mahathir Mohamad before Mahathir turned on him and had him sent for a lengthy jail term for sodomy - charges most Malaysians believe were totally trumped up due to Mahathr's anger with the way Anwar was dealing with the effects of the Asian Economic Crisis. Anwar's wife and six children finally succeeded in their effort to mobilise the government and the country for his release. As Anwar's reputation increased, he was sen to jail for a further 5-year jail term in 2015. Both convictions were finally overturned. When meeting Trump with cameras rolling, Anwar joked with his visitor, "I was in prison but you amost got there!" https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy40n3ykx93o

In Kuala Lumpur this week, Trump co-signed what he termed "another peace deal", this time to solve the Thailand Cambodia border hostilities. Naturally Trump called it "a momemtous occasion" and claimed credit for having stopped the hostillities. Only, as the BBC correspondent notes, the deal does not solve the root of the century-old problem. It merely pushes a solution further down the road. As Thailand's Foreign Minister told the BBC, it is not a peace deal but "a pathway for peace." What the deal states is that both parties will withdraw their heavy armaments and permit an ASEAN observer team at the border. As importantly they agreed to coordinate in removing land mines from the vicinity. At least the Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahmin, in the late 1990s the chosen successor to then PM Dr. Mahathir Mohamad before Mahathir turned on him and had him sent for a lengthy jail term for sodomy - charges most Malaysians believe were totally trumped up due to Mahathr's anger with the way Anwar was dealing with the effects of the Asian Economic Crisis. Anwar's wife and six children finally succeeded in their effort to mobilise the government and the country for his release. As Anwar's reputation increased, he was sen to jail for a further 5-year jail term in 2015. Both convictions were finally overturned. When meeting Trump with cameras rolling, Anwar joked with his visitor, "I was in prison but you amost got there!" https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy40n3ykx93o

Partly to steer this conversation away from fake news and back into the realm of reality, one more video partly relating to Prince Andrew. The two interviewees could not have more serious and respected backgrounds. Emilly Maitlis was one of the BBC's most formidable journalists who was given the scoop of a one-hour interview with Prince Andrew in 2019. Andrew had finally agreed to the interview which he believed would finally clear his name and confirm his oft-quoted comments about never having met the late Virginia Giuffre. Quietly, patiently and with great tact Maitlis stripped away Andrew's defences to the point where eventually no-one believed most of what he told her. The interview is available on youtube. I will not post it here, but you can watch it by typing in "Prince Andrew and Epstein Scandal: Newsnight". The other lady is Virginia Giuffre's co-writer/ghostwriter on her recently published memoir, Amy Wallace, who not only knew Giuffre very well, she stayed with her and her family on two visits lasting a month with her family in Melbourne. Maitlis starts by recounting a conversation she had with Wallace about Prince Andrew. Inevitably Epstein and Maxwell are heaviy involved but it ends by suggesting how the King now wants Andrew out of the way.

I see from The Guardian that police have caught two of the suspected thieves. This was partly a result of their having left behind at the scene of the robbery a ridiculous amount of materials from which they could be identified. You walk off with hugely valuable jewels but are so stupid you leave behind items which can through fingerprints and DNA identify you. Dumb! The men were identified from forensic analysis of items that were abandoned at the scene, including gloves, a hi-vis vest, a motorbike helmet, angle grinders and other power tools, a blow-torch and a walkie-talkie. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/26/two-men-reportedly-arrested-after-louvre-jewel-heist

I haven't checked recently, but I think your assumption is probably correct! I wonder who puts flowers on the grave.

Very well. Part of the original post was wrong, especially the heading,. I apologise unreservedly for those comments. With this I agree. As regular readers will be aware, I virtually always cite sources especially in my posts. And I am equally aware that sources may themselves not be correct. I have written several posts about the various scam centres in Myanmar, even posting a map of their location. A variety of references in several reliable websites claim that the number of people trafficked to man these centres varies from "more than 100,000" (BBC and The Guardian) to "up to 300,000" (AP and PBS). That's a huge difference but barring official figures, the use of "more than" and "up to" gives each source a reasonable 'out'. But that is really beside the point. My headline was wrong and allegation regarding theft of the Diana sappire wrong. Part of the post was certainly accurate, though. As @khaolakguy has stated - and I also stated - the drip, drip of scandal surrounding Prince Andrew, his ex-wife nd Epstein is not new. The issue regarding his being possibly evicted from his home is very recent, as both of us have stated. Seeing who has criticised the posting of 'fake' news has been interesting as three have critcised me in the past, in two cases with wrong statements which were not corrected and one for breaking Board rules. None apologised. But that was then and this is now. Chat rooms remain alive largely because of their diversity which I embrace. I apologise again.

Whilst I totally agree the amount is basically peanuts, do remember, though, that in the 'saying' this is for just 5 minutes! A one hour session in ¥ would therefore be 12,000 baht. I think even those girls in Soi Thaniya would be very happy with that!

Not quite in the same league and on a bit of a tangent, for years it was claimed that the day after the sinking of the Titanic the headline in the Aberdeen Press & Journal was "North East Man Lost At Sea." This was later easily disproved as a fabrication. The city does have one link with that disasterm however. The helmsman at the time the iceberg was hit was a man named Robert Hichins. Although neither Aberdonian nor Scottish, Hichins is buried in a graveyard in Aberdeen's Trinity Cemetery.

I have tried to make a long distance relationship work more than once, and both broke down. No matter how sincere the young man is in what he said, I suggest you have to know him over a much longer period before going into a boyfriend relationship (i.e. several visits in a couple of which you spend virtually all your time with him). Good luck.

As one who has stayed at the Capella on the river in Bangkok, I doubt if price matters much to you LOL

My one problem with a deaf driver would be their inability to hear traffic noises around them. A crazy driver heading at speed towards your taxi from the left or right might escape his peripheral vision.

I basically agree with your reasoning. David Hockney was a simple lad from the north of England. He dabbled in painting as a child and wanted to become an artist. Like the young Picasso and so many other artists, he never expected to become famous. That one of his paintings (see the Art forum) might be about to go under the hammer at auction for an expected US$45 million would no doubt have staggered him when he started his career. As with some of the paintings of other artists, their value is partly in the enjoyment of the buyer and partly in the investment possibility. What I often wonder is how anyone knows how the art market will develop. As far as I know, the great masters of the past like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Donatello, Durer & co made just an average living. They surely could not have known that future generations would place enormous cash value on their paintings and sculptures. Did even artists of later centuries like Constable, Goya and Delacroix consider increasing values? Canaletto was surely just a scenic artist rather like those who one sees today outside major buildings and palaces in Europe and elsewhere whose quickly worked paintings sell for peanuts. Canaletto's were basically sold to tourists as a memento of their visit to Venice on the Grand Tour. Yet Joseph Smith, the British Consul in the city, liked them, bought 50 and became the artist's agent. Smith later sold many to the King of England. One recently sold for a whopping $43.9 million at Christie's in July this year. What I wonder makes this any different from most of his other Venice paintings? The most expensive Canaletto ever sold "Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" I am all for reproductions. I have a smaller-sized reproduction of my favourite painting by Manet. I even have it as a fridge magnet! But most of the paintings in my flat were purchased for peanuts and are no doubt still worth only peanuts. But I enjoy them - and that is surely the main issue.

Is your living room that big?

I suggest we should also consider some of the good the late Queen did for Thailand. The annual tours around the country by the late King and Queen were greatly anticipated by most in the towns and villages. Queen Sirikit also did something to lessen the effect of the lese majeste law. When it was first produced, reference to and music from Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 musical The King & I was banned in Thailand. Even so, encouraged by the young Queen the Jim Thomson Silk Company had provided the costume designer with silk for all the costumes used in the production. Her Majesty even went further by herself attending a performance and then posing for photographs with Yul Brynner backstage. The Queen standing next to Yul Brynner and his wife after watching The King & I on Broadway This alone did a great deal to encourage a worldwide interest in silk made in Thailand. When the Abba musical Chess opened in the 1980s it was assumed that its controversial disco number about nightlife in Thailand "One Night in Bangkok" would be banned. It wasn't, although when the movie Anna and the King was being filmed a decade later, the ultra-conservative Thai government would not permit its being filmed in Thailand. The producers had quickly to move filming to Malaysia.

I stated at the outset that my sources might not all be accurate. There is one definite error - that the home of Prince Andrew has 70 rooms. The number should have been 30. That was definitely my mistake. 10 hours ago, khaolakguy said: What drivel! To post such nonsense without a single credible source is just silly. Just tittle tat That statement assumes that all that the post included is drivel and that is rubbish. Much of what was written is true, especially the the long detail on Prince Andrew and his wife with their multiple Epstein connections which has also been written elsewhere on this Board. Much of this has appeared in the daily media. https://people.com/epstein-claimed-emails-sarah-ferguson-celebrated-prison-release-daughters-report-11833147 I accept that the action against Queen Camilla is certainly more doubtful despite its appearing in a mass of videos (not merely the usual few click-bait versions) and repeated in at least one print media. If that is discovered to be untrue, naturally I apologise, especially for the heading. That major changes are afoot in the Royal Family is certain, although the secrecy surrounding all Palace intrigue inevitably leads to speculation. The increasing influence of Prince William even on his sick father is also fact.

There is an old proverb that starts "For the want of a nail the shoe was lost . . ." It is basically a reminder that seemingly unimportant acts can end up having grave consequences. If any family has learned a series of such lessons it is the British Royal Family. Virtually unreported internationally and but the stuff of gossip in Britain and through a series of youtube videos, in the last few weeks the royals have undergone an upheaval of seismic proportions. It is a highly complicated story and my sources may not have it all accurate. But enough seems to form the basic truth. The most amazing decision by King Charles is his announcement that Queen Camilla has from henceforth given up her title and all her royal duties. Members of her family are no longer permitted to enter royal residences. Camilla of course is the "other woman", the woman who King Charles loved before he even met and married Diana and with whom he carried on an affair right through that marriage. After Diana's death, over many stage-managed years, the couple remained in love until even Diana's sons approved of their father's remarriage. And it is surely a supreme irony that the late and adored Princess has played a key role in Camilla's downfall. Before looking further at this event that has shocked Britain, King Charles has had to deal with the fallout of the Epstein affair and the certainty that both his brother Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Andrew's wife, the former Sarah Ferguson, were heavily involved with Epstein. In what has been a very long drip, drip of excesively negative PR, both have been found guilty in the eyes of the public and officials of lying about their association with the pedophile. It seems certain that Andrew did have sex several times with the late Virginia Giuffre and the Duchess, who continuously overspent and was always in need of cash, continued to be in touch seeking yet more "loans" from Epstein, even after stating in public that she had severed all connection with him. Although divorced decades ago, for whatever reason they still live together in a 70-room home called The Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. The lease was negotiated many years ago but results in the Duke paying no annual rent. The British public is now doing its best to get them out which would take an Act of Parliament. A few weeks ago, in an attempt to counter the massively increasing public disdain, the Duke announced he was giving up his title and all his royal duties. His wife would do the same. But the furore has only increased. This week the King finally acted regarding his younger son, the Duke of Sussex married to the actress Megan Markle who live in California. They have been a thorn in the side of the royal family for some years. From now on, they will not be entitled to use the titles Duke and Duchess and their children will not be permitted to use the title of Royal Highnesses. But back to Princess Diana and how her influence resulted in the forced abdication of Britain's Queen. When Diana married the present King Charles, Queen Elizabeth gave her a very large oval sapphire. In due course, Diana had this fashioned into a choker surrounded by diamonds and with seven strands of pearls. It became one of her most recognised pieces of jewellery and she wore it when she danced with John Travolta. Photograph: Getty Images The sapphire matched the wedding ring given her by Charles. Catherine, the wife of Charles' heir Prince William, was given the ring and wears it I believe every day. The sapphire and diamonds in the choker were later made into a brooch which Diana also wore quite regularly. It belongs to the royal collection held in a special vault in Buckingham Palace. On Diana's death, the Queen had agreed that the brooch be given to Catherine, to the annoyance of Camilla who wanted it. But recently this brooch had mysteriously appeared at an auction house in Geneva. Was it real? Or was it just a copy? (The vdo states the brooch haad been missng for years. This is not true). But there was fortunately a considerable amount of paperwork associated with the brooch and royal investigators got to work. Camilla used her influence to gently and subtly place the blame on Catherine. Catherine even dicovered she was being followed. They soon discovered a secret go-between who identified the seller. This had been a resident of Ray Mill House in the English countryside. This happens to be Camilla's private residence where she often meets up with her former family. The King and his advisors were initially skeptical but it was Prince Wiliam, fiercely protective of his mother's memory, who told his father that action had to be taken. This could not be hushed up behind closed doors. As William's wife said to King Charles, "The 'crown' must always be protected, no matter what it costs personally." The King's sister, Princess Anne, was also very firm with her brother that action had to be taken quickly. It seems likely that Charles initially just did not believe what he was being told - or did not want to believe. When the theft was discovered, a double entry was also discovered in the logs for entry to the Royal Vault some weeks before the sapphire appeared in Switzerland. It seemed clearly to be an inside job. And one who has now been blamed in some of the media is a thief in the employ of one of Camilla's sons by her previous marriage. When photgraphs appeared of his young daughter wearing a brooch suspicioually like that of Diana, suspicion fell on Camilla. Back in July as all this was becoming known privately within the royal family, William called a family meeting when his father was on holiday. He said the jewel had to be returned. Camilla went on the attack and said she was entitled to borrow temporarily jewellry for her family. Allegedly she stormed out of the meeting with her granddaughter. Unknown to the thief, the piece of jewellry discovered in Switzerland had a clue - a short inscription on the back ending with the letter 'D'. Although there will likely be more changes in Britain's Royal Family, one who has been unscathed is the King's youngest brother, Priince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh. His wife, Sophie, was a greeat friend of the late Queen and it seems this couple will now be much more in the royal spotlight. Their (very handsome) 17 year-old son has been elevated to a Prince and he, too, will likely be part of the the new royal line up. With Charles still being treated for prostate cancer, these changes may all have come at a very appropriate time. The new Prince James walking with his father Prince Edward.

Apologies to @mauRICE who actually posted this news under the Thailand forum a couple of hours or so before I posted the above. I had not thought about checking with the Thailand forum as I just assumed this would be international news.