mike carey

Well, this is all very sudden, one could be forgiven for thinking the prime minister wants to demonstrate progress before election time. Morrison announced today that the ban on vaccinated Australians travelling overseas will end on 14 Nov, and caps on vaccinated Australians returning to the country will be lifted. No news on when foreign travellers will be free to come here. The details on whether there will be limits on places we can go have not been announced, nor whether there will be different rules for arrivals who've been in different countries, as happens elsewhere. The trigger for whether this will happen on 14 Nov or be moved forward or back will be one state reaching 80% of its eligible population (≥16) being fully vaccinated, which on current projections will be NSW (the ACT might get there first, but there are no international flights here). Additional states can open up as they reach that threshold. Returning travellers who are vaccinated will no longer have to enter 14 days' supervised quarantine but will instead, for now at least, have to home quarantine for seven days. Details are subject to confirmation, including whether domestic connecting travel to a place of residence will be permitted, or if it has to be in the port of arrival. For travel purposes, Sinovac and the Indian-manufactured AZ will be recognised as well as the ones already approved here. Qantas had been selling international tickets to a limited number of destinations from 21 Dec, and within a couple of hours had announced (and had available for sale on their web site) three weekly return B787 flights each to London via Darwin, and LAX non-stop (all seats in all classes are available as award tickets) from 14 Nov. Fares are about precovid normal in Y. Qantas will require a negative PCR test within 72 hours of departure irrespective of destination country requirements (from 4 Oct the UK won't). All very promising, but it's still a bit too early for me to be booking flights yet, I want to make sure that it's working smoothly before I do that.

Stands to reason in the middle of summer, and in the tropics! And that's the wet season, which makes it feel hotter,

I'm in love with Eric (not really, he is just a great guy) and have had lunch or dinner with him whenever I've been in NYC. I can't wait to be able to travel there again, and seeing him will be top of my priority list. Bryan is also on my list of men to see. Oh, how I want to be able to travel again!

Yes! He sent me a link to a good airfare deal yesterday, and we had a brief exchange. Nothing about this hobby though.

Yes, but this thread is about 'What are you reading', not 'where are you getting your news'.

This series had passed me by, I must check it our on 7.

Sorry, Dallas, I wasn't dismissing your comments, they were good points. I was adding to them (I hope). I acknowledge one has to pick the right escort but they are out there.

While all that is good advice, don't down-play the ability of an escort to be a companion in any social setting. Not all of them can do it, but many can and will. If you think it through, hiring a man to go to dinner or the opera with you is no different to hiring one to fuck you. There is a risk that they can't do what you want. You choose the man who can carry off that scene. It requires you to firmly accept the mind set that you are paying for their time, not for what they will do with (or to) you. Ask them. If you've met them before, build on that. Some escorts in this very forum talk about travel, film, theatre and music. And sex, saunas and bathhouses. I would be confident hiring such a man in any setting.

I most certainly don't want to shower where I have just defecated, but that isn't what it has to be. I have a shower attachment (silicon that clips onto it, not one that is bolted onto the shower outlet) and I charge up in the shower and 'dump' the contents into the toilet at first and only 'vent' in the shower when I'm confident there will be no solid matter. Seems to work most of the time.

Yes, him! Matt was discussed a couple of days ago in another thread. I have met him but haven't hired him yet. He's a nice guy and I can't wait until I can travel to the US again.

We are making a lot of progress on first doses, but it will be longer before we get close to the US on fully vaccinated. A higher percentage of people in the US have had their second does and they had significant numbers of J&J which is one-shot. Figures vary between states with the current four zero-case states having fewer vaccinated people. The stat that appears on the evening news here is the percentage of the population 16 or over that is vaccinated (doses only became available for 12-15 recently) and NSW and the ACT are in the high 80s first doses and low 60s second. Queensland and WA are about 20 points behind on both counts. Yesterday (Sunday) 2% of the ACT (total) population received a vaccine. To the topic of the thread, we are on track for the SE corner of the country being at least partially open to the world (T&C apply), with the rest of the country closed to the world and to us. NSW and Victoria are talking about a big relaxation of internal restrictions but only to fully vaccinated people until at least early December. The ACT plans to reduce restriction, but more modesty, however the chief minister expects our vaccination rate to be high enough for them not to need to treat unvaccinated people differently.

In Australia, the term 'common law union' is not used (and marriage law is federal). The term 'de facto relationship' is what is used here, and all social welfare and similar entitlements are federally administered so there not any differences between the states. To receive benefits, for many years if you cohabited with a person of the opposite sex, you were presumed to be in a de facto relationship unless you could demonstrate otherwise, but same sex relationships were not recognised under any or the entitlement provisions. So, both members of a same sex couple were entitled to single person benefits, and any assets each member owned did not affect the benefit payable to the other. That provision was changed before equal marriage was enacted. Marriage automatically activates survivor benefits for retirement pay (if there are any such benefits available), but you have to establish to your retirement payment provider that you are in a de facto relationship. That may still be possible even after you die (by the survivor, clearly, not by you), but it is not all that difficult while you are both alive. My retirement pay has such a provision as it's being paid as a life-time annuity by the military superannuation scheme. I could have moved the lump sum I had accumulated to another superannuation fund, where what happened to any residual amount would depend on the product I had placed it in. (If an annuity dies with you, you and the fund both gamble on whether you will reach the actuarial death date or not, so it's not necessarily better to place it in a product that will survive you.)

Sounds like an amazing trip, @IronMaus!!

It does indeed! We are, of course, the home of all sorts of animals that will kill you, but many of the birds (and other animals) are engaging, kookaburras included! As for the deadly animals, they are easy, for the most part, to avoid.

I have met @MrMattBigbut not hired him. He is a nice guy, and very much on my list.

A sight I have seen in Australian national parks, where birds know that people will feed them, and we do have some spectacularly coloured parrots. Here, in a tangent from its election coverage, DW posted a flock of rainbow lorikeets that had descended on Angela Merkel in a visit to a bird park in her constituency. The expression on her face in the first photo is priceless. https://www.dw.com/en/parrots-swoop-in-for-angela-merkels-swan-song/a-59293171 When they tweeted that photo, their caption was 'BEST.PHOTO OP.EVER!'

He's a character, and not exactly publicity-shy. A clip of that was used in the TV news reports here of his win.

My observation is that it shows hours ago up to and including 10 hours and then shifts to date and time, and yes, it's in UTC (aka GMT). One quirk it says 'today at xx.xx', so before 10am EST here it will show 'today' at a time that hasn't yet happened, as it's already 'tomorrow' for us. An exception, I've observed that the times shown in the RM chat screen show in my local time.

No apologies for reviving this thread! On Monday night this interview aired here, with a now retired school teacher who was in the thick of all this at Gander. It provides a view from a local on the events (my previous post two years ago was with an AA B777 captain who was one of the visitors). Diane Davis is also one of the people portrayed in the musical. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/diane-davis-on-the-38-planes-that-landed-in-gander-on-9-11/13539022 One poignant anecdote she tells is of overhearing a traveller calling home and talking about the gâteaux de grand-mère that people in Gander had fed them, and their surprise that people still had those recipes.

Bon anniversaire!!

On our Sunday morning sports discussion panel this week one of the panelists, a sports journallist (who happens to be gay), noted that after the flutter of interest when Carl came out that at the start of the NFL season his sexuality was not even a second order subject of discussion in the public sphere. He saw that lack of it still being a story is a positive development, and I have to agree.

In the previous software the forum used, there was an emoji of a bomb (round bomb with a fuse) that meant insulting. It was one of the options in the reactions to posts (along with like, applause and so on).

Some crave variety, others consistency!

That assumes that every hire would be a new provider. Many, if not most frequent hirers would have regulars. I'm more likely to hire my recent providers again rather than look for others. (I've been having a text conversation with one of them about our respective vaccination journeys, encouraging each other. He'll have my legs in the air as soon as the state borders are open!)