As mentioned, we plan to be back in Blighty in a few short weeks, a precursor to more permanent plans, so please engage in Extreme Diarisation at your earliest convenience :)

• Sat 13-Aug: Gill's Folks
• Sun 14-Aug: Gill's Folks
• Mon 15-Aug: Gill's Folks
• Tue 16-Aug: York! Anyone about for afternoon tea? foxy76?
• Wed 17-Aug: London! Patsy?

Last weekend we slipped over to Hong Kong on Air Miles, managing a secure a sixteenth-storey harbour-view room in the YMCA on Kowloon - next door to the swanky five stars and a third the price. Score, on both counts! Sadly this was combined with some poor planning on my part, which meant a late arrival on the Friday and a very early exit on the ( Read more... )

Last weekend euphuistica and I scampered off to Ko Hae, off the coast of Phuket in Thailand. As the name translates, Coral Island is literally a thin strip of pearly-white coral-detritus sand, a jungle and a dozen or so single-room bungalows next to a communal eating hall surrounded by clear waters. We made full use of this extensive set of facilities by ( Read more... )

Last week saw a very unexpected turn of events: we, following some prompting from a chap G is working with, ventured over to part of town normally associated with slightly dubious KTV-style bars and discovered a rather excellent rock band who've been playing in the same run-down bar for decades; playing a heap of rather fabulous 60s and 70s rock in ( Read more... )

Posting frequency to LJ seems to be undergoing some sort of half-life decay; each year I'm posting half as much as the previous one. Still here, though, and still reading... if commenting less ( Read more... )

Last night's birthday bash was a bit corking, really! Still feeling rather overwhelmed by the number of fabulous people who turned up :)

Flashes from the evening: turning round and seeing capt_prickle at the bar, unexpected and unannounced; bar-top dancing; "bring me another tower"; having my shirt literally ripped open; it feeling almost like a London-party ( Read more... )

Some weeks back I completed my SCUBA Open Water in Pulau Aur, which is roughly 65 km off the coast of Malaysia. It is a jungle-strewn pair of islands, shaped like an empty pair of brackets, with nothing but some dive huts and some fishermen. No electricity, no phone reception, nothing. You, the South China Sea, some fish and some coral ( Read more... )

Dead? No, simply busy. But that fails to excuse me for a lack of posts recently, so 'pologies ( Read more... )

But not in the room, for fear of fire-starting and upsetting the steam-powered mushroom

Another return trip to Blighty appears to have vanished at break-neck spead, leaving behind a trail of good memories and cries of "Not enough time!". Our theme for this visit has been food, glorious food with trips to The Fat Duck, notby and RulesOn this visit I ( Read more... )

Back from far-too-short UK trip and already sorting out coming back in two or three weeks time; combined with trips to Indonesia (if I'm not in the office) this weekend, Bangalore (for work) next week, Dubai (to visit family) in March, and potentially both the UK and the US (for work) in April, it really feels like this "living in Singapore" thing ( Read more... )