PeterRS

With 15 now dead, this has reminded me of the much larger massacre of another group of people in Sydney, this time belonging to the LGBT community. Roughly from the mid-1970s to the late-1990s, it is estimated that 88 gay men were murdered and an untold number of others assaulted in various part of Sydney, including Marks Park very close to Bondi Beach. Marks Park was a favoured meeting ground for gay men and many were murdered by being thrown off the cliff. Several gay-hating gangs were reported to be involved. There existed in Sydney at the time a serious attitude of homophobia. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in New South Wales in 1984 just as the AIDS pandemic swept the country. For years the NSW police had been arresting anyone suspected of being gay. That did not change with the change in the law and there remained within the police force the view that all gay men were criminals. Thus the investigation into the gay murders was half-hearted at best. Only a few culprits were ever brought to justice. The Bondi Memorial 'Rise' artwork in Marks Park with the names of the known dead within the stonework (for it is suspected that at least 30 were never reported) commemorates these dark days of Sydney's gay past.

I'm always curous! Although I have had some not pleasant ding-dongs with @Moses (partly my fault, I admit), I would appreciate his advice if he wishes to give it. I haven't been to Moscow since 2011. As mentioned in a thread yesterday, for part of that visit I was at a Conference and we were housed at the lovely Swissotel. It has a circular bar at the top from which you can see many of the city's landmarks. On two evenings, three colleagues and I (all but one gay) spent quite lovely evenings in that bar. Our waiter was a beautiful slim Russian named Pavel and it seemed he twigged quite quickly that we were a gayish crowd. We particularly enjoyed watching the antics of the young barmen who were all equally handsome and superb at their job. Pavel told us that all were from another country which I cannot now remember and one had won a bartenders' prize at some quite major competition. Watching these guys go about their work made us all think some - quite a few, in fact - were probably gay. Is that likely to be true, or is it more likely they were adopting certain western mannerisms only to make us think that? Two years later, I was with a friend in St. Petersburg - fabulous city! En route to Catherine's Palace, we noticed a lot of young guys probably in the 17-20 age range. We later realised there was a stop at a nearby Technical College. They were laughing and having a good time. Two even stood up to give us their seats (both of us having grey hair - but in 25 years of living in Bangkok this has happened to me only twice!) Although my companion on that trip was a lady, two of the students seemed - and perhaps this was merely wishful thinking - to be looking at me rather intently. When they left the carriage, both looked round at me. The impression I had was that both might have been gay. On that trip we had got an amazing deal at a 5-star hotel on Nevsky Prospekt. Serving in the Executive Lounge was a gorgeous looking young man who told me he was 18 and only worked part-time to save up for a laptop computer. His English was amazingly good and I spent an entire afternoon just chatting with him - and also admiring his uniform which had rather tight-fitting pants! He gave me an idea of some places to visit which are not on the usual itineraries, one of which was just a rather lovely park. I had visions of his being gay and spending a night in my large room, but of course that would have been totally out of the question. I never even found out if he was gay. Probably not, but I made sure he had a handsome tip to put towards the purchase of his computer! So my question is: is it usual for young gay men to be attracted to service jobs in Russia?

Don't you realise it's just a bit of fun - not a course in English dialects or syllable counts? You could have added that Madras no longer exists. But fitting Chennai into the limerick doesn't quite work!

Agreed. Honeker was an ultra-strict harliner and his regime in East Germany was arguably harsher on the people than any in the western communist bloc, with the exception of the loathed Ceausescu in Romania. In this respect he followed almost exactly his predecessor, the staunch Leninist Walter Ulbricht. Ubricht's first job was to call in Soviet troops to put down a widespread uprising. For whatever reason, he twice made it on to the cover of TIME magazine, once around the start of his regime which the west assumed might be relatively liberal, and once when the Wall had just gone up and the country locked down. His attempts to build a Stalinist state failed miserably leading to mass migration to West Berlin. Hence his decision to build the Wall and shoot anyone trying to escape. Increasingly he failed to follow Moscow's directives. He was finally forced out of office in 1971 and replaced by his fellow dictator Honecker. He died two years later. Although the Wall was not built under his regime, Honecker was given responsibility for it and was exceedingly proud of what he had achieved. Yet, like his predecessor, we should recall that by the time he departed Germany, Honecker was a very sick man. He was suffereing from liver cancer. Arrested in 1990, he was released when his medical condition became known. He was quickly spirited to Moscow where he could not be touched by the Arrest Warrant issued in West Berlin. He was in fact brought back to Berlin in July 1992 to face 75 criminal charges and put on trial. It was in January 1993 that he was released on medical grounds and permitted to fly to Chile. A very sick man, he died the following year. Although it is thought he lived a normal life after his ouster, it was in fact very different. For him it must have been a miserable few years. He would have been better off suffering the fate of Ceausescu - capture by his own people three days after fleeing in a helicopter and shot.

With much regret I am indeed hinting this. But not because it is my own view - not in the slightest. It was what Rob Reiner said many times in a considerable number of interviews. He stated that he and his wife took their son to endless doctors, psychiatrists or whoever they believed qualified and thereafter took their words as gospel. Thus they meted out what he called "tough love" whereas, he also stated, instead he should have listened to and acted on his feelings as a parent. Rob also said that he didn’t listen to Nick as much as he should have while the family was battling Nick’s addiction. “The program works for some people, but it can’t work for everybody. When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen. We were desperate,” Rob said in the LA Times interview. “And because the people [at rehabs] had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.” https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/rob-reiner-nick-reiner-movie-being-charlie?srsltid=AfmBOorJxXBVojORU-7j9UUGEdTFYsZB8DgNefAVgSEMIR1OT1q5QNIr Michelle Reiner in another interview echoed her husband's views Michele said: “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/rob-reiner-nick-reiner-kill-home-1236451409/

There once was a girl named Jill Who used a dynamite stick for a thrill They found her vagina In North Carolina And bits of her tits in Brazil.

Having lived in Tokyo for a couple of years and visited at least 70 times before and after, i have never once had any problem bringing a guest to a room. Same with friends who have visited. And this covers almost all types of hotel from 5-star deluxe (paid by client) to 2-star tiny business hotel. This includes hainvg guys stay overnight.

Were all the attendant porn stars ladies? No gorgeous Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese male beauties?

FIFS'a incompetence has once again come to the fore. Having announced ticket prices massively higher than in their bid document, faced with a worldwide outcry it has - guess what - reduced prices, or at least some of them. Instead of US$4,185, some will get in to the Final for $60. And that $60 will also apply to all the matches. What a bunch of idiots to think the footballing world would accept their initial fiendishly high prices!

I'm not sure how you can call it "great brotherhood" when most of the rest of the world was doing precisely the same. The reason of course was realpolitik. Most of the world still basically hated the Vietnamese who had so badly beaten the Americans and it was the Vietnamese who had invaded Cambodia to stop the Khmer Rouge. Even China voted to keep the Khmer Rouge seat in the UN since it had beeen an ally of Cambodia and a foe of the Vietnamese for decades. How you can consider this as a particular "shame" on a developing country like Thailand rather beats me! Nothing is ever simple in global politics.

To brighten the festive mood and get our minds of all those Christmas balls and fairy lights, how about a few naughty limericks? This is an old one with many variations There once was a man from Madras Whose balls were made of brass In windy weather, the clashed together And sparks came out of his arse.

That was probably Erich Honecker! LOL

"Hey, Your Majesty!" is the correct form! But then I have never been in that situation. I did once meet his mother, the much loved Elizabeth II. I was in a small group of six headed by some member of the aristocracy - a mere Honorable I think, not even a Baron - and it was all rather like a Monty Python sketch. We had been briefed that we only spoke if spoken to by the great lady. The end result is there was silence for about the first minute! Even the Honorable seemed terrified. At least we had drinks in our hands. I spent my time looking at the diamonds around her neck and literally dripping from her ears, wondering how much they'd be worth!

With all respect, you outline a scenario which will not happen. Of course that is just an opinion, but when you look at Thai/Cambodian relations since this tiny border conflict started, relations between the two countries have actually been quite good. When Pol Pot's forces massacred a million (or was it much more?) of its own citizens, even with the border dispute Thailand set up camps near the border to house hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees. Had these not been in existence, who knows how many of those refugees would have been killed? Tempting as it is to make such a comparison, in reality they are worlds apart. First, the Soviet Union's hold on its satellite states was crumbling badly. In May 1989 Hungary had basically opened its borders, torn down its fence with Austria and allowed its people free movement. This enabled East Germans to travel to Hungary and then get to West Germany via Austria. Soon there were massive demontrations in East Germany starting in Leipzig. To suggest that these were "joyful" is, with respect, nonsense. The chanting began with "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!" They were demontrations solely to get rid of the East German regime and introduce democracy. East Germany then tried to close all its borders. Honeker paid no attention to Gorbachev's warnings. At a meeting of the East German Politburo on 17 October Honeker was forced out of office and Egon Krenz took his place. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was basically an accident on the part of the authorities. Almost certainly it would have eventualy fallen, but the impetus was a mistake. Krenz intended to permit East Germans to visit West Germans on a new travel visa which civil servants started preparing. The task of announcing this was given to the editor of the Neues Deutschland newspaper who was Party leader for Berlin, Günter Schabowski. Sweating and tired, Schabowski erred when answering a question from an American journalist. The speech which he had in his hand made it clear the travel visas would start to be issued on the 10th. Asked when it would start Schabowski replied "immediately, without delay." This news travelled fast around the world. By 8:00 pm the East German broadcaster ARD announced, "East Germany has opened its borders." By 11:30 pm the border guards who had still received no orders opened the bridges and the floodgates opened. Through that error the Politburo lost much needed time. Krenz resigned on 6 December. He was eventually sentenced to 6 and a half years in jail for his part in the killing of those who had earlier tried to escape via the Wall. The dictator Honeker died in Chile in 1993.

I totally agree with your comments about Trump. But not with your first sentence. Put yourself in my position as outlined in my post, when I would often be confronted by civil servants and political appointees who disagreed with my professional advice, even though that is largely what I had been hired to give. Sometimes I was ready to scream at them. But I realised it would have done absolutely no good other than perhaps getting me fired. And having moved 6,000 miles to get the job, I was not ready to fly another 6,000 miles home. I had no choice but to bottle up that anger. But then I would spend some time working out how to achieve my goal through other means. To begin with that was not easy and I did quite seriously consider giving up the job and returning to the UK. But guided by an elderly lady who had spent most of her life in Hong Kong, she taught me quite a few tricks that over time enabled me to get my way, almost every time. That was more than four decades ago ago and I'm still here in Asia!

The man who drove into the crowd in Liverpool in May was sentenced yesterday to 21 years and 6 months in prison. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/16/man-who-drove-into-liverpool-fc-parade-jailed-paul-doyle

On a day when the ghastly murder of movie director Rob Reiner and his wife appears to have been a result of extreme anger on the part of one of their sons, we are reminded that anger in whatever form can have consequences. In the Reiner’s case, it certainly appears to have been the result of their son's many years of substance abuse, perhaps – although this is only being hinted at and may not be fact - a misunderstanding on the part of the boy’s parents on how to deal with such very substantial on-going substance abuse, and a steady build-up of anger. We know that anger can be exhibited in many forms. Sometimes in an outright explosion of sorts. Sometimes it is bottled up only to show its ugly face in a seemingly inexplicable outburst at a later time. Frequently it is related in some way to mental health issues. Today in Britain another form of anger is being faced. It was meant to be a day of joy. Vast numbers had poured on to the streets of Liverpool on 26 May to celebrate their football team winning England’s Premier League. Streets were all but closed as the team atop their double-decker bus slowly made their way through the city centre. One car driver, Paul Doyle aged 54, became increasingly angry that the crowds meant he could not get to his destination. His anger mounted. As it did so, he took action. Shouting “Fucking hell. Move!” he continued on his way, driving right into the crowd. In his seven-minute rampage he injured 134 people, many severely, before the police could finally stop him and drag him away. Mercifully no one was killed. Having pleaded guilty, he is due to be sentenced today. The prosecutor, after outlining the suffering he had caused and referring to police dashcam footage, told the Court he was a man "whose anger had completely taken hold of him." I suspect that from time to time we all lose our tempers - with the honorable exception of our mild-mannered @vinapu - but never with such disastrous consequences. Some are more prone to anger than others. Some go to therapy to find some help. Some even enrol in classes to treat issues of anger, helping us accept those things which annoy us but will always be part of our lives and how best to deal with them. Like it or not we all have to deal with them. During my career I quite frequently wanted to scream at idiotic government personnel and civil servants who knew far less about a subject than I, the professional hired to advise them. I can recall two instances where I did let down my guard and let the madness take over. Perhaps surprisingly each had the desired effect. One delighted me; the other depressed me. The longer I lived in Asia, the more I came to realise that there can be other ways to achieve one’s objectives, more subtle ways that usually take longer but without the other party actually understanding I had won the day. I often think that annoyance, anger and other negative issues have increased very significantly as a result of social media. When we are in a pub along with other people there, few of us would scream at someone, “You’re just a fucking ignorant bastard!” As the result, at the least that would be likely to have a drink poured over us. On social media, there are no such consequences. A round of name-calling, perhaps with, depending on the circumstances, one banning the other. So, effectively what in a ‘live’ situation could have quite serious consequences, is dismissed with virtually none. What’s the point of being angry when you can make the other just disappear? Yet the anger seems to get worse. It’s basically why I call it unsocial media. On this Board we see some of this, but not nearly as much as in some other chat Boards. My discussions with @Moses no doubt fall into this category. There is much we dislike in each other’s commentaries, but if we were meeting in somewhere like the lovely circular bar atop the Swissotel in Moscow with its cute waiters and bar tenders, I suspect we would both be considerably more diplomatic, even though we would still never agree. So I suppose the point of this post is to pose the question: do little things annoy you and how do you cope with the resultant anger!

In theory you may be right. In practice, nothing ever works that way! You have to accept that this is the tiniest of a tiny fraction of the world's border disputes. And given how large many of the others are, not one nation is going to do anything to help Cambodia and Thailand sort out their little mess. Examples: 1. India/Pakistan: the state of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is claimed by both countries. A UN-mandated ceasefire to demilitarise the region was technically put into effect in 1949. Neither party agrees to it and three further wars have broken out. There remains no solution. 2. India/China: two large and several smaller parts of the border are claimed by both countries. A border war took place in 1962. Since then there have been two more wars and regular skirmishes and deaths on both sides. There remains no solution. 3. Morocco/Algeria: folowing years of fighting, the long 1,427 kms border region was closed to all traffic and personnel in 1994. 4. The Spratley Islands: these islands are claimed by China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. The primary reason is the reserves of oil and gas believed to be below the surface. The basis of claims is complicated, but China has musled in and started to build miltary bases. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not cover the sovereignty of disputed territories, and so this stand-off with occasional skirmishes will certainly continue for quite some time. I could cite dozens more. Many, as with Thailand/Cambodia, are the result of ineffective and disputed effects of colonialism.

I cannot believe the dissolution of parliament sets the stage for a military coup. The snake Anutin might then find himself very quickly out of a job and he has been angling after that top job for many years. I suspect it is more likely that Anutin wants a larger majority to consolidate his Premiership and hopes he will get one. How absolutely correct! @vinapu hits the nail on the head again.

It was me. I have no idea nor interest in what Lavrov and Milliband said.

Occasionally they also shared boys! I recall meetng one in Phuket who was taking time off from his usual Chiang Mai bar. I really enjoyed the one just off Rama IV. The boys really danced, really used the (dancing) poles and always seemed to be enjoying themselves.

And using "darling" in posts is even worse than "dear". Quit it!

It is now certain it was an act against people practising their Jewish religion. However, no matter how awful this tragedy, I find the comments of Benjamin Netanyahu nauseating. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had written to his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, in August, warning that the government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire … emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets . . . Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” Thus spake the criminal who is guilty of the murder of more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority women and children. International journalists aiming to clarify the numbers are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza.

But as a member pointed out above. the ICJ has been involved - twice! Once in 1962 and again in 2013. It has clearly stated that the temple and its immediate vicinity belongs to Cambodia and has instructed Thailand to withdraw troops. The ruling was based on maps drawn up by the French and approved by Thailand in 1904. That Thailand has not followed the ICJ ruling for more than 60 years has clearly had almost zero effect on other ICJ members! https://www.icj-cij.org/case/45

The writing is contained in a part of the Board which I think many members unwittingly never read. It is contained in the "Guidelines" section which you can see along the top. One section is headed "Covenant". In there you see the words - "Personal information that can be used to identify a member, a user, or a go-go boy or bar boy, whether or not a Gay Thailand member, shall not be permitted. No member shall publish or cause to be published such personal information." Thus, strictly adhering to that wording, identifying individuals who work in bars by a number or a description can - at least in theory - result in being banned from posting for a period of time. As I stated in my earlier post, I believe these Guidelines were written at least a couple of decades ago. In other words, almost certainly before the age of personal phones and social media. It might be a good idea if they were rewritten and updated - but that has to be an issue for the Board owner. I was not in fact referring to the Escort Review section which is hidden from public view as there are rarely any posts made in that forum. My remarks were a result of quite a number of members in many more general posts understandably wishing to know the name/number of a masseur, gogo boy or contact from social media who has given either particularly good or particularly bad service. Responses often give some information which might - I stress only "might" - go against the Covenant. Perhaps some of us can write to the Board owner to suggest the Covenant is changed and brought up to date. PS: Apolgies to @spoon - I edited the penultimate paragraph about the Escort section being open only to members after his post was made.