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Christmas fun

Yesterday we popped across London to join a Christmas Day gathering that became one of the most enjoyable of its kind I can recall in recent times. As a group we have a had a number of family health issues in the past twelve months – and also a wedding – and yet the schedule unfolded in as [...]

December 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

On bored

John Betjeman in his poem the Village Inn penned these lines: “and village bores more sure to roam To  village inns than stay at home“ You could substitute cruise ships for village inns for you are at sea at the mercy of the floating bore. Our next port of call is Ho Chi Minh city, [...]

December 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

Fings ain’t wot they used ter be

This is my sixty-fifth Christmas and one thing I’ve noticed recently is that either my computer keyboard needs a new battery – that was my first assumption some eight months when I first noticed the phenomenon, since when I’ve changed the batteries twice – or my ability at two-fingered [...]

December 25, 2016 // 0 Comments

Grand Palace Bangkok

The Grand Palace is Bangkok ‘s foremost attraction. It is a compound of buildings and statues, including the Emerald Buddha, of staggering beauty and colour. It attracts 10,000 visitors a day but numbers have swelled as the Old King who passed away in October was very popular and genuinely [...]

December 24, 2016 // 0 Comments

Time to hang up your sports shoes?

The decision to retire is always an interesting one. Nico Rosberg retired after one successful season bur Roger Federer (22 grand slams) and Rafael Nadal (9 French Opens) drive their creaking bodies even harder to complete one more year on the circuit. Golfers like Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia [...]

December 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

Why do these things always happen to me?

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment to replace a tooth cap that I had lost without even noticing it: “Perhaps you swallowed it …?” he had helpfully suggested when we met a fortnight previously for my six monthly check-up. Is it Murphy’s Law that says “If it is possible for something [...]

December 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

Koh Samui

Visiting a place by ship has distinct advantages over other transport. No baggage to carry and the cruise ship has simplified immigration procedures so you only need their key card, no passport.  Yesterday I returned to Thailand for the third time in 3 weeks to visit the picturesque island of Koh [...]

December 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard/ cruising

Bob was not strictly correct in his post in saying I was here to work on a book on the romance of cruising as my principal motive was to provide him with some moral support as I did not feel intuitively he had the cruiser mentality. His constituency is not the elderly and he does not care for any [...]

December 21, 2016 // 0 Comments

Cruising the high seas

When I successfully bid for a cruise at the charitable Ladies’ Night of my Masonic lodge I was in two minds whether to go or pass it on. I have never been on a cruise and surely it is the preserve of rich widows. However an old school friend of mine, with whom I lunch every 6 months and knows [...]

December 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

It’s all going crazy!

Twice every year there tends to be a disconnect between the world as it normally is and a degree of weirdness, i.e. during the August (end of summer) ‘silly season’, when not much is happening, and then the second half of December, when it’s almost a case of too much going on. It won’t have [...]

December 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

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