PeterRS

Apologies. The Taipei beach is Shalun Beach 沙崙海灘 Very easy to reach from Tamshui terminus on the red subway line.

Sadly I have missed the sakura in Tokyo as often as I have seen it. The only time I was guaranteed to see it were the years I lived in the country! If I was making a special trip specifically to see it, a) I'd be flexible date-wise, and b) I'd be flexible location-wise. But inevitably that means a very significant budget. As has already been pointed out, the blossom moves from south to north over a perdiod of 3-4 weeks or so. Then you have to keep a keen eye out for the weather. I recall one year I lived near the centre of Tokyo. The sakura was almost in blossom and then the next day it all looked magnificent - truly a bucket list event. But that night it rained, and the following morning most of the blossoms had fallen to the ground. I found that there are certain colours more prominent at certain times. On my last visit in earlyish April pre-covid, it was all mostly white. At other times it can be mostly pinkish. Whatever, though, whereas the blossom trees are all over the city, you need to go to where it is most concentrated. I only know the city centre ones. In addition to Ueno Park and Shinjuku Park I mentioned earlier, a great place to visit, especially in the evening is Aoyama Cemetery. An odd place to view the sakura but it has many trees. It is also fun to go in the evening when so many people also have their dinner on their tarpaulins lit by little paraffin lamps. As @Keithambrose points out, there are various internet sites which give you details of the updated daily progress of the sakura each season. The one problem is that no one is ever sure when it will start. That is totally up to the weather.

Sincere apologies. You are quite correct. In my original post I should have written $110,000 for the price that girl paid for the Baccarat bottle of cognac. (I had omitted the K from the subtitles!) Little wonder, as the host points out, that a lot of the girls become prostitutes to supprt their habit of attending host bars.

As a doctor, I would have expected you to write more succinctly and clearly on what is an extremely serious subject. You highlight obesity. You are correct, thank you. You sort of suggest giving up smoking. You are correct. Thank you. You do not mention diet and you do not mention other lifestyle issues. Alcohol intake is another. As I stressed, age is one. A look at the Mayo Clinic page on pancreatic cacer offers considerably more than your post. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pancreatic-cancer/symptoms-causes/syc-20355421

Do you know something? You are acting like the child you were roughly a year ago when you were discussing the farmer outside Tokyo who for decades had refused to sell his land to enable Narita Airport to expand as it wished. You told readers in post after post after post after post that he was wrong. He should have taken the money. Yet those who had lived in Japan a great deal longer than your few weeks there, who understood and respected Japan's history, culture and traditions, who understood how the Japanese revere their land, who accepted the decision of the governments of the day and who, most importantly of all, respected the views of the tens of millions of Japanese (if not more) who sided with the farmer, meant absolutely nothing to you. They were wrong! The farmer was wrong! Only you were right! Now it is the same. You refuse to accept that other government medical experts may be wrong on the issue of cicumcision because you are right. Well, you are again wrong! And guess what? The farmer is still there. And world governments who are not in favour of circumcision will not change their minds after all the debate on the issue just because you throw at them some studies they no doubt read ages and ages ago. Do with your copies as you wish. But accept that a large majority of our varied world just does not agree with the practice. End of discussion.

1. Naked Homophobia There is one anniversary which I consider very important in our gay calendar which I will write at length about next month (yes, for those who don’t like long blog-type articles, please do not bother to read either this or it). There is an event about to take place in England which I now remark on here. Both refer back to major events in gay history around 60 and 70 years ago, one in the USA, the this one in England. Both should be remembered even at length when we consider the relative freedoms we all now enjoy as gay men. (As this post deals with England, American readers may wish to skip it, although it is no doubt mirrored by similar events in their own country.) As most readers will know, the legal system in England and Wales is different from that in Scotland. The former decriminalised homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in 1967; the latter not until 1981. Whereas between the two World Wars homosexuality appears to have been rather brushed aside as a matter of little public import, in England the anti-brigade thereafter suddenly seemed to burst into life. We all know from the film The Imitation Game that the code breaker Alan Turing was gay. We know too that through his work he shortened the course of the War in Europe by, some say, two years. Gay relationships existed post war, but it was far from easy and most gay men found most sexual gratification through casual acquaintanceships, often in public lavatories, a practice known as “cottaging”. I do not know anything about Turing’s habits. All I am aware of is that he was discovered to be homosexual only because he freely admitted it to the police. His house had been burgled, ironically by a friend who himself was homosexual. That ‘friend’ was one of his casual sexual acquaintanceships, a 19-year old unemployed youth he had met outside a cinema. When explaining the events of that night with the police, he was confronted with the information about his friend. When asked if he, too, was homosexual, he did not try to hide it. Although he was the complainant, his solicitor urged him to plead guilty. He was then charged with “gross indecency” and given the option of two-years in jail or chemical castration. Had the police had any idea of his wartime service, the chances are the case would have been swept under the carpet. But he was bound by the terms of the Official Secrets Act and would have been subject to even greater legal penalties had be broken them. Rather than go to jail, in March 1952 he chose chemical castration. It ruined him. He lost his security clearance and hence the job he loved. He was still able to travel in Europe and in more tolerant Norway did find another man he enjoyed being with, Kjell Carson. He invited him to spend some time with him in England. But the authorities intercepted the postcard on which Kjell had informed Turing of his travel plans. They then deported him before the two could be reunited. In June 1954 he committed suicide. The English establishment had effectively murdered the one man who had save countless hundreds of thousands of lives less than a decade earlier. Alan Turing - Photo: The Nationlal Portrait Gallery, London Turing was just one of many rounded up in what became essentially a witch-hunt. Entrapment was one of their methods. Young handsome police officers were actually trained how to troll around cottages, shown how to seduce men and then wait to be propositioned before making an arrest. One caught in this trap was one of Britain’s most famous actors, the recently knighted Sir John Gielgud. He was taken to court in 1953, like Turing pleaded guilty and was fined £10 for “persistently importuning young men for immoral purposes.” Although he had been allowed to appear in the dock under the pseudonym John Smith, a journalist in court recognised him. As this was splashed all over the newspapers, for many in England it was a scandal to revel in. Yet more evidence of the furtive, dirty lives of men who were deviants, no matter their reputation! For it was fact that those people who even considered homosexuality at that time did so with revulsion. Gielgud himself was utterly mortified. He believed his career was ruined and, as he told his biographer Sheridan Morley, he considered suicide. It was only thanks to the love and loyalty of his many friends that he remained alive. As the Turing case was made into a film, so Gielgud’s case became the subject of the 2008 play Plague ever England. Its author, Nicholas de Jongh, wrote at the time that he wanted to use the offence to illustrate the depths to which the law in 1950s Britain had sunk in terms of enabling the prosecution of tens of thousands of men simply because of their sexuality. And as we know, both men are now held in the highest possible regard in Britain. Turing had the remarkable honour – and honour it was because he was one of less than a handful – to receive an official unconditional pardon not just from the Prime Minister but also from The Queen (although I am not sure why it should be termed an “honour” when he had to die before receiving it). His face now adorns Britain’s £50 notes. English heritage has had a plaque placed on the house where he lived. Most notably for the gay community, Turing himself would probably be most pleased that parliament passed the Turing Law in 2017 which effectively pardons most categories of living and deceased gay men and is intended to wipe their criminal histories from the official records. Just one well-known name to receive the pardon is Oscar Wilde. While most welcomed the move, some campaigners to change the law claim it does not go far enough. Being pardoned automatically presumes one has been guilty of some offence. George Montague said he would refuse the pardon. Instead he wants a formal apology for government actions. Still, from saviour from war, to convicted criminal, to suicide, to becoming known to all in the UK in a very positive light and a gay martyr as a sort of icing on the cake, Turing’s existing family members must be in some senses pleased. Sir John Gielgud - Photo: Godfrey Argent 1969 Sir John took most of a year off appearing on the stage following the publicity surrounding his conviction. He gradually worked his way back, first touring a one-man show and then in some of the many plays being written by the new generation of “angry young playwrights” like Harold Pinter, John Osborne and Arnold Wesker angry at the state of Britain and many of its communities. But first he had to complete performances of the play he was then appearing in. As one blog site (listed below) writes of that first evening – The day that the news broke of Gielgud’s arrest he was paralysed with fear. At the time, he was in Liverpool, starring in a performance alongside the formidable Dame Sybil Thorndike, and felt it almost impossible to go onto the stage that night. As the curtain was about to go up, something remarkable is reported to have happened. Dame Sybil grabbed Sir John by the arm and whispered in his ear, “Come on John darling, they won’t boo me”. With that, she led Gielgud out into the dazzling lights of the Royal Court Theatre. You can almost feel the tension as the expectant audience stared down at the two theatrical legends — one intent on giving her usual astounding performance, the other shaking like a shitting dog. There was silence. Not a shout. Not a boo. Not even a cough. And then…..a standing ovation. The audience cheered and applauded Gielgud, raising the roof of the Liverpudlian theatre. The message could not have been more abundantly clear. The people did not give two hoots what Johnny got up to in his private life, they considered him an outstanding actor and held him and his performances in such high regard. His sexuality did not matter. Dame Sybil Thorndyke; “a glorious actress” quote from the celebrated British actor Paul Scofield - Photo: unknown That summing up may not have been entirely true, but it was to have two effects. The first is that Gielgud’s view against suicide was reinforced. Far more importantly it led to a far deeper public discussion about homosexuality and why it was regarded as such a heinous moral crime. It was to play a key part in parliament’s further enquiries and finally decriminalising homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967. It is important to realise that the law was not merely intended to ferret out homosexuals and parade them as deviants. Equally it played an important role in preventing gay men, however closeted, from certain professions. One was the law itself. As a young Jewish man born in 1951 who knew he was gay, Terence Etherton realised he was destined for a career in medicine or law. Even though the gay section of the law had been changed, the views of many higher up the profession had not. Etherton was aware that the conservative (with a small ‘c’) wing of the legal profession would prevent his becoming an elite Queen’s Counsel, the highest rank for a barrister, and that he could never become a judge. Although the law had by now been changed, the Conservative Government’s Lord Chancellor in the early 1970s, Lord Hailsham, had made his disgust of homosexuality. Very clear. Earlier when appearing before the Wolfenden Committee which had recommended parliament change the law, Hailsham stated, “The instinct of mankind to describe homosexual acts as ‘unnatural’ is not based on mere prejudice.” In a 1994 BBC programme he went a lot further. “All the homosexuals I have known have been extremely eager, like alcoholics, to spread the disease from which they suffer.” Lord Hailsham - Photo: Getty Images It is a mark of the progress made by the higher-ups in society that Etherton not only did become a barrister and later during the Queen's reign a Queen's Counsel. After retirement he was enobled. Terence Etherington, the boy who believed doors were closed to him because of his sexuality, became Baron Etherington. He died in May 2025 leaving behind his long-time partner Andrew Stone with whom he had entered a civil patrnership in 2006 which they converted to marriage in 2014. It is just possible that Hailsham may not have been aware of some of the more nefarious deeds some of his fellow Lords were up to! Or maybe he was and merely turned his mind from it. Robert Boothby had been a member of parliament for 34 years before being elevated to the peerage. In the 1950s he had been a prominent advocate for changing the law against homosexual acts. Perhaps Lord Boothby had a special reason for suggesting this for his personal life was, as been frequently described as colourful. Twice married he enjoyed an affair for many years with the wife of a senior politician who would become prime minister, Harold Macmillan. But Boothby played the field. One of his close friends was the openly gay MP, Tom Driberg. In 1979 Boothby began an affair with a man he appointed as his driver, Leslie Holt, a former burglar. At a gambling club he had been introduced to the notorious gangster Ronnie Kray. Allegedly Kray supplied Boothby with young men and arranged for him to attend orgies. When all this came to the attention of the British media and hints were made, the government enabled it to be hushed up. After the German magazine Stern which was under no such restrictions published the stories, the British media finally went to print. Boothby denied everything, it was all hushed up again and Boothby received £40,000 for libel. Many were aware of Boothby’s indiscretions but all were afraid to mention them openly. it is said that even the Queen Mother was aware of his activities! The ever ebullient Lord Boothby - Photo unknown And it was all true. In 2015 government documents were released including files from the internal security service MI5 proving Boothby’s fondness for young men. The list could go on, for several peers and other notable figures from the 1950s, 60s and 70s were very much in the closet. Much is disclosed in the long article mentioned below Double Lives – a history of sex and secrecy at Westminster. All this is a very long preamble to a new play that will be opening in the UK on 4 February in Salford outside Manchester, England. Naked Homophobia takes the audience back to the 1950s and looks in detail at the very first programme to be broadcast on the BBC on male homosexuality intended for 1954. As we know, the anti-gay law was then in force. As a result, the issue was so taboo the BBC mandarins decided in their wisdom to withhold broadcast for three whole years. They then edited it heavily prior to transmission. As today’s article in The Guardian points out the programme shines light on the experience of gay men in the 1950s and explores gay themes that still resonate today. The play’s author Stephen M. Hornby had access to the original BBC script - “The overwhelming message I got from reading it [the original script] was either naked, foaming-at-the-mouth homophobia of people like Lord Hailsham. Or the more liberal voices who say conversion therapy works, you ought to give it a go at least – and if not you can live a quiet life of abstinence and not do anything which would scare the horses,” Hornby said. The programme was presented by the man who would later go on to Chair the Homosexual Law Reform Society. A strange choice, perhaps, given that in the programme he describes homosexuality as “a sort of infantilism” and “an arrested state of development.” The author discovered that the programme makers had also attempted, although unsuccessfully, to involve the wife of a businessman and mother of three sons who had written a long expose on homosexuality in The Sunday Times newspaper. She had written – “It may seem a strange thing that a woman should write about homosexuality. But I think many mothers suffer from the fear that, through no fault of their own, their boys may be tempted or warped.” Mary Whitehouse, photographed rather inappropriately outside a sex shop! Photo: BBC That writer was Mary Whitehouse, a well-known and influential name in Britain as a crusader against what she termed “filth” in the media. She died in 2001 and is now almost totally forgotten. When the edited BBC programme was finally aired, there was such a public backlash that the BBC took the decision there would be no more programmes on the subject. Following its season in Salford, the play Naked Homophobia will tour to Birmingham, Brighton, London, Liverpool and Loughborough. Primary Sources https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jan/16/bbc-first-programme-on-gay-men-homosexuality-1950s-stage-play https://medium.com/the-pink-green-room/tis-a-blushing-shame-faced-spirit-gielgud-s-cottaging-catastrophe-95446be36325 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/16/double-lives-a-history-of-sex-and-secrecy-at-westminster#:~:text=The long parliament of,were published in the 1960s).

E-cigarettes have been banned in Singapore since 2018. Now a new crackdown is on the way. The reason: drug-laced vapes named K-Pods have become popular on the streets. With its zero policy towards drugs, the city state is introducing new harsh punishments if caught with e-cigarettes. These include being jailed, sent to state rehab, being caned and fined US$7,780). When found, sellers can be sent to jail for up to 20 years. Note: foreigners and tourists will receive the same punishments and a hotline has been set up so the public can report if they see anyone using vapes. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3387lrz5g4o

Andresen was not gay. He wrote later that he felt extremely difficult being with Visconti, Bogarde and a crew who were almost all gay. All were under instructions that Andresen was not to be 'touched'! He said that a few years later he did later have one gay experience "to try it" (!) but did not enjoy it.

As mentioned the vdo was made some years ago. But in ¥ terms, given the devaluation of the curency it is probably no more expensive now. You could always try it and see! 😵

1. I do not know the other two sites mentioned, but agree that no matter how many actually look at this site, I doubt many of these would pay much attention to adverts for host bars. As @Vessey suggests, it is far easier to produce eye-catching and interesting ads and other info for spas, discos and other gay venues than it is for host bars, the more so when in Jomtien they are all packed together in one relatively small area. Sunee (in the cleaned up version) managed to draw a crowd not so many years ago precisely because it was not a cluster of one type of bar. It provided host bars but intermingled with gogo bars, some of which had very different 'themes' offering different experiences. If you like, it offered a smorgasbord of delights. As I mentioned earlier, variety that singles venues out from the crowd is important. How you achieve that in Jomtien I have absolutely no idea! As for restrictions to the content of posts, these have been in place for a very long time. I wonder if the time has now come for a complete revision. 2. With the merging of the US and the Thai sites not so long ago, the type of posting was bound to change. No longer restricted to Thailand and to a lesser extent the rest of Asia, this is a global site whether we like it or not. I suspect this was a financial decision as managing Boards like this must involve considerable expense. But the Code of Conduct on posting has not changed from the old gaythailand days. "It is based on straightforward mature behavior, civility and courtesy that you find in a neighborhood Pub or Tavern where neighbors and acquaintances joined by occasional strangers come together to socialize in good temper, to share conversation, and to hoist, in moderation, a glass of favorite beer or wine or a cup of coffee or tea." It has frankly not followed those Guidelines for quite some time! More change needed?

Not sure if you mean ever been to Puerto Vallarta or to a naked beach. No to the first and yes to the second. On my regular visits to Sydney my friends would take me across the harbour, buy some great sandwiches and drinks at a delicatessen and proceed to a beach named - I hope I recall correctly - Obelisk. Smallish, totally naked with mostly men, although twice some girls joined the crowd. Very occasionally a group of four young (late teens/early 20s) Asians would also appear. A lot of mostly middle aged men would be tanning themselves on the rocks to the right while to the left were a lot of bushes where there was occasionally some action. As a regular visitor to Taipei I have yet to venture to the nude gay beach outside the city near Tamshui. Although nude bathing is technically illegal, Shaun beach is popular with gays, there is some nude bathing and some action behind I am told.

Indeed, but thank goodness those of my generation could avail themselves of it. When I first came to Asia and for many years afterwards, Spartacus was the bible. It was far from perfect and it missesd a lot, but my goodness I and i am sure a mega number of other gay travellers to so many Asian countries would have been lost without it. It would be fascinating to find out how many members this Board actually has and how many lurkers. At the foot of the active pages now, there is a list of last logged in members. Without an actual count, it looks like 120. Yet on the members pages it says 207 now on line. Fine. The difference is really immaterial since both are quite a lot. In advertising terms, though, they represent merely a tiny fraction of the gay market even in Bangkok and Pattaya. One key issue that has been raised before is that many gays living in Thailand can not be bothered reading any of the gay chat rooms. Not one of my gay friends reads this site. When I ask them why, they say they have no interest. They have their own circle of gay friends and sources of information and that's all they want. They have no interest in chatting on subjects with people they do not know and are unlikely to meet. I always thought this Board must have the largest readership. I used to get access to gaybutton's Board on my phone. Now I cannot get it on any of my devices using Safari, Chrome and Firefox for some reason. But I seem to remember it included a list and claimed to have vastly more members. Given that the posting membership is a small fraction of that of this Board and almost totally Pattaya-centric, I find it both strange and slightly unbelievable. But that is what was printed the last time I was able to check a few weeks ago. But I seriously believe that if cash has to be paid out advertising a bar or spa in the columns of a Board like this is hardly likely to increase patronage. Besides, the threads on this Board already give a pretty good idea of what are the "in" places. Since we know that probably a majority of patrons now come from other East Asian nations, that is where the message should be spread. I'll be in Taipei again at the end of the month. I'll see if my Taiwanese friends have any ideas. Then again, I really wonder how one host bar where they are so packed in a place like Jomtien Complex can stand out from the crowd? All have (presumably) cute boys, all serve drinks, some have an improvised type of show - but that special "come to my bar" ingredient is just not there. Something along the lines of what was offered at Eros and Happy Boys would surely attract some new parons. But would that degree of nudity be permitted now?

You present facts based upon US medicine. Other countries base their research on similar types of cases. But you in America elect not even to consider that you might - just - be wrong. As for deserving @Moses, I can tell you I'd much rather live in Moscow than Los Angeles. It's an amazing city. I have been in Los Angeles half a dozen times. Apart from the Getty Museum, the Disney Concert Hall and a few bars and restaurants, I have zero desire to return. In fact, looking at lists of things to do in Los Angeles, the few sites I have checked have as many hotels oon them as proper sights to see! It's just a huge freeway choking in car fumes.

Please be careful to avoid the sakura blossom season. Japan is beautiful at that time but everything is a good deal more expensive - hotels in particular. And the main sakura viewing sites like Ueno Park and Shinjuku Park in Tokyo are often packed.

As usual @macaroni21 has hit the proverbial nail on the head. Advertising and marketing really is vital and with 46 years of visiting and living in Thailand, I can say with confidence that this has almost always been way more than lousy - it has usually been non-existent. Why expatriates (and i believe bar owners usually are exaptriates, at least in Pattaya) decide to open up bars to while away their retirement without in some way making sure they are going to have not just customers but a regular flow of customers totally beats me. Little wonder more than a few give up and some of these have no doubt lost quite a bit of cash. The one time when there was advertising - of a sort - was around the 1990s and early 2000s when several different magazines were published and distributed free to gay venues. Each had not only advertisements for specific gay venues, some - especially those in Thai - had interviews with owners, boys etc. One published by an expat in Chiang Mai tried to become a more generally based gay magazine and even had in one issue an exclusive interview with Sir Ian Macellan. Its publisher returned to the UK and it ceased publication. Each magazine had maps at the back with the main venues listed. That was a particular help to quite a number of first timers. But getting that information absolutely 100% correct was never a possibility unless the magazines had reporters on the ground following each movement of the shifting gay sands. I recall reading endless comments on gaythailand.com about a certain bar or other not being positioned correctly. That it might have been 50 meters away was of no consequence to them. If they had to do as they do now and find out for themselves, I doubt if they would have been so picky!! Japan has a large gay publication market. Advertising there would be ideal, but far too expensive for what is likely to be a limited clientele. Hong Kong also used to have a free gay publication but I am not sure if it still exists. Various chat rooms exist elsewhere, including one in Singapore with a travel section. One thing is sure, though. Advertising requires some cash. Fly out a journalist from one of the international gay magazines - or better still, persuade them to use a local stringer - to aggressively promote your bar, is about the only suggestion I have. Whatever, the old song had it right in my view -

No, I do not enjoy. What is the point of posting that photo of an ageing Shirley Maclaine? There is no point in a gay Board! I agree with @Pete1111. Clickbait! Unless you want to have sex with an older guy what is the point of a thread like this other than some weird form of personal jollification. Some peole age well; others don't. An example of the latter was posted some months ago. Bjorn Andresen was named "the most beautiful boy in the world" when he appeared as Tazio in Visconti's 1971 movie Death in Venice. Some years before his death he looked very different. What is wrong with either photo? They reveal a real person.

I am giving up trying to reason with one who will not listen to reason. And no doubt you feel the same way - although you are almost totally wrong! 😵

Yesterday I wrote an article under Theatre, Movies etc. about the 10 year anniversary of the death of actor Alan Rickman. He died of pancreatic cancer aged 69. If you are a man, do you realise you are one of almost 500,000 who will contract the cancer this year? And are you aware that unless it is caught early and has not spread to other organs, your chance of surviving for five years is just 13.3% according to the National Cancer Institute? I'm not a doctor but I do know something about this cancer. Just over five years ago, my doctor at King Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok had me undergo a full abdominal CT scan for a totally unrelated issue. From the scan, she noticed a small cyst on my pancreas. She understandably wanted to know what might be underneath that cyst. She explained that if one was 5mm or less, normally she would not bother. But mine was slightly larger at just over 6mm. So she had me do an MRI scan. This showed nothing abnormal underneath, but she said she wanted 5 annual scans just to make sure. I have now completed 4. I had heard about quite a number of prominent people dying of this insidious cancer, but before my experience I had no idea even where that organ sits in the body. In fact it is behind the stomach. One reason for so many deaths is that it is frequently misdiagnosed when first visiting a doctor. Many consider it could be a stomach complaint or a mild back ache. So it is frequently caught too late. Hard to detect and hard to cure! That is why Alan Rickman and so many others have died, often much too early. These include Steve Jobs, Luciano Pavarotti, Aretha Franklin, Patrick Swayze, Joan Crawford, Sir Rex Harrison, Henry Mancini . . . That all these were rich and famous did not prevent them from undergoing checks before the cancer became too advanced. Steve Jobs was aware of his diagnosis but he chose not to be operated on. Why, I have absolutely no idea. But he soon realised he had made the wrong decision. I am not listing links simply because some deal only with the USA or other specific countries and others worldwide. Just type in pancreatic cancer and it will throw up all manner of links. From what I have read - and I trust doctors will correct me if this is incorrect - there is nothing one can do to prevent the onset of pancreatic cancer. Generally thought to affect only older people, the really worrying fact is that worldwide rates of this cancer are rising, especially now among younger people. In the USA the rate for those under 50 is around 2 per 100,000 (figure from the Dana Farber Cancer institute).

False Information? Tell that to all the non-American countries which have or are considering banning circumcision apart from for religious or cultural reasons. Their findings are based on false information? What nonsesne you spout! And clearly you do not read earlier posts. Yet again you state ridiculous "facts" which you state as fact. You have absolutely no idea how many boys died as a result of not being crcumcised - not one shred of evidence. You guess! You equally have not the faintest idea how many die during or as a result of the operation itself. Since you are a fan of statistics, one study estimates that 1.3% of male neonatal deaths in the USA from all causes occur as a result of botched circumcisions. In 2022 there were 1.88 million male births in the USA. That results in 24,400 deaths. Fact! Then look at the numbers in The Philippines where admittedly it is a cultural issue and boys are willing to be circumcised but only becauseof tradition and all their schoolfriends are. They do not want to be "different". Although not a cultural issue, the same was true in South Korea where boys at school felt 'different' if they were not circumcised because of the influence solely of American doctors. Without that American influence, circumcision is likely to have remained virtually unknown in that country. And the introduction of circumcision occurred in the immediate post war period long before many of the official studies quoted earlier were conducted. Lastly, the rate of circumcision is declining in the USA largely as a result of mass immigration of peoples for whom circumcision is not practised- those from Chinese speaking, South and East Asian, Spanish and other nations - who make up 15.8% of the US population. What are you doing to encourage these peoples to go against their natural traditions? As those immigrant boys mix with their American friends, more Americans will see that circumcision is not the universal truth they have been led to believe.

Idiotic comment!

Name those ultra-distinctive male voices from stage and screen and the numbers are few. Richard Burton is arguably the first name that will come to mind. Sir John Gielgud. James Earl Jones and perhaps Sean Connery for his Scottish burr! In our more recent times, unquestionably at the top of my list would have been Alan Rickman who died ten years ago of pancreatic cancer. A stalwart of the British stage before his breakout movie role as the villain in the first Die Hard movie, from the Judge in the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually, the bewitching Perfume; the Story of a Murderer, with the young gay actor Ben Whishaw, through the role that most around the world will recall, Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, his voice was unmistakable - a deep, rich, glowing, sometimes growling voice with, whenever required, a hint of menace. What we did not know was much about the actor himself for, like many, he preferred to remain in the background. In today's Guardian there is a lovely article with comments from a number of actors and others who worked with him including Sigourney Weaver, Brian Cox and screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary). It paints a portrait of an extraordinary human being. I think his last performance in Eye In The Sky one of his best. A world weary British army general utterly torn between his men seeking to kill terrorists far off in Kenya by means of drone strikes and his political masters who cannot make a decision. With the objective finally obliterated although with the additional cost of civilians, as he leaves the cabinet room one parliamentarian tells him the casualties were just part of war. To which his character turns and stares equally wearily at the lady before his final line. It could have been said angrily, menacingly in any number of ways. Rickman says it in an almost matter-of-fact way but you can hear the hate lurking in that voice. "Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war." He was literally dying when he completed that movie. A few comments (deliberately unattributed) - - Whenever he’d ring me on speakerphone in my car and someone else was with me their eyes would nearly pop out of their head. That amazing voice! The depth and richness and enunciation. - Alan elevated friendship to an art form. His friends grew in number throughout his extraordinary career but he never dropped his old pals in favour of more starry ones. - He taught me a great deal about charity [said by one of the boys in Harry Potter]. He would often have half a dozen people visit the studio each day, and would claim they were his cousins or friends. Really, he was offering terminally ill children and their families a chance to see behind the curtains. - His death was such a theft from us; this brilliant, gorgeous actor, who had so much more to give, was suddenly gone. Although I was one of the close friends who was privy to Alan’s illness and visited him as he faded, I could not reconcile myself to his absence . . . Alan was undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest actors. His distinctive languid voice and his sublime ability to embody the characters he played made him truly exceptional. - The most loving, generous man in the world, with such charm he made everyone weak at the knees. Such wit, such a sense of humour and kindness that surpassed anything I had ever witnessed before. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/14/i-fell-in-love-with-him-on-the-spot-alan-rickman-remembered-10-years-after-his-death

The basic concept may have come from Japan but if you are used to Jomtien host bars, don't go anywhere near one in Japan. The reason is twofold. First the best known Tokyo ones are in Shinjuku's Kabukicho district where they are virtually all for young girls. More importantly, you'll need several credit cards and thousands in the bank - of $$ not ¥! The whole point of these bars is not to get close to a girl outside the confines of the bar and not to have sex with the customers - although both occasionally happen. The aim is to develop a relationshp with a girl who will come back to spend time and oodles of cash on booze with you as often as possible. As a host on one youtube video says "These bars are creating Disneyland for customers and they end up believing they need to revolve their whole lives around this Disneyland." This vdo below has been included in these columns before. So it is slightly out of date. It features the No. 1 host in Japan about 7 years ago, but the principle is exactly the same today. The video starts off with the host arriving at his bar in a new white Lamborghini, a present from a customer. Cost? Probably around US$370,000! He makes tons of cash every month from commissions on the huge mark-ups on premium booze. One 19-year old girl who technically cannot drink alcohol in Japan gladly tells the camera that the most expensive bottle of booze she bought in the bar was a Magnum Decanter of Louis XIII Cognac. For this she paid US$110 - in cash!

That I would have "fun" starting a very important discussion for men on the very serious subject of circumcision rather illustrates how you go about writing your frequently barely intelligible posts. You're clearly having fun in your own little world.

Yes, it's bad in Thailand but it is not confined to the rich and powerful. It is endemic. Go around the country and you will discover examples almost everywhere. I doubt if you can divide corruption into the bad and the less bad (is palming a few red bills to an underpaid traffic cop to avoid a traffic ticket corrupt?) but throughout much of Thailand's history those in villages have more or less had to look after themselves. A dependency grows among communities. Put at its simplest, I guess, almost an I scratch your back, you scratch mine mentality develops. Wth democracy it has got much worse amongst the elite and the mega-rich. Against that you have sometimes amazing acts of generosity. It hardly feels like more than seven years since those 12 young boys and their soccer coach were trapped in a northern cave for 17 days. In order to attempt to free them, a massive amount of water had to be pumped out of the cave system. The only place it could go was into the fields of local villagers thereby destroying their crops. The government offered the farmers compensation. All refused it. So many people from all over the globe were participating in the hoped for rescue, they said. The farmers also wanted to help. But Thailand is only one Asian country where corruption is rife. Economically speaking The Philippines has been repeatedly raped by a clutch of ruling families who have become mega-wealthy. Endemic corruption has ruled for decades at the head of Japan's supposedly squeaky-clean government. Hong Kong was virtually a cess-pit of corruption until the government introduced a fully Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (ICAC) with its own police and judiciary in the mid-1970s. Suddenly some of the big players fled the city, including a Chief Justice whose nickname was Brenda, top lawyers, high-placed police officers and civil servants. It quickly cleaned up Hong Kong. Not squeaky clean since major corruption cases still feature in the headlines - but only very occasionally. At the turn of the century when a local newspaper did a poll of Hong Kong residents asking them to nominate the ten best things to have happened in the territory during the previous century. The establishment of the ICAC came in around 6 or 7.

There has now been a second fatal crash, with yet another crane crashing to the ground. This time on an expressway construction in Samut Sakhon not far from Bangkok. This time a crane collapsed on to a highway. Two dead so far. Death toll in the earlier crash involving the train stands at 32 according to the BBC website as of about three hours ago. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g7n7yd9do