There’s a reason why this place I call home is what it is. It dates back to the Vietnam war. To say it “dates back to the Vietnam War misses the 100’s of years of opium and lawlessness that predated it – its like Schoedinger’s Cat – is there a cat? Only when the Americans’ have observed it! Fuck yeah!
During the Vietnam war which was horrid, misjudged and a clusterfuck all round to keep morale up for the US Military, Thailand became the destination for R&R – quick flight over, not a war zone, a burgeoning regional economic powerhouse. Soi 23 – is only known as Soi Cowboy. It was the original Thai redlight district. London has Soho – its what used to be forest and “So ho!” (the similar “Tally-Ho” is the same) was the call when you spotted a dear, and wanted to inform the King, who was the only one allowed to hunt them, they had a beast ready for a well aimed arrow. SoHo – note the different spelling – in New York is South of Houston, 1800’s for that. SoHo in Hong Kong is “South of Hollywood,” again 1800’s and the “Hollywood Road” is a very old road and relates to a place in Scotland well before the Californian place of the same name was even some plots of land a plucky property developer stuck a sign up on a hill! Bars and sex. Soi Cowboy – next to Robertson’s Department store where before I met her ran the Cosmetics Department was setup by an American guy, Texan? GoGo bars for R&R, ‘Twas ever thus” its where the whole idea of “Gogo Bars” comes from really.
Amsterdam has the redlight district, Wanchai is more the red light district in HK, rather than SoHo when I was running bars and nightclubs in Soho I’m not sure I ever came across a hooker touting for business, but there were shows and clip joints even back in the late 90’s or 2000’s, all on land that remains owned by the Crown Estate, basically all the yellow, reds, greens and purples on an English Monopoly board are owned by the Crown Estate. I worked on Regent Street lived on the corner of Coventry Street and Leicester Square, shopped on Bond and Oxford Streets and hung out in in Park Lane and Mayfair. These were my home and place of work. Since I was a kid though, and I grew up middle class, normal as, parents still together 50 years later,
Sun, sea and sangria
Its a classic, 60’s/70’s/80’s/90’s holiday advertising claim. You read English newspapers I reckon you’ll see that expression nearly every day across some mainstream news source. Europeans the same. For people to holiday – and it seems the world is getting closer all the time where the majority of the planet do get a holiday – to dispute that would be to deny the impact of a global pandemic, so lets not talk of the % of the global population that are able to take a holiday – like until every Tom, Debbie and I dunno – something with symbols? Like Musk’s recent kids are non Latin characters – like he found a 1970’s keyboard in a dumpster and swapped the PS2 Keyboard for a USB you wired up with a stick of gum and a lighter and named his kids after mashing the keypad? People go on holidays – and of course the canny English Madmen didn’t use the word “sex” they used “Sangria” The market for holidays where you go and make hand knitted cardigans with ex sex workers in Peru, its a bit more niche that the sun, sex and sex workers kind of vibe, even its not your thing, trust me, you’re in a minority of about 20% you want to go to the land of potatoes and tomatoes to go on a holiday like that!
Go on holiday, in the sun, get pissed have sex with strangers.
If you dispute this understanding of the world – I mean Warren Buffet famously said, “Its only when the tide goes out you see what people are actually wearing. Michael Lewis, also talking about finance said, “The 2008 financial crisis was really when you saw what different countries want to do with money when the lights were out and they thought no one was watching.” Iceland and Greece are my favourite countries in that book.
Lolz
We all want to do stuff differently, as individuals or counties and societies. I don’t care what your sexual interests are, mine are pretty much in the Pereto like 80% – we are like the Gaussian curves tattooed on my body – Standard Deviation, heard of that? – it runs abut 80% for one SD. But yeah sex? people whpo work in “The Adult Entertainment” Industry? Tehy are people too, and probably about 20% of global GDP is taken up with it. So you don’t like sex, you don’t like porno (nor me!), you have never had friends or met people that do work in that industry? Don’t bring me BS about “How its wrong! People don’t want that! My Aunt Settled Money on me (like a Bronte Novel!) and she would have been disgusted!”
The 1880’s called – they want you back.
Sun, sea and sangria sex
Its been selling holidays for 1000’s of years. I’ve had a nice Sauvignon Blanc at the oldest continuously operated bar, its in a cave in Jordan at the end of the walk back from Petra. Next door, now a restaurant, is the oldest documented brothel. “The oldest profession,” indeed.
I don’t expect anything I write about plants or life to be treated as gospel truth. I get stuff wrong and read like absurd amount, I’ll preface stuff with “Isn’t there a thing with…” I don’t concentrate on giving absolutely correct answers for this stuff like I do in the real world – these are hobbies or society things where – honestly unless you’re my parents reading, I’ve lived, worked, run, bought businesses, sold businesses, in more counties than you’ve likely even visited. January? I got 8 people from 4 continents visiting me. Its gonna be like Nickos – the Asian challenger to Davros. That a joke, its just my mates but they come see me because I’m a nice guy and better travelled, physically (I’ve been to more counties than most) and mentally (I work every day across continents)
My Nice Guy act does not extend to answering questions to questions phrased similar to these:
“You’re wrong – provide peer reviewed medical journal documents”
“You’re wrong and I’m too busy to read it – please provide a summary”
“You’re wrong and whilst I use ChatGPT whenever I have credits I don’t want answers from you using some bot that is actually paid for”
“Thanks I’m too busy – every sex worker does it against their will – I don’t need to provide evidence, everyone knows that”
I pay my bills by being asked and paid for my advice. How I earn money. This? Growing and Glogging is a hobby. You make it seem like work to me? You are gone. It has a small % of my attention. If you think you are more busy than me – I genuinely find it unlikely. You try and apply your thoughts, likes and desires on the rest of the global population? I find you genuinely stupid. When you apply what you think people on the other side of planet want, based not on visiting or anything other than applying your value system to the world? Yeha – its ridiculous. Think about it? How do you know how a Thai/Chinese/Spanish person feels about the world or much less their body? I don’t intuit to know how to build an igloo based in some pictures – I can tell you about how Inuits give us some valuable insights on the formation of languages and also some good stuff on antibodies – but maing broad sweeping judgments on how men or women feel about things across the world? Nah. Its the pleasure of travel. People don’t think the same.
The more you get out in the world “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it” et al ad infinitum – the more you tend to find you can get on with near anyone, and Pareto’s 20%, they tend not to be worth knowing.
So yeah, they can jog on, the 20%, I’ll happily do the work of the 80%, adios, I’ll be having a sex on the beach on my local beach
Nick & Co
