airasiaX stops flying to london from 31mar2012

london
What a surprise, i was exchanging emails with someone from malaysia and he mentioned that airasiaX is not flying to london. 


well, i got an email from airasia talking about their services and there it said they are having a premium airasiaX line specially for airasiaX customers. So if they have that line, why all this talk of it ending flights to london
(turns out theyhave that line to handle all the complaints of customers who have booked on the now defunct flights to those places that they are closing down.)


anyway they have a 'ask airasia' link in that email, and there i saw a link saying Airasia withdraws service to mumbai,delhi,  paris and london .


So it is true. how awful.(By that i mean awful in a gossipy sort of way haha) just today i saw an advert by MAS telling us about its A380 planes. they will be competing with SIA and with all this extra capacity, how do they expect to fill them?


perhaps they will find business people coming over. today i read that malaysian sovereign fund had bought office buildings in london.
Added. 9.2.12 saw a ft article about cracks in the rib foot of the A380 which has to be replaced and Etihard whose whole fleet is A380s have to take the planes out of commission and losing money and threatening to sue. the L    shaped structure called a rib foot (funny name that) connects the outside metal skin to the internal structure and the cracks are in 25 of these all situated between the engines out of 4000 rib foots in the whole plane. 
(its funny that i first called them toe ribs, haha. i had to look up the article in the FT, which i took back home with me to find the actual name.) it seems it is a lighter grade of aluminium used to make the rib feet. 




I have been reading a book by john nicholson, the meat fix. Quite a fascinating account of his journey from being a vegan for 26yrs, to a full member of the meat eating fraternity... and telling us how his health improved no end. 


during the process i learnt from him that horsechestnut pills help his piles reduce .


that soya is bad for you. and that it is in everything that is processed. to think i know of soya only as the soya drink and tofu, that we get in malaysia. who would have guessed it has grown into such a big industry. 


that cholesterol in your food is not related to how much cholesterol u get in your blood. 


that polyunsaturates are not that healthy and thus vegetable oil is not so healthy either. 


butter is good for you.


carbohydrates are bad for you.


i think in the end, it boils down to get a balanced diet, remove processed foods from diet,  and dont eat so much.haha.


Added. 11.29pm. simon came back from his 2wk holiday in phuket. 
hmm, i forgot when he is supposed to be back. 
he enjoyed his stay, even though he managed to lose a third of his money. well, i suppose it is better than losing all of it last year when he went there. haha. 
this time he split the money into 3. 


sigh, his soul wants it, even though he tells me his soul does not want it. haha. he said he thinks he lost it when he was buying duty free. he said he distinctly remember putting the roll of money into the side pocket of his bag, but he thinks maybe he missed the pocket entirely. Well, if that is not what his soul wants, i dont know what is. 
no one i know will miss the pocket while thinking he had put in inside. 
of course, if his soul really do not want him to lose the money, he will take out only that amount of money he needs rather than flash a big roll of money for all to see . I told him to do it next time. but who knows what his soul wants ... that soul of his rather likes to make his life difficult. 


At first when i first read of it in an email he sent me, i felt unsettled wondering how he will cope and whether he will get into hardship from it. there was not much i can do, so i decided it serves no one any good to worry about it. so i put it out of my mind and forget about it. haha. it takes some skill to forget these things and i would really advise everyone to learn how to do it. it saves u a lot of unneccessary worry for nothing. 
because as he told me, he did fine even without the money that was lost. 


he managed to meet a thai woman about 40yrs old who works as a barmaid who attached herself to him, even though he told her he had no money to pay her. And she introduced him to her friends. 
that was how he got into company of germans who invited him to their parties, one chap had a birthday party and treated everyone to food at his place, and later to drinks at a bar. 


and in other times, they all pooled their money and bought large jugs of alcohol. 


the thai woman has an arrangement with an elderly english guy of 80 who retired there and who rented a flat with 2bedrooms which he let her and her sister stay free provided they pay for utilities, and keep the place clean and run errands for him.


Rather a good arrangement for all concerned. i think. 


anyway, simon was able to have money left over at the end of the holidays. so that just goes to show u can have a good time without spending lots of money. 


simon says he noticed the price of  the rental for a guy sexworker has gone up from about 1000 bahts to 2000-3000 bahts now. pricey isn't it?
not that simon used them. haha. he could not afford them anyway. but u can get it for free, as he did haha. if u hang around the beach at 4am. 
he said this was the price for the free lancers not attached to the brothels. You will pay more for those in the bars to take them out. 


though he said after a few days , he said he was not too bothered about the sex. 


it was hot duringhis stay so much so that he welcomed the short bursts of heavy rain that cooled the air. 


Hearing him , made me glad i am not there. haha. it sounds very nice, and all that, but i know it is not for me. i will be bored i think spending 2wks there. 


There was a english guy retired there, he lives in a rented house for  5000 bahts a month, about £100 . so cheap , but it was outskirts of patong area and full of mosquitos, simon said. he was bitten badly by them and still have itchy bites now on his legs. Still, as a retirement place thailand seems v reasonably priced. 


though i am not too sure about the mosquitos. it reminds me why i am so glad to be here in london. haha.




no wonder so many go there to retire. they get a one yr retirement visa which have to be paid for of course, but saves them having to fly out every time to get an ordinary visitor's visa renewed. in the past they could just cross the land border to get it done, but not anymore.
Added. 11.3.12 i forgot to mention that simon told me the old retired guy actually had his pension stopped because they thought he was dead. so he had to go to the british embassy in thailand with his identification to sign and confirm that he is still alive. haha.
it looked like that is the ploy by home office to make sure there are no unauthorised people getting the pension of dead relatives who have moved overseas. Or to stop payment of the pension to bank accounts overseas where the recipient have long ago died. Legit claimants can confirm they are still alive but if no one confirms, it means payment pension to long dead accounts can be stopped.


Added 9.2.12 got an email from a friend who had gone to live in thailand when he retired. he said he is getting a bit fed up of the bureaucracy to get his visa extended. So u see, when u put yourself into a situation to escape from conditions at home in uk, u get into another set of situations. 
When you do things and change, make sure what u are changing into is really what u want, so all these niggling things can be tolerated because what u really want more than compensates for it.  


I think he is getting problems with the bureaucracy because he had not learnt the art of bribing the right people to smooth his way. he do not know how to listen to what people are saying to detect whether they are fishing for a bribe or not. 


Added. 12.3.12 my friend john who had just got back from his 2month holiday to s.e asia told me that he overstayed in thailand . he was given a 30day visa on entry but forgot and left after 34 days ,so for the extra 4days he overstayed they fined him £40. hmm, malaysia will give him 3months . strange that the thais are not so generous with the length of the visa. maybe a way to make more money out of the visitors to their country? though if i remember right, the visas used to be free ... must ask john my friend who was there if he had to pay for his visa. simon did not mention it, and neither did john.  maybe they still are free, and it is just the thais wanting...  what? 
simon will tell you that it is the Russians who are spoiling it all for everyone. 
when he was in phuket, he heard the german friends of his saying that prices have gone up because the russians just dont care what they pay.
simon said they told him the russians would shove 2000 bahts at the waiter who brings them their orders, even though the drinks would come to 500bahts. 
with such generosity, it is no wonder all the businesses up the prices . 

simon off to phuket

just took this picture of my sitting room lamp. the stand i bought in a car boot sale long ago, and a friend repaired the wiring to make it into a lampstand. it is made of brass with carvings on the sides.

london
Simon told me he is all set to go to phuket this coming friday. With the internet, buying airticket is so easy and quick now. His ticket is with Thai air, costs £700 return, transit one hour change over via bangkok.
Well, here is hoping he has good weather there.
he has allready booked his hotel, online. costs him 600bahts a night.
he will be there for 2wks, though with the airtravel and time difference, it is really about 10days. i think that is a good length of time.

Can't say i want to join him. haha. I dont fancy flying anywhere these days not with airfares the way they are and the hassles of security.

Simon is like all westerners that i know of, he wants that holiday and he wants it NOW.

Around now i know john, from poole, will be coming back after being away in kl, and thailand and laos for 2months.

Here in london, I am making contact with other guys who are interested in being naked. There is a guy in exeter who said he has been living a naked lifestyle since birth, as he was brought up by his father in a one parent family. It is unusual, and first time i met someone who has been brought up nudist and continue to practise it.

I have heard alot about kids whose parents are nudist but do not continue to live a nudist style when they grow up. But this guy seems different.

We s.e.asians just cannot imagine what it is like to grow up in a naked household, because no one has ever lived naked amongst family. in fact, so many will reacte with horror if they were to see their parents naked.

And before i got involved in a naked lifestyle i too would have reacted the same. haha. In fact, i would have done the same if someone had told me that they are gay. Even the idea of parents having sex seems horrible when you are a kid.

But i guess that is what it is like to be growing up in s.e.asia. No one talks openly about sex, and maybe the children may not want to hear it too. People are embarrassed about it.

I dont know if it is a good thing or not to have sex hidden away.

In some ways it is good, because it means u can enjoy your childhood without bothering about the sex.

On the other hand, it makes u horribly ill equiped to handle sex when you grow up and get the sexual urges. And being raised catholic there is also the guilt pounded into you.

Ah well, it may not matter what your upbringing, because in the end, I found out i am gay and got to like it and no harm done inspite of my upbringing. i simply discarded the catholic beliefs.

But maybe not many others do and are saddled with guilt all their lives. who knows...! And that is why it is so difficult to decide if having a religious upbringing is fair on the child.

You will all have known about the christian foster parents who have been refused adoption because they believe gay is a sin.

My parents believed gay is a sin too, but it has not affected my being gay... and no hangups about it... so maybe it is not the upbringing, nor is it about the parents beliefs, but more about the child.
If the child's soul wants it, it will overcome the upbringing.

Look at all the gay people in the world. We all have been brought up to think of being gay and loving and having sex with men is horrible. But we become gay anyway. haha. So what difference does all that brain washing do? Nothing.

The only thing it did is to make some gay people very miserable about being gay...
Poor them. But their souls wants to be miserable, and believe it is bad to be gay, because if the souls dont want to be sad, it can just as easily believe the opposite and be happy that they are gay.

It is like a straight married couple who believe in monogamy and having children and being faithful. That is well and good if they are lucky to find a good partner , but if not, they will be very miserable indeed...
If their souls wants it, they will continue with the unhappy marriage and make the best of it... the children might benefit if their parents stay together and look after them.

If their souls wants it otherwise, they will divorce.

So in the end it is what their souls wants.

Simple, isn't it?

Hey, i dont know how i got from simon flying to phuket to ending with divorce and souls...

haha.