Being alone sometimes makes me creative. Depends on the day I have had….today was good, and tonight I felt like trying something special.  As many of my faithful readership will know, when in the kitchen I often follow themes.  The traditional carbonara has been the source of such a theme and we have arrived at the chicken and tarragon carbonara.

Tonight I was minded to go a bit further.  Lamb chops were cooked in the oven with an orange liquor, some orange skin and the tiniest touch of balsamic.   In the interim I prepared a rather weak carbonara with mild Italian ham (pancetta), added the cream and parmesan and eggs and stirred.  At the last minute I took the lamb chops out of the pan and poured the orange supernatant juices into the pasta mix and then served the lamb chops on top.

Really it works very well. It needs polishing, but it was edible at least. The wine was a Californian rose.

But this got me thinking. A lovely greek dish is the Lamb Avgrolemno which is lamb, egg and lemon with some artichoke hearts. With a bit of manipulation, this is also a dish with is ready for the carbonarisation process.  Maybe next week?

I was tempted to take one pf those BDSM profile tests because a friend of mine has.  I am not at all surprised at the result...

Result                                                         My comment

97% Sadist                                                   That's no surprise
94% Bondage giver                                    All part of the service
90% Dominant                                           Yep, pleased there is a bit of the other.
77% Master/Mistress
75% Experimentalist                                Its my job
73% Voyeur
72% Brat tamer                                        I LOVE brats
69% Primal (Hunter)
65% Degradation giver                           hmmmm in play
61% Owner
60% Daddy/Mommy
46% Non-monogamist
39% Masochist
39% Switch
36% Ageplayer                                       I dont have to play dears, it is a reality
31% Exhibitionist
27% Bondage receiver
27% Vanilla                                            Yep, there's a bit of that in me
16% Submissive
14% Degradation receiver
14% Brat                                                 My colleagues think so; more an anarchist.
10% Slave
10% Primal (Prey)
6% All-Rounder
3% girl/boy
3% Pet                                                     As high as that, I am surprised.

I enjoyed a subbie who was what is popularly known as  a 'gusher' which means to say that orgasms when they come tend to be wet and sometimes colourful.

Now not a lot is known about the phenomenon of ‘gushing’  which should not be confused with the female orgasm release of rather thick fluid but rather the copious production of an admixture of female secretion and rather dilute urine.  The good thing is that it is a sign, generally, of a very full and satisfying orgasm. So be flattered by it, don’t just ‘tut’

But it can be turned to good use and actually can be quite fun. See the device above, purchasable from the likes of Lelo and other suppliers.  The pink U-shaped thing is the magic box for it is a radio-controlled vibrator with some capacity to change in intensity and rhythm.  In use, the thinner tail is inserted into the vagina and the bulbous pink bit resides along the clitoris ideally nicely held in place by some nice firm panties.  The other magic bit is the white thingy which is, of course, the remote control.  It is a lovely little toy.  I have posted a discrete video of it playing on my mouse pad this morning. Loyal readers might like to imagine what it could do for them . (Cut and paste URL)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-cLZJDHXAxs?

Enough of sounding like a medical text book.  Now for the fun bit….imagine a night out, maybe at some Irish pub in Dubai. Nice food and wine and a pleasant atmosphere.  But towards the end, one reaches into ones pocket and produces the pink thing, passes it to Beloved Subbie with the instruction to go to the toilet and put it in place….

On returning,  she sits down and a quick ON and then Off and the change of facial expression is all that is needed to confirm that it works.

Now a nice slow walk to catch a cab home to nearby Villa which is about a 15 minute ride IF there is no traffic.  As you settle in the car, she knows what will happen…..just a whisper of ‘I hope there will be no traffic delays’  is enough. A click and the buzz starts……I am sure my beloved readership can work out the rest of the scenario for themselves.

Sometimes one just cant get home fast enough , can one?

Incidentally the same device has many uses in discipline.  Imagine a nice caning….the reward for each stroke is 30 seconds buzz at varying  intensities. So, when you take one stroke you get 30 seconds buzz…..when it is over you can ask for another stroke…and get another 30 seconds.  But 30 seconds is not enough, isn’t it.  So maybe you should ask for three strokes and get 90 seconds.  And so it goes on.

Sitting here, at 7:00am after the morning dog-walk in Mushrif Park.

The roads are empty and the temperature a cool 30 degrees. Now at the desk with a huge warm blob of a black dog straddled across my feet and slippers.

Key e-mails done and now reading, for the first time, the writings of one whose blog I have been invited to visit. I am definitely an old fashioned Dom of the sort that mother used to cook. Reading this blog I have been pulled into a depth of sensuality and erotic feeling that I have hitherto not experienced. The horrible truths have dawned on me.

 1. I am an old fashioned Dom, I smack bums.
2. Logically enough, I have attracted, in the main, those who like their bums smacked and all that might or might not go with it.
3. When I read real submission, I am gob-smacked and humbled by it .
4. I realize that there are levels I have never penetrated and do wonder if I even have the sense and sensibilities to do so.

I am embarking on a journey.

Blogging is one of those things that one likes to do from time to time mostly when the spirit moves. And I have to admit that the spirit has not moved much lately having transferred my creative activities from the keyboard to the camera.  But an enquiry from a lovely lady today has drawn me back to the keyboard to see if I can rekindle some spark.  This is a process so forgive me if the spark is somewhat dull....it needs enflaming and sitting here in Dubai with Beloved Subbie gone for a while tends to dull the flames.

So I have to think about why I am here, and what I want of this place. Well for a physician-turned-pharmacologist one has to find some tricky bits of drug behavior in ones environment and work on it. I am lucky now to be closely associated with the medical faculty at Al Ain.

If there is a disease of this region, it is diabetes.  Did you know that the Gulf States are in the TOP 15 countries of the world for the incidence of diabetes?  Well they are......and one has to ask why.  Firstly the epigenetic factors are there in abundance. Wealth, unhealthy eating and a total lack of exercise characterize the local population. One has only to stand in Mirdif City Centre Carrefour and look at the local population dressed in traditional arab attire. Men in dish-dashes walk towards you and it is like a walking circus tent coming down the aisle.  The ladies use the black garment to good effect to hide a rotundity which would have put Queen Ann to shame.

But obesity and lack of exercise is not the sole answer. The real problem is the issue of inter-marriage and cousin marriage.  Not to be found in the expats but I have the privilege of working with a very bright young lady of pure Emirati descent who is a geneticist in this country. She has used her gender to get inside the Bedouin families who live South of AD.  Being a woman, she can talk to the ladies of the community and get access which a male researcher would simply not get.  These traditional families have always kept family books which go back many generations and she has found lineages where there have been six successive generations of first cousin marriage.  What is the stunning impact of this?  Well, lets start with a typical western style family....a brother and sister with the same parents would share 50% of the same genes assuming that the parents are the same.  In her work, this lady has found HUSBANDS and WIVES who share 80% of the same genetic pool.  That is quite astonishing.

This manifests itself in several ways.  The very high incidence of diabetes and some other diseases are a manifestation. But there are others. Metformin is the commonest drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes; it is cheap and effective. But to work, metformin needs a transporter mechanism whose character is genetically determined.  Up to 30% of the local population have a variant of the transporter which is ineffective.  That means that when the doctor puts them on this medicine it simply does not work - but it will take him about three months to recognize this.

The GCC is a veritable laboratory of genetic disorders and pharmacogenetics. For the likes of me, it is Christmas every day - even though it is the last day of Ramadan.  And with no subbie and no nice bums within easy reach what else is there to do than go dune-bashing and off-roading (my latest thing) and study all these fascinating people around us.

Back here in Mother India. 

But I can't stay in the usual apartment at Samprat because my Indian colleagues son and MOTHER are staying there. That would be stressful to be with a strictly teetotal, strictly vegetarian Jain lady. What would have happened to my thin crust pepperoni pizza last night or my beer tonight.  YIKES...

So I am staying at our other apartment which is called Kasturi. I am living in REAL India.  It is an utterly tasteless dive with fluorescent lights, no carpets and this is the place where the air-con went bang last time.  However I am getting Gulab Singh's cooking and in this place I can drink and eat meat to my hearts content.  It is also in a much better place. Go out and several good eating places are within a short walk. I am well looked after, a boy arrives at 7:15 to make my coffee and serve my cornflakes. The apartment is totally serviced and at night the same boy brings my evening meal, serves it and then cleans up.  He makes my bed and washes my clothes.  In the best Indian tradition, the boy is in his forties. But then, can one take a Dom aged less than 50 seriously? 

This is India and I feel a bit Indian.  If I go down in the lift, there is a notice asking me not to spit on the wall or the lift. Outside in our compound, children play cricket formidably well with a real hard ball and in the street there are grubby looking folk, stalls and stands and cows, stray dogs and dirt everywhere. And they stare at me for a westerner is not common in these parts. When Indians stare, they really stare and is unsettling. Both adults and children do it in wide-eyed innocence. They do not have our sensitivity.....

 I was entertainingly tested however because today I put my foot down and demanded that HR sent a boy out to buy a decent corkscrew for opening bottles of wine and some wine glasses.  This was more difficult that I imagined. How do you describe a corkscrew to a teetotal Indian who has probably never seen a bottle of wine.  And wine glasses?  Actually they did quite well for the corkscrew was exactly what I wanted - the thingy with the central screw and two arms. However forget the wine glasses, I got small tumblers of the sort that you keep your toothbrush in......ah well, I shall bring some from Dubai next trip. Part of me want to get back to the civilization of Samprat.  Another bit of me rather fancies the idea of my own apartment in India which I can buy stuff for and make my own rather than living in the company guest-house.  Now if Gulab Singh were to come here a few nights a week and we could cook together then that would be good. I feel a butter chicken coming on.

I have just done one of those 'Quiz Farm' things...

Now THERE's a surprise....

A really hot day in Dubai...

It is a really hot day. The temperature has soared well above 40 and the sun beats down. Luckily if I am not inside in the air-conditioning, then I can jump into the pool and just flounder like a flounder.  However the Big Black Blob has managed to learn both how to enter the pool and to swim.  This is a very large dog, certainly able to put his foot on my back and drown me.

Today I have luxuriated in the heat. For lunch, some Brillat Savarin and some Tallegio with some lovely globe grapes(chilled) and a decent glass of Chianti. That is a good way for a gentleman to lunch on a Sunday which is a normal working day for the gentlefolk of Dubai.

I have been coming to terms with what I am. I am a sensual sadist. That is what I am. What that means is that I get real pleasure from inflicting discipline and pain and especially from being rewarded by the response to it. So I need a sensual masochist to work on and with. Someone who is turned on by being disciplined, someone who gets sexually excited by the thought and reality of being punished physically for that is what I do well. I can do bondage, I can do all sorts of in-your-head stuff because I am old and experienced and I have been around the block a few times. I love remote control, I love to have your body at my beck and call through pressing a button on the radio-controlled vibrator. I love to take you out with that in place and watch you react when I press the right button for I am a sexual-geek as well as a sapio-sexual sadist. I am bright, in-genius and sadistic and have a fertile mind. I want to DO things to you.

But it is important that you respond for ultimately it is your response to my ingenuity and sadism that drive me on. If you don't love it then it is a damp squib. I spend time pretty much between the UK, Dubai, India and SE Asia. So roll up and form an orderly queue - where ever you are.

I have just put beloved subbie on the flight to London ........

so now I can concentrate on the big things of life such as washing the bed linen and doing the ironing. I have always been passionate about washing and ironing and along with cooking it remains my main contribution to our living together.  I worked when a student in a laundry. And I learned to iron shirts and things beautifully - professionally almost. Even use proper starch.  We joke about me having my Dom Twankey days.....but actually I like the peaceful rhythm of working on the computer then going to the board and doing a few shirts and blouses, then with new thoughts buzzing in my head, back to the computer.

However last night we went to see Swan Lake by the Royal Moscow Ballet and Orchestra here at the World trade Centre. B-S chose good seats but the timing of the performance, starting at 9:00 was a bit of a bore given our early morning.  Now whereas music and especially religious choral music is my thing, I have mixed feelings about the ballet.  I have been only once before and that was at the Paris Opera and it was a quite different experience.  So, the music played by the Orchestra of the Royal Moscow Ballet was excellent but the prancing about on the stage left me a little cold though there were some magnificent visual moments that one would have loved to capture with a good camera.

However an active brain such as mine cannot rest and I was soon looking at the corps de ballet  and wondering if there was as much as a menstrual period between them. In July 1981, the New England Journal of Medicine published an extensive study made of ballerinas by the Harvard School of Public Health. The Harvard School is mystified by a phenomenon known as "Terpsichore's Syndrome" or "Dancer's Syndrome."  There have been many explanations and it has been thought that Ballarinas are in effect young atheletes and a combination of training, hard work, considerable fitness and compulsive under-eating to stay petite results in a suppression of menstruation.  Studies were performed by way of questionnaires on a professional ballet company and the results supported the clinical impression. The dancers completed questionnaires on their menstrual patterns and eating habits, and underwent a blood test for hormonal levels. Thirty-six percent of the group had disordered eating habits and 77 percent were in a calorie deficit. Twenty-seven percent were currently amenorrheic, 23 percent had low bone mass density and nine percent were taking birth control.  By being amenorrheic we mean that they did not have periods. They seem to have low bone density and interestingly, some abnormal responses to cardiovascular stimuli. Their blood vessels act in a different way to stimuli which cause dilatation. Presumably some endothelial factors.

I am in Switzerland now. 

 Dammit, I thought that Australia had the most expensive taxi service that I had ever encountered till I cam to this place. Swiss taxies are the most expensive that I have ever used.  I am having to be in Basel (mostly) but also Geneva and Zurich and right now I am enjoying the sunset from the Exec Lounge at the Zurich Airport Hilton.  Thank God for Exc Lounges. I can come here in the evening during 'happy hour' and eat and drink myself stupid for free.  It counterbalances the taxi fares.

 Last night I stayed in a strange hotel. I will not mention it but I was so amused that I wrote it up for Trip Advisor. Most remarkable was the floor of the lavatory compartment which was glass and brightly illuminated from below. Now why one would want to sit on the loo and be blinded by the floor, I have no idea.  I presume that it is because the Swiss are truely anal compulsive and wish a lighting system which enables them to stand up, and with the slick use of a mirror, thoroughly examine their haemorrohoids and other fascinating bits.  Perhaps that is why there was a small free-standing mirror placed beside the lavatory itself.

 Travel broadens the mond and gives one most valuable insights, I always think

Mirabile ductu ( said Virgil for I have been corrected here, before).  I am back.

Tonight has been an ordinary night here in the UAE.  I have had a warm night, I cooked dinner of veal roast and chips prepared by me. With roast yellow peppers. The wine was a Chardonnay. Enough Gastronomy.

The D/s scene or whatever you call it here is a disaster. My posting on is just like my posting here for it is a copy and paste.  I have had nothing but male subs and a variety of perverts answer me. Where are the English Roses with bare buttocks needing simple uncomplicated discipline? And who are bright and good company to boot?

I might start to fancy camels.  Remember the old Arabic saying: for children a women, for pleasure a camel, for ecstasy , a goat.

Regards,

Abdullah bin Tavistock.

I am back....

After so long trying to find a way round the Dubai censor, I have managed to find a method of returning to this site.  I shall re-start my posting and I hope that my loyal readership has not forgotten who I am.

I remain the same.

Tavi

My knees hurt...

Sometimes it is a great privilege to be a doctor. To help others and just to enjoy the power to write a prescription, and to certify the insane and the dead. But othertimes it is a bain. I have been through that just on this last trip. Now it is no secret that I have a gammy knee.  That is a technical word for bad patello-femoral arthritis and also a near total loss of space in the medial compartment.  However, self-prescribing as ever, I have managed to deal with myself with some COX-2 inhibitors supplemented with either effervescent co-codamol or indomethacin. But on this last trip to the Land of Oz, I have upped the NSAIDS in order to be competent to go diving and also to be the gentleman and help beloved subbie whenever possible.

But the cold wind of fate blows up the left trouser-leg. I developed swelling of BOTH legs. Now in the long distance traveller, leg swelling causes fears of Deep Vein Thrombosis and bilateral leg swelling moves it up to a saddle thrombus of the caval bifurcation. Not good, quoth I  reaching for the aspirin. 
However there are lots of other nasty things to consider. Low blood protein levels  because of liver damage (too much wine!) or because of liver secondaries from my undiagnosed carcinoma of the tail of the pancreas. And lots of other jolly stuff.   Problem was, I felt too well for those dread diagnoses. So I have had to settle on NSAID-induced kidney damage which is reversible if you stop poisoning yourself.  So I have stopped the NSAIDS and mirabile dictu (said Virgil) the swelling has receded and I hope that my tubules are recovering OK. The good news is that things are getting better. The bad news is that if an increase in NSAIDS could tip me into bilateral limb swelling then it is likely that my kidney function was already compromised. Not good.
I shall send off some bloods when I get back home.  So here I am, in a hotel room. Beloved subbie is back tonight, shortly after midnight. So I am having a quiet knee-sparing day so that I can do stuff with her tomorrow.

I promise my faithful and devoted readership that when the time comes, and God catches my eye, I shall post my autopsy report so you can find out if I was right or not.

Alone again, it is the story of my life in one way or another...

Beloved subbie has taken a flight to a place far away for an overnight visit to her father. I walk around thinking of her because this is a tough one for her. Estrangement is difficult and father-daughter is very difficult. I know, I have been there.  Whatever the rights and wrongs, I know that she will have the red carpet laid out for her. He will throw everything he has got into making this work.  Just as I did.

But being alone in Singapore is OK.  I did my favourite walks and went to Cuppage Place to try the Indian Restaurant which I have so often enjoyed. It was rubbish. A bhuna ghost which was sickly and tomato laden and a bhindi dish where the bhindi were just too overcooked. A shame because bhindi (aka Okra or Ladies Fingers) merit precise cooking to make them just right and to keep their bright green firmness.
However my lunch was enlightened as always by listening to the conversations at the nearby tables. To my right a bright and bubbly Indian lady was clearly conducting some sort of interview with a software company. She was into games and wanted them to make some 'serious games' . A tautology, I presume.

In front of me was another Indian, talking to two Singaporeans. They were going to visit Rangoon and were planning as a little treat to drive up, through Malaysia and Thailand and across the border. Stopping for a day and a night at a number of towns including just outh of Hat Yai, in Bangkok and near Chaang Mai.  Their preoccupation seems to be the ability to stop and 'get a good massage'  and I had to admit that my prurient mind did wander to previous 'massages' which I have been offered in that area which were....erm....extensive in their scope of items massaged.  I thought to myself however how delightful a drive through fascinating country. I wish I could join them.

Tonight I shall take refuge in the exec.lounge of the Hilton at Singapore. It is a good lounge but not the best. For the best you need to go to KL. However the wine is good and of course free and one can have a number of delightful nibbles which mean that one does not have to spend a penny on food for the night. I shall eat alone for I am not very chatty and might be likened to a miserable old git. Unless I have beloved subbie with me, for she is a light that makes everything shine.

Alone in a strange land...

I am alone today for beloved subbie has gone off to visit her rellies somewhere outside Brisbane and I have got two days and one night to be on my own in a strange colonial town.  Today has been a good day to take the camera and just take photos.  I have made a photo-essay for beloved subbie to enjoy when she comes back because she is not going to have the time to view the town as I did.
I like photographing architecture and churches in particular. However there is nothing really OLD here, it is not like going around Winchester Cathedral.  But I first encountered the papist place and entered, camera at the ready. Actually it was a good do, for there was a wedding going on and I entered to a fine tenor singing the Veni Creator which I greatly enjoyed.  It was a concelebrated nuptial mass and remarkably, the bridesmaides were in vivid red.  This must be an antipodean thing for later on I found the Anglican Cathedral of St. Martin and there was another wedding, again with vivid red bridesmaids. Walking back to the Hilton I passed yet another nuptial event also accompanied by vivid red bridesmaids.  
On entering the Anglican Cathedral  I was greeted by a custodian lady who engaged me in conversation as the wedding proceeded and I stayed discretly out of the way - not wishing to intrude. I witnessed many colonial vulgarities which were not to my taste.  The recessional started - predictably,  the bridal march from Lohengrin, but everyone clapped!!!    The bride and groom did not process up the isle, so much as saunter up, kissing and shaking hands to left and to right.   It was a shambles and in my days of being a Master of Ceremonial at one of the most elite anglo-catholic churches in central London, I know that we would have had apoplexy.  Actually the custodial lady joined me in my wrath at watching some chap in shirt-sleeves and his collar studiously undone and tie loose wandering up the aisle with his hands in his pocket.  But as the lady said to me, 'they dont care and the church needs weddings because they pay so well'
I have to admit that the left-footers did a much better job then the Church, by God Established in this Glorious Realm of England and exported to Australia.

A paddy about PADI...

I have been a diver for a long time. I go back to 1969 and the canyons off the coast of California.  I hav dived the North Sea and I am one of the few doctors who is also qualified as a mixed gas diver of the sort that operates off the oil rigs of the North Sea and beyond.  I have also been on the Hydrolab project and I was an experimental diver in the deep diving programme run by a major diving contractor. Add to that, I have probably 'unbent' very many divers and been to more diver autopsies than many people have had hot breasfasts.  So I was more than mildly irritated when I was invited to dive on the Great Barrier Reef and some child in a wetsuit asked me to produce my 'PADI' card. I dont have one of course, I just told her to Google me for that is the language of my children and I presume of this rubber-clad lady too.  She did, and as a consequence I got to dive without further argument.
So many things were lacking. I am used to boarding vessels. I expect to be greeted on the gangplank by the officer-of-the-day with his telescope and sword loops and a Chief standing so that when he salutes I automatically raise my hat to the quarter-deck.  I do not expect to be greeted by my baptismal name, a simple 'Good Morning Sir' is more than enough and would be well received.  We then had to sit through a briefing before departure which was a cross between the worst of the stand-up comedian and circus clown though I had to admit that the girl who did the second half of the briefing had a good sense of humour, however inappropriate and uninvited. Later in the excursion we were invited to go to an island.  I come from Guernsey, I know what an island IS; and it is not a sandbank which is submerged at high tide. However the Great UnWashd disappeared there, and subbie and I had the boat to ourselves with a good supply of mind numbing Corona.

We were not diving properly, we were doing Lemming Diving.  69 individuals taken out on a boat and literally dunked in the sea. I have been lucky my my career to have dived with, and met, many of the Greats of Diving. What would they have thought of this invasion of the seas by this wall of diver pollution.  I have promised beloved subbie that I shall take her off to the Bunaken National Park in Manado to prove to her that diving CAN be enjoyable sometimes.
I felt even more sorry for the lovely willowy german girl who we befriended. She had come on board to go diving and spent good money for the privilage. But she admitted (stupidly) to a medical history some 8 years ago. She was fine, I would have allowed her to dive but the wetsuited wonder would have none of it.  However it was nice to meet a stranger and to enjoy her company. Beloved subbie did the talking and got her chatting and I joined in later. I dont do idle fraternisation.

Antipodean tales...

There have been a number of remarkable gastronomic events on this trip. Last night we were entertained by our Australian colleagues to dinner.   A jolly evening livened up firstly by the arrival of one of our hosts- an angry French-Canadian oenophile brought some fine wines to the table.  A Mersault and two clarets to be precise. One from a good year and one from a bad year.  He chose 2000 and 2004 as examples of these. Quite a delightful opportunity to taste good wine provided by a master who could discourse well.  We had a number of interesting conversations in this area and one of the most enlightening was his view of a mature Gewurtstraminer with a good Fois Gras.  He disliked that gastronomic habit and recommended a Jurancon of medium body as a better alternative.  I respect his views sufficiently that I shall test it.
Wine aside, we have had two interesting food related events.  Last night there was an Australian mixed grill which was remarkable.  Remarkable because I thought that it was more appropraitely called 'Melange de Road Kill a l'Antipodean'.  Assorted on the plate was Kangaroo, Emu and Alligator with a lamb chop and a venison sausage as a concession to those whose tastes are more conventional.  It was interesting to say the least.  The perpetually angry oenophile ended up with a waiter droping a fork on him. He disappeared in high dudgeon.
But another high point came as a result of beloved subbies sense of humour and imagination.  We ate at a very upmarket italian restaurant high up on a building in Singapore.  At then end of the meal we were presented with a spoonful of a red sorbet (rasberry, I think) in a pot.  The pot was of the sort that you can buy in kitchen shops and Lakeland and has a substantial glass stopper attached by a wire level sort of device.  It was placed before us, the lid closed,  with a flourish by the manager.  Beloved subbie took one look at the presented pots and announced loudly 'it is a biopsy and so it was, just like an intra-operative sample taken in theatre of some unspeakable bit of entrail.  How upset the poor man looked....

I wad the power the giftie gi'us  to see the world, as others see us (Robert Burns, Scottish writer, poet and savant)....
Sitting in the lounge with beloved subbie. The wine is flowing and we are reminiscing over the days diving on the nearest part of the great barrier reef. I have dived better, in Papua New Guinea and in Bunaken National Park but I was happy because I had promised HER that we would dive the iconic Barrier Reef and we have. It is important for a Dom to keep his promises for that is central to Domly leadership.  A sub must know that when a Dom promises something, it will happen.  It is so easy in the bedroom or in scene, so much more difficult in real life. To be in charge, to be consistent and to be reliable is what a sub needs much  more than a smacked bum. To enjoy her submission and get a smacked bum is the  reward the sub gives the Dom for good Domly behaviour.
But subs can be insightful too. Doormats may hide it, feeling that it is not their place to be insightful.  But insight on the part of a sub can be humbling especially when it is manifest by a show of strength. Beloved sub had a bad back, I thought that she could not go diving. She refused to accept this advice. So she went to the pool and she worked and worked doing lengths till her back loosened. We dived, and shredded my opinion as to her ability to dive even though I am considered to have insight in these matters not granted to ordinary mortals or other doctors for that matter.
But as we sit here, she doing her facebook and me doing my journal for all my devoted readers, she has given me a flash of insight which has deeply moved me.  We had a wonderful evening last night.  I admit, I got pissed. Not something that this tight-arsed Dom would normally do.  But I did. And she reflected to me that she had not seen me laugh and be happy continuously for an evening for a very long time.  Robbie Burns got it right.....

What do you expect of a nation founded on convicts...

Brisbane this morning.  Fin de la monde. Do not arrive in Brisbane Airport and expect civilisation - or even a welcome for that matter. Especially if you arrive at 0139 HRS when everyone wants to go home.  We spent a horrible cold night on couches in a closed airport lounge. At my age and distinction, I had put that behind me. I last did that when I was a medical student.

But then came a remarkable introduction to Australian culture.  Off to check-in for the Quantas flight to Cairns. Now a man is used to travel, to liveried flunkies in close attendance at all times. Oh, no...not in the Land of Oz.

The first indignity was that I had to go and print my own boarding pass at a machine. I used one, subbie used the other and we ended up with four boarding passes and a bewildering number of baggage tags whch we had to attach to the luggage ourselves.(Come Back, Richard Branson, all is forgiven).  Then the outrage continued with having to place our bags on the shute and weigh them ourselves and print our own excess baggage charge slip and go any pay it. On board, the quality service continues.  The seat-top tray is dirty so I am passed a damp cloth to wipe it!. Now the accomplished airline employee I was ready to offer to go up front and fly the plane - which my devoted readership knows I am fully capable of.  But no, I am fed healthy food.  A foreign dish called meusli which was full of plant derived material which I might well feed my pet parrot. Oh and some fully skimmed milk.

Enough is enough....I had always wondered why I never came South of the Equator. Now I know.

Alice Springs and Ayres Rock off the port wing....

Here we sit, in splendour on the Emirates from Singapore.   I am an time-matured and a well travelled Dom but I had never been South of the Equator; till today.  We (beloved subbie and I) are going to Ausbiotech in Melbourne  but on the way, joy of joys, we are going to dive the Great Barrier Reef.  Only for a few days but at least we are going there.  It is going to be a horrible night for we arrive in Brisbane at half an hour past midnight and our flight out is at seven in the morning. I hope the airport benches are comfortable for by the time we have cleared immigration and customs it will be too late to go to an airport hotel for we will have to be up at five am to catch the onward flight to Cairns.

So I sat here, being fawned over a little by the cabin crew and sitting in the dull light of the night cabin with my ipod in my ears.  I have heard all my collection, the Corries, Placido Domingo and various choral music snippits. As I type this, the Ave Verum rests softly on my ears.  But these journeys make me quietly and very discretely tearful.  There is a lonliness to long distance travel and I get morbid sometimes. I think of the people whose lives I have screwed up and of the children who will be looking at their ipads now hoping to see me go green on Skype. The daddy who isn't at home any more and who lives in Dubai, and who flits from Kuala Lumpur and places exotic but who never does the school run any more.  Another man does that, and it hurts to the very core.

But one has to ask why one has ended up here.  I look across at her, the sub and very wonderful woman who has featured in my life for the last few years as my dirty secret and now my constant companion.  I am lucky, she is young, pretty, vivacious and bright.  I see men at the airport looking and saying 'lucky old bastard' And they are right but luck hurts some time.  The silver lining hides a cumulo-nimbus interior to the cloud which is turbulent, dark and full of iceing.So what is this blog saying. 

To all of you out there who had the benefits of vanilla but it didnt quite fit?  So you had to go and find your self.  And loose your soul.  D/s is Faustian sometimes, isn't it?

If the cap fits.....

 Sexual blindness in men is not good.  it should not happen to the mature, balanced and well adjusted Dom.  I have always prided myself that I am always in control; understanding, insightful and capable of summing up the situation.

Last night subbie was compliant and welcoming but I knew that for deep personal reasons she was upset but wanted to please.  I talked gently to her, probed with mind and fingers to make sure that I was welcome and told her all the time that I was the sort of Dom whose brain was in his head, not at the end of his penis. We made love, it was good, we enjoyed it and it was very vanilla.

This morning, I woke on time with a feeling of the old 'morning glory'.

Waaaahaaaay...it is time to have a bit more nookie. She did not behave like last night however, she had been thinking of the problems she faces and she hurt both mentally and physically for she has damaged her back. But no way, I was going to get what I wanted.  I did.  She gave it. Then when it was over she fled in tears to the bathroom.  I noticed an extra swelling in my magnificent John Thomas.  It was my brain, somehow it had slipped down there in the night.

So long away, so philosophical these days . How can a life change.....

I am an old Dom, youthful in libido and outlook on life but wise in the ways of the world and the forces which blow us from pillar to post. I am back in Malaysia tonight and beloved sub is with me but tonight I dine alone and feel scared. For she is young and pretty and needs her space so she has gone about with her friends from her last sojourn here whereas I work on the list of mails that have accumulated even today. I don't begrudge her freedom, I am just scared by it. For when she feels lonely and out of control she does destructive impulsive things - once only - but it hurt me so much. She wears my ornament as a sort of collar and I have no reason to doubt her loyalty - quite the opposite - but I am merely aware of my feet of clay.

She will be back soon, she will come to bed. My hand will rest on her ribs and I shall feel her breathing and I shall enter a happy slumber and these qualms will be gone, I know they will.

But today I have been wrestling with snakes. I am caught in hell. The organisation that I founded is now part of a bigger picture. I am important, a board member and all that entails. The culture has changed, I am unhappy, very unhappy . We are doing things as a board that I can't reconcile with my conscience. Honor and modern business ethics don't mix. What we have done to people does not rest on my chest at nights. I am not a

communist or even a left winger but I hope that I am a gentleman and corporately, I am not.

So come Home Dear Subbie. Let my hand feel your breathing and let me treat you like temazepam and let your Dom find safety in his sub. Who is top now.

I've grown accustomed to her face...... I have turned into 'enry 'iggins as everyone told me I would.

Here I am in London at my club - the RSM and I am on my own. My adored subbie, friend and partner is taking part in some event near East Midlands Airport and I am on my own. I have always been a bit cavalier when it came to subs. Friendly, good company and technically (I am told) quite superb when it comes to the wielding of implements and the stagemanagement of the scene. But detached, in a rather dommish Dom sort of way. I have always liked intelligent subs, and women who have achieved something in their personal and working livees I find most attractive. But traditionally I dont get involved. Preferring the role of the visiting Consultant Dom to the lovey-dovey chum. So here I am, a bit soppy really. Can this be so?

However, now we have set up home in Dubai, there are so many things to report. True, I have started using figs in my cooking. And olives too. I am stunned by Dubai....everything I could ever gastronomically handle at the local huge Carrefour. Some of the finest cheeses and cuts of veal I have ever consumed and the fish counter is something to blow your mind. But even in this Islamic state you can go to Spinneys and buy your bacon and peperoni and very familiar homey things. And a quick trip up the coast to Umm al Quainn means that 'the bottle shop' sells a greater and finer range of wines, beers and spirits at cheaper prices than I could every get in the UK The other nice thing is to go to Fujaira for the weekend, go diving even.

Yesteday I had to wonder through Covent Garden. I had to renew my passport and get a new visa. I stumbled across Carluccio's - a man whose recipies I have assiduously cooked. I cound not resist it. A lovely PERFECTLY cooked plate of Spaghettic Carbonara and a Sicilian Rose for lunch and for less than 20 quid. Last night, a lobster tartlet and then some red snalpper in a mild curry sauce with a chive mash....truely Henry Higgins did not have it so bad.

It is a long time since I wrote anything...I am afraid that I have been too numb and too twisted to venture out of the protective shell which is my work.....

But things have improved. As always it has been the case that I have been brought back to near normality by a beloved sub. She has been close to me for some three years now but in an attempt to bring both our lives to some commonsense place we parted for a year.  Just the odd 'how ya doing, mate' in text form.  Then my life fell disastrously apart in a way that I was not expecting though I always recognised the possibility.  So we met, in London, at the beginning of this year at my favourite old haunt of the RSM.  She was down and she showed it. Typically, I was down too...much further than I thought but was too proud to show it.

Now we have built one another up, supported one another as Dom and sub, as lovers, friends and finally working together again.  It is all so easy now. Projects which we do together fly.  In spite of half a world of difference we can spend hours on Skype working on projects together.

There have been some real high points. Rediscovering the depth which CAN exist between two people who have Domination and submission of one another deep in their brains and bodies is awesome. There have been lows, too...maybe some day I will blog about them. I have learned very painfully how much a sub can need her Dom and how her behaviour can become rapidly self-destructive if he is not there when she needs him.  Perhaps I should have learned that in 2004 and in 2011 but I did not.

Finally I have learned how some external agent can be the thing which finally seals the knot and which opens the closed doors between two people.

Thank you, Pan, you funny little stray dog.....

One of those who read my journals has said how much they miss my entries....

I am delighted, for it is feedback which encourages the writer more than anything else. The view from my window right now is exotic; hot and steamy and sadly rather overcast this afternoon. However I cannot complain for the past two days have been brilliantly hot.  The view from my apartment window shows a pair of gleaming twin towers spectacularly lit at night.

Learning to cook in a tropical environment is fun, the vegetables different, the fish stall is full of species which are unfamiliar. I am going to try a bouillabaise with the different types.  But the principles of a good bouillabaisse is the same and there are abundant supplied of squid, prawn and shellfish.  And the saffron is so cheap.

So waaaa-hoooo here we go.

.....first to make the rouille.

So here I am in SE Asia again. Up at the highest levels of the KL Hilton and sitting in the Exec Lounge enjoying some breakfast. I have been stimulated to type a few lines because of the arrival of a short note from an absolute enchantress who actually red my profile, then my journals and sent me a short note of appreciation for my content. That has set me off.

It is the end of the rainy season, somehow it has hung around longer than usual this year but yesterday was a laying round the pool day and with luck we will have the same today. But mid-week, the EK-something or other will deposit me on Gatwicks hard runway and the Far East will be gone for a month. It is a pity to be leaving right now because this weekend is the Hindu festival of Pongoll when everyone breaks their pots and replaces them and then in a weeks time CNY- - Chinese New Year starts. That is a magnificent event and even now the Malls and Hotels are alive with lanterns and Dragons and street processions with Dragons and firecrackers are to be found everywhere. 

However, I notice another change i my surroundings; a change which has impacted even me. Looking around me in the lounge almost everyone is tapping away as usual for executive lounges are the places where business people gather rather than the 'bucket and spade brigade' who depressingly fill many hotels. But the big difference, is the dact that whereas one saw the towering screens of quite large laptops dominating most tables, now everyone seems to be tapping away on ipads and tablets. I am one of their number. The same was true on the flight over. I took a walk from one end of the aircraft to the other. The tablet revolution really has arrived.

It looks like SE Asia is going to be a big part of my life from now on.  That is something I do not regret one bit. For it is the part of the world where I have had my finest times.

Back in Singapore for a few days, having not been here for some six years.  The Bungee thingy continues to throw people in the air on Clarke Quay but the cost of things has escalated; when I was last here it was 3$Sg to the £, now it is 2.02.  Singapore is no longer cheap.

Went to that rascaly place, Lucky Plaza at the end of Orchard Road.  Tried on some diving gear for I have GOT to get my back wet again.  Actually the costs were quite reasonable and I shall buy next time.  Nobody tried to sell me copy watches this time but unlike six years ago, there are now SEX shops.

Clearly the old dynasty is focussing on finance and not morality any more.  Tonight, Smith Street and China Town.  A joy to be back in the worlds happiest Open Prison.

Tavistock

I am sorry to have been away for so long.....

I have had to so some of the hardest and most heart-breaking stuff that I have ever done.  I have hated it so much.  My life has been in turmoil and I have to say that the months of August and September 2011 have been the worst months of my life.

But as the saying goes....'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'  and that is what I have done.   I am back now, pretty much the person that I was before but the armadillo has got some big holes in its skin.

Please say hello, I should love to hear from you.

I suppose I have reported some odd stuff in my time  but last night was some odd stuff that was very ordinary really.....

I was in a hotel in Osaka and having selected the usual collection of mouthwatering mediocrity which is so often served in major chain hotels if you arrive late, I turned my attention to the winelist.  MUCH to my surprise I discovered that on the top of each section there was a Japanese White, Rose and Red.  Now I dont mean ricewine - sake - but the real stuff made of grapes.  I expressed surprise to the waiter who announced that this was a new thing for them hence the vintages were 2010, apparently there did not exist any earlier vintages. 

So with the Humous and grilled vegetables I had a glass of the Rose and with the Lamb Chops I had the red.  I sent the first glass of red back, horribly oxidized - the waiter sheepishly admitted that the bottle had been opened 3 days!   They opened a new bottle for me and quick as a flash I had two decent glasses.  They needed to be taught that a glass needs to be filled....but they soon got the hang of it.

And the verdict on this oenophillic discovery.  Well the Rose looked exactly like an Anjou Rose and tasted like one as well.  A bit sweet for my taste but probably intended for women's consumption. The red, was well, a red.  A sort of ordinary merlot.

So no surprises there, then.  

Now I am on Cathys flight to Hong Kong.  A few years since I have seen HongKong and I have to say that I am looking forward to it. It was always one of my favourite places and did not seem to have changed much after the Chinese took over.  Except that the real money fled in advance of the Yellow Peril.  I'll let you know how I find it.

Have just enjoyed an eight course Japanese meal............

A cross between art and microsurgery. certainly the same aesthetic appreciation and manipulative skills are required.  However, I am still starving.

Tavistock

Horrible in Japan....

Yesterday I arrived in Tokyo.  Having missed my flight connection from KUL to SIN, so I had to fly to Haneda and nightstop instead of the direct flight to Osaka.  Tokyo is living hell, the temperature is high and the humidity higher. I sat there this morning with sweat literally dripping off me.  But Osaka is a delight, sunny and very warm at 32.  Tonight the first of a few dinners in company I enjoy.  Life's not so bad.....once you get out of Tokyo.

Incidentally they have been having a few more earthquakes.  Another good reason to be in Osaka and not Tokyo.

Tavistock-san

End of a long week in Malaysia....

But to day is saturday and that is nice.  Wondered around Brickfields and took in Little India then most uncharacteristically I just lay be the pool and luxuriated.  I don't usually do those sort of things but such is life.   I have presented one paper, given a 45 minute lecture to a very large number of people and sat on a panel and spouted forth wisdom. Enjoyable enough especially with the asian pleasantries and courtesies.  However I dod do something today which I have never done before.  This may surprise my devoted readers....I had never been in a Jacuzzi before....

But there it was bubbling away in the blazing heat of a tropical afternoon.  I had expected it to be cool and to my surprise it was like a hot bath. Incongruous in that tropical environment.  However it was vigorous; I was pummelled and pounded and bits of me were shaken up like never before. Suffice it to say that the undercarriage got quite a shock, the microswitches were fully exercised and all the warning lights came on in the cockpit.

Refreshed now,  I am going to write for a while then the goold old lounge on the 33rd floor and some canapes and wine. Then maybe a trip to China Town or Jalang Alor for the best of Malaysian.
Next week is Japan week.  To Osaka on Monday, the wonderful shinkansen on thursday and an evening flight from that fleapit of an airport, Narita, to Hongkong. A day in HK, I wonder how it has changed...thence back to KL. See you all again soon 

Tavistock *bows very low*

Howling pouffes..............

I am not a politically correct one.  Neither do I intend to become one.
Tonight I supped in the Lounge at the Hilton KL and drank a lot of free wine and ate  a lot of free food. I pay for it so I might as well enjoy it.

I have a waiter, as queer as a coot and as bent as a nine bob note ( for those who remember real money).  It was a pleasure to see him for he has greeted me for the past three years.    He claims to be learning French, but clearly has not a clue. I helped him to realise that since he speaks fluent Filipino then Spanish was easy for hm.  And with some Spanish, then French and Italian were also a gift......Bon Jour and Bon Giorno,  Fromage and Formaggio,  Un Altro and un autre (keep the wine flowing)

He is a delight. One character whose presence tells me that I am back here in Malaysia. I have no idea of his name, but his welcome was gratifying. I have told him that during this stay I will speak to him only in French or Italian and he has to guess which one it is.

I hope that my life continues to be full of such big and lovable characters. God Knows, there is so many cardboard people around.

Tavi 

A boy and his toys......

I am in SE Asia, a place I love so well and where I could happily find my last resting place. When here, if I do not seek local food then I seek Italian food for there is a certain resonance between Asian cooking and italian cooking. It is not just the similarity of pasta and noodles but the rapid fusion of flavours in the pan and the counterpoints. However tonight I sought the Italian Restaurant of my hotel. I enjoyed the most excellent risotto with caposante (scallops) and a tasteless tiramisu. The wine a moderate Pinot Grigio which is the ubiquitous house wine of asian italian restaurants but a super grappa di rosato.  All in all, a good night.

I did watch with some pleasure the neighbouring table. For one of the alpha males had brought with him a camera di camera. A magnificent brute of digital SLR, with motor drive, digital flash and all the accessories. It needed a forklift to raise it to eye level. I watched him photograph the mother and child opposite. So many adjustments, so much fiddling about...I would do the same the the interior of Siena Cathederal but it was a self-indulgent instrument intended to amuse and emphasise the standing of the photographer, not take a photograph.  But let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

I am happy to be here, SE Asia is where I belong. I need to dive, to blow bubbles and see them rise in the milky blue above whilst looking down into the deep blue of the water off of the reef. I need to find my soul.

Tavi 

Hot and steamy...

I like my countries and my subs to be similar.  And here I am in the right country.  Dubai was as hot as hell and I was pleased to pass through it as quickly as I might.   But here in Kuala Lumpur it is hot and steamy alright.  It is nice to look out of trhe window from my towering hotel above Sentral and see how the Brickfields building site has developed.

But much more jet-lagged than usual.  And I really don't know why.

Tavi

A lunchtime Hagiology...

Lunchtime today was unusual.  Not for the Roast Beef and the Merlot.  But because the discussion centred on the Saints.  Now I am known for my affection for dear St. Augustine. Possibly the patron Saint of perverts and libertines. He led the way with Manichaeism and found it possible to postulate God as a Pure Spirit and the intellectuality of the soul and the freedom of will.
At age 17, through the generosity of fellow citizen Romanianus,  Augustine went to Carthageto continue his education . Although raised as a Christian, Augustine left the church to follow the Manichean religion, much to the despair of his mother. As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their experience with the opposite sex and urged the inexperienced boys, like Augustine, to seek out experiences with women or to make up stories about experiences in order to gain acceptance and avoid ridicule. At a young age, he began an affair with a young woman in Carthage. She was his lover for over thirteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus. 
Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and he allowed her to arrange a society marriage, for which he abandoned his concubine. It is believed that Augustine truly loved the woman he had lived with for so long. In his "Confessions," he expressed how deeply he was hurt by ending this relationship, and also admitted that the experience eventually produced a decreased sensitivity to pain over time. However, he had to wait two years until his fiancee came of age, so despite the grief he felt over leaving "The One", as he called her, he soon took another concubine. Augustine eventually broke off his engagement to his eleven-year-old fiancee, but never renewed his relationship with "The One" and soon left his second concubine. It was during this period that he uttered his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" (da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo). 
Which translates as: God make me good, but not yet'.  
Clearly he had a party or two to go to!! WaaaaaaaHaaayyyyyy

I also like St Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits and pure SS Officer.

Teach us, good Lord, to serve thee as thou deservest;
To give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labor, and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do thy will

That was so often read in the chapel of my school.  Funny what one talks about over sunday lunch.

Tavistock

Faggots.....

Our rather up-market local grocery/butcher is inventive.  Last week had goat for stewing and many other things. Next week, veal sweetbreads are promised.  But today I was shopping for dinner. I had already purchased some lambs kidneys when my attention was drawn to faggots.   The butcher, a chubby pink man in his early thirties announced that he had made some faggots.  I inspected them - to my eye, meatballs wrapped in omentum and peritoneum.  So I bought them along with a couple of large red onions (for the onion gravy) and a tin of marrowfat peas.  This was going to be a real 'aye-oop', english peasant food evening.   However when Forest Hill Stores makes faggots they do use the best steak, not just the contents of the drains of the nearest abbatoir.

So I did it;  faggots in onion gravy with coarse mash potato and marrowfat peas. Served with a bottle of Bourgeuil.  It has to be admitted that it worked. But of course the web-search had to accompany the exercise.  Predictably, Wikepedia had a good section on faggots. They said:

Faggots are a traditional dish in the UK

,<sup>[1]

[2]</sup>

especially South and Mid Wales and the Midlands

of England

.<sup>[3]

[4]

[5]</sup>

It is made from meat off-cuts and offal

, especially pork.^[3]

A faggot is traditionally made from pig's heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and sometimes bread crumbs

. The mixture is shaped in the hand into balls, wrapped round with caul fat

(the omentum

membrane from the pig's abdomen), and baked.

However there is a dark side to faggots.  As Wikepedia says:

Pictures of the product are a popular joke in some Western countries because of additional meanings

of the name. Faggots were used as the subject of an infamous 2004 radio advert by the UK supermarket chain Somerfield

.^[7]

The commercial featured a husband challenging his wife's repetitive routine of a set meal for each day of the week. While he wanted lasagne

, he was told that, as it was Friday, he was to have faggots. He responded: "I've nothing against faggots, I just don't fancy them." This advert was subsequently deemed to have breached the rules on Good Taste, Decency and Ofling of the Advertising and Sponsorship Code, and was banned from future re-broadcast by the industry regulator, Ofcom

.

Well , knock me over with a feather. 

Tavistock

Well it worked....

Risotto with squid ink looks awful.  Nicely cooked bits of rice floating in a grey-black grime. However, close your eyes and it tastes superb.  I chopped up the cuttlefish, slowly cooked it with a skinned red pepper and some garlic.  The exuded juices, I added to the risotto.

Served on a deep serving plate, the risotto to one side and the squid to the other with coarsley chopped coriander to brighten up the grime of the risotto, it works -very well.

Served with a Touraine.  No regrets.

Tavi

Of seppiae and the cervix....

When your correspondent was working on a regular basis in anaesthesia, every monday afternoon I used to stun a gynaecology list. The usual things, a Wertheims, a few Vaginal Hysterectomies and the usual cautery to cervix or (worse) cautery to warts.  The  'Vag Hysts' were a consistent feature and are oftentimes jokingly construed as 'taking away the nursery and leaving the playground'
But today I went to my local store. It is a special place and one of the few places where you can stand at the checkout with Jensen Button.  On the fish counter was something special. Cuttlefish.  Now squid and squid tubes are ten a penny. But the fisherman had delivered four cuttlefish and the fish counter put them up at £2.99 each. I bought one and took it home with thoughts of risotto of squid in its ink or similar.  However first prepare your cuttlefish....

I read the instructions faithfully from Google.  Splay the tentacles, cut around the mouth/beak and then gently pull and the innards should come out including - hopefully- the intact ink sac.  Taking a very sharp paring knife I cut around the large beak, tentacles spread around my hand.  Then taking a very large pair of artery forceps which I find invaluable in the kitchen, I clamped the mouth parts, blunt dissected with my finger sweeping it around and the gently pulled on the forceps. Voila!  the innards came out, reluctantly at first and then progressively more easily.  I realised then that I was working exactly as one works doing a Vaginal Hysterectomy. No smell of diathermy and no surgical grunting, but the rest was perfect.

Now I have to find a recipe for the damned thing. I have some tentacles, some lovely flat plates of white meat and a bowl of ink.  I hope I can face it; it least it did not have fibroids.

Regards,

Tavistock.

The zeal of the convert is upon me.....

I am amazed.  I have taken to the gym again.  Initially to strengthen my knee which has given me problems.  But now I have got back into the fitness thing.  That has provided two benefits:

1. Firstly I am stunned and how much better I feel about life and my attitude to it.
2. The pleasure of wearing clothes in which I did not feel comfortable. I used to be a bit of a dandy but the ravages of age have stolen that from me.
But even better, I am resolved:

 I shall once again command a multi-engined airoplane.

I shall once again begin to dive on the reefs of SE Asia.

 This latter resolution has been co-incidentally promoted by a bequest totally out of the blue. From a lady I helped in the early eighties.  She was told that she should not dive. As an expert on medical matters of diving, I saw her and told her to go forth and blow bubbles.  A letter with a cheque for £1000 arrived yesterday from the executors of her will.  She spoke from the grave:'For having the courage to shoulder the responsibility of allowing me to dive that gave me many hours of happiness and fulfillment' 

Dear Lady. I am going to blow the lot on a new set of diving gear. Having lost my beloved stuff some considerable time ago. I think that she would like that.

 Tavi

Ones heroes....

In the early days of my professional life I was mentored and developed by a man. He was a pilot and one of the few polymaths I have ever met,

 He is still at it.  He flies his areoplane weekly.  A web entry about him which I read today says...

 XXXX XXXXXXX
XXXX XXXXXXX  has been the operator of xxxxx Airfield since 1952. He qualified for a PPL before the war and is still a very active pilot, despite suffering a damaged arm in 1942. He has over 15,000 hours in his logbooks and has owned an Aero Commander twin for 30 years. In the last few years he has undertaken some very long trips in it: to Zanzibar in 1995, to Pakistan in 1997, and across the Atlantic and round the USA, Alaska and Canada in 2000. He is 84 years old.

That web entry was 10 years ago -

John is 94 and is still flying and has the same aeroplane. 

I am proud to have him still as my mentor. In an earlier blog I referred to another dear friend now departed. How is it that aviation contains such impressive men?

Tavi.

Viagra for the brain......

Life was difficult in the early eighties.  The divorce, the boardroom coup and stuff like that. But in those days I used to be 'Mighty Mo'.  I used to get up at 6.00, go to the office and then to theatre for a mornings anaesthetics.  Then,  afternoon in my office, evenings in the gym and then the kitchen.   I was described in a television programme as being like a demented bumble-bee.

Today, after a couple of years of diclofenac abuse and some added colchicine I have managed to get my right patello-femoral arthritis to a state where I was able to go back to the gym for the first time in nearly 10 years. And I was able to use the same resistance weights and do the same curls and presses etc that I used to. I found it hard, but I did not have to take the weights off.

Good for my morale...viagra for the mind.

Tavistock

A truely english day.....

 What a lovely day I had last week.  Much to my surprise my Dom 'Crash-bleep' went off and the little green emergency vehicle departed from the airport with a new location punched into the GPS.  Always exciting on a new 'shout'...bags in the boot, coins in the pocket and all the pre-departure checks complete.

 On arrival in an historic part of England, a delightful and attractive subbie; truely an English Rose and a diminutive one, to boot. An urgent itch to be scratched and, I believe, scratched it well and truely was.  To our mutual satisfaction and as an extra plus I discovered one of the best pizzeria in England. For I arrived much too early but it was not a problem.

 Then onwards to Sandwich and the Bell Hotel, a place where I have stayed often. The Englishness of the day perpetuated with a drive through Kent for I had not appreciated just how lovely Kent was.  It has rapidly become my favourite county on looks alone.

 Dinner was marked by further englishness.  From the local rose wine sold ny the Chapel Down Winery, through the local steak and finally a fully enflish cheeseboard.  Somerset Brie, a goat cheese whose provenence I have forgotten and a ewes cheese called 'Lord of the Hundreds' which was excellent.  A good nights sleep and then kippers for breakfast....

*begins to carthweel...*

Requiem aeternam............

This is an odd place to post an obituary. But I referred to my old fried, Stu, in my Journal of the 31st July of last year.  A super, lovely man; fellow pilot, entrepreneur and fellow bon viveur. Stu used to pilot my plane, we flew a lot of places together.

And he was wicked, with an eye for the ladies though he was not a perve like me. Sometimes his taste for women got the better of him.  Like the time he married, for a short time, a Venezualean lady because he loved her latin passion.  Sadly the marriage turned rapidly sour, and I ended up providing a 'safe house' for a few days because the passion which might be attractive going one way.......is a problem  coming from the other direction with a meat clever in its hand...... causes a chap a bit of a problem, I think.  Wizard Prang!
He had to sell his beloved Yak. But the day before his licence expired at CAA demand because of his illness he took her up and beat the crap out of the sky in the most spectacular display of aerobatics over his South Devon home town. Then landed, handed her over to the people who had bought her....and walked away. Knowing that this was a pattern to be repeated  with everything he loved. 

Anyway; he died of his Motor Neurone Disease ; a year younger than me.   This touching exerpt from Johnathan Livingston Seagull which is a book about flying  through the eyes of a seagull  is written by a pilot and is my tribute to my old friend.

They came in the evening, then, and found Ionathan gliding peaceful and alone through his beloved sky. The two gulls that appeared at his wings were pure as starlight, and the glow from them was gentle and friendly in the high night air. But most lovely of all was the skill with which they flew, their wingtips moving a precise and constant inch from his own.

 Without a word, Jonathan put them to his test, a test that no gull had ever passed. He twisted his wings, slowed to a single mile per hour above stall. The two radiant birds slowed with him, smoothly, locked in position. They knew about slow flying. He folded his wings, rolled and dropped in a dive to a hundred ninety miles per hour. They dropped with him, streaking down in flawless formation. At last he turned that speed straight up into a long vertical slow-roll. They rolled with him, smiling. He recovered to level flight and was quiet for a time before he spoke.
"Very well," he said, "who are you?" "We're from your Flock, Jonathan. We are your brothers." The words were strong and calm. "We've come to take you higher, to take you home." "Home I have none. Flock I have none. I am Outcast. And we fly now at the peak of the Great Mountain Wind. Beyond a few hundred feet, I can lift this old body no higher." "But you can Jonathan. For you have learned. One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin." As it had shined across him all his life, so understanding lighted that moment for Jonathan Seagull. They were right. He could fly higher, and it was time to go home.

Salutes, Long up and short down.

A sound thrashing...

Yesterday I visited a young lady at her request.  She is one of those who, for whatever reason, need a visit from a disciplinarian from time to time.  I gave her the thrashing of my life.  Hand, belt, and heavy leather implements.  She took it all till she cracked. Then she needed to be held, closely and lovingly, till her expation was over.

Then it was farewell, and an agreement to meet again in not less than two weeks and not more than four. As she says, she needs it and she never sleeps better than after she has received it. She wants no sex, and I do not ask it of her.  She just needs what she needs and I have worked it out.

Yea! I am a social worker.

Gloria sic transit mundi......

I havejust  been through a ritual which recurrs every few years.  It is called the renewal of the ALS certification.  Now ALS stands for Advanced Life Support and is a certification which we doctotrs (and others) can take to make sure that we are completely current and up to date with all the latest advances in the management of patients who go into acute life-threatening conditions or whose hearts stop.  It is worth doing, too because ideas change and I was really interested in the new stuff which has come in.  The administration of fluids through a short pipe drilled into the tibia is new from last time as is the charging of the defibrillator whilst continuing cardiac massage and with pads in place (is scary but has good reason).  Some stuff is out too but I feel bouncy and up to date.  Better still, I sailed through the MCQ and the test scenarios with a favourable comment on my team leadership skills so I feel right cocky, dont I?

Erm, well,  not quite.  For you see in the many 'scenarios' which we practiced, each one of us taking it in turns to take different team roles, I could not help but notice that the victims described as needing resuscitations were almost invariably younger than me.....  What worried me even more was the scenario of the 64 year old male collapse with chest pain when one of the young registrar types suggested after a perfunctory three cycles that resuscitation efforts should be abandoned or a DNR ruling sought because of the age of the patient.

Hold on a minute sonny.....a word in your shell-like

Psychiatric OPD and truffles...........

I sit here in a delightful Siena Hotel. I have had a good day and I cannot complain.  But last night, and tonight, I have eaten in the hotel restaurant.  I am not going to wax lyrical about the food though I could for truffles are something to wax lyrical about. No, it is my fellow diners.

For two nights I have observed the same couple and their hyperactive child - a boy of about five.  They sit there, hardly talking to one another and the child runs amok.  Will not sit still, makes wild gestures and brings to the table a DVD player upon which some vulgarity or other is played much to the annoyance of the other diners nearby.  Twice in the meal the husband goes outside for a fag-break. I cannot help but see an ADHD in the making, the Ritalin is just around the corner if it is not already prescribed.  But the sadness is in the parental relationship. They are no longer in a marriage, they are in a child-management relationship. I wonder how long before it ends.

But to the connoiseur of the odd nutter, tonights couple at the table beside me was a delight. In their thirties they shared a table for two.  As soon as he arrived he began to arrange the cutlery meticulously and then re-arrange it.  He cleaned numerous crumbs off the table and then began the same process on his hands and wrist and jumper. All the time his eyes were flitting from place to place searching out some impurity or other.  Then the wine came, its sedative effect kicked in and the activity stopped and they began to talk. I suspect that  I was witnessing an OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) in the making. Not bad enough yet to be clinically significant but give him a few years.

All this whilst enjoying a delightful truffled ravioli of immense proportions and then chicken with lemon. The whole washed down with a Vernaccia di San Grimignano.

There's non so odd as folks.....

2010 has gone, and will not be missed...............

I was at the Sofitel at Gatwick.  I do not like  major chain hotel restaurants by and large,  this hotel is one of those places that through necessity I have to return but where I actually look forward to doing so.  In particular I would suggest that my more gastronomically inclined readers try and eat at the Brasserie restaurant which is surprisingly good for  hotel chain restaurant.  If you can, try the braised calves cheeks or the pork dish. 

But now I am on the Meridiana flight to Florence with a load of elegantly dressed women and chaps with exaggerated seven o'clock shadows and toussled black hair.  You can tell us english, we are roiund and pink and not swarthy and we bother to shave in the morning.  Funny things, foreigners.

I have managed to arrange a business meeting in Siena, a town that I love. So yes, the bag is full of photographic goodies including the tripod which I so regretted that I did not take to Mallorca before Christmas.  I am going to have a second look at Siena Cathederal - I last photographed it with my old camera and I want to see if I can do better this time around. I am also staying at a hotel which is a special favourite especially for its food but more of that in the next posting.

I also have to do some business, and visit my villa in Umbria.  I bought it years ago, and it is going to waste. Someone lives in it.  I have outhouses, falling down  and my own wood. When I purchased it in 2002 my dream was that it would be a kinky paradise, sort of BDSM bed and breakfast in the heart of the Unbrian countryside with old barns where subbies could be tied up and enjoyed amidst baccanalian luxury.  Work got in the way, pity............but I did have SOME fun there. I have memories. Perhaps, once again, I shall find my soul here as I did in 2002.

I was once described in a reference as an unusual mix of youthful enthusiasm and adult cynicism.  If perchance you come across a pile of youthful enthusiasm then please return it to me.  I lost in in the past decade and would love to find it again.

God Bless Spanish Air Traffic Control......

 Or the lack of it.  For I am in Mallorca in the Balaeric Islands and I am stuck.  First because of the snow in the UK and now because the Spanish Airtraffic Controllers who earn some €300,000 per annum have gone on strike - in a country with some 20% unemployment.

 But I am OK, for I have been staying at a luxury hotel with a one-star Michelin Chef and everything I could want.  Please visit me at http://www.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=888512474953668762&q=Hilton,+Palma+Mallorca&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=Hilton,&hnear=Palma,+Spain

 I have enjoyed every minute. And this enforced stay on the Island has opened up so many opportunities for me. The reason that my photographs page has disappeared is that I want to up-load so many new photos but the Collarme system is not responsive to rapid change and I cant get it to work.

 I am here to visit a number of new pharmaceutical companies on the campus.  I am getting used to the role of being the Simon Cowell of pharmaceutical start-ups but that is the name of the game.  However my enforced stay has meant that I have had to form relationiships with those whom I would normally just visit.

 First and foremost was a quite delightful professor of cell biology at the Universidad of the Balaerics who shares with me an enormous enthusiasm for early microscopy and copies of what I found will be enventually on my profile page.  He has a lovely collection of early microscopes from the late 1700's onwards and what a privilage it is to lok through the lens of an instrument that a gentleman-philosopher of that era first bought.  he has many fine Victorian examples by the likes of J Swift and others. One looks down microscopes which were made before Pasteur recognised that Bacteria were key to disease.  This man's book collection includes a genuine first edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and an  original of the communication wherein Robert Hooke first looked at a section of cork and after analysing its structure  the word 'cell' was introduced into the scientific vocabulary. 

It is a humbling experience to look down these old instruments, to contemplate the spirit of scientific adventure with which their initial purchasers had been fired and to realise just what a period of scientific renaissence the early 1800's were. 

 But this afternoon, still in my enforced residence, I hired a car and trravelled to the  now-defunct Cistercian abbey at Valldemosa.  Such a beautiful church,  perfect for the photographer.  However the Cistercian community was here from the 1300's till about 1840 when they were disestablished by the Spanish Crown.  The Priory is a gem, Chopin stayed here..... God! I wish I could stay here.  The church is classical and the decorations by way of painting were exquisite.  But even more joy was the Cistercian Pharmacy wioth its manyfold jars of medicaments.   As a modern Pharmacologist I entered it with reverence and it photographed magnificently. For centuaries, monks vowed to silence experimentend with and dispensed treatments.  Mostly useless.  But it was the spirit of searching for the solution to the ills of society which joins us now.  I come from the world of GMP and GCP and GLP; the world of medicinal chemists, and scale-up and stock values. They were motivated by something much more elevated that where I come from.  To visit the Priors cell and the library was delightful, the books and the impelements of contrmplation such as the skull....Gloria sic transit mundi.  I noticed also the celice and chain discipline. Self spanking was around even then.  But it was the peace of the place, the cloisters and the gardens and the flowering orange bushes - even at this date.

Palma cathederal was a much more impressive place from the outside than the inside. But nevertheless if occupied me for an hour or so of lens fiddling and button clicking.

But the pharmacy at the Priory at Valldemosa was where I came from.........

God Bless young Branson.......

I am in New York; that city which I count as one of my top three or four.  Tonight, for reasons of gremlins and other technical matters the dear VS46 has been cancelled and I am stuck in New York.  I was not supposed to come to NY even, except for a quick peripheral trip out to JFK.

Virgin were magnificent.  'We are so sorry Dr Tavistock,  please go and stay in a hotel and have dinner, breakfast and lunch on us and we will put you on the '46 tomorrow night.  Then just send customer relations your receipts and we will fully reimburse you'  Fair enough, I suppose for I am a J and also a long time gold card holder going back to before 'dirty tricks' for those who remember.

So here I am......in a downtown hilton with a mandate to have dinner on the man himself ( as it were)  I can feel an expensive bottle of wine coming on.  More of this journal after the gastronomy is complete.  Right now I am just a happy bunny.

I have changed my mind about the US............

I first came to the US in 1969.  And again in 1973 and since then I have been a most frequent visitor, latterly I have been visiting monthly.  When I was just a boy,  I thought the place was truely wonderful. I started diving down Scripps Canyon in La Jolla and since then I have been to most major cities, especially those round the edge which are the typical entry and exit points.

But in the last ten years, I went right off then place tending to prefer old Europe and especially Italy and also the Far East - My beloved Far East, hot and steamy with warm clear waters and some of the most spectacular hotels to be found anywhere.

But in the past few months I have re-discovered my USA.  My work has required me to hire cars more and I have spent the last few days driving around New England in the Fall.  Based in Boston, I have been all round route 128, down to Providence, Rhode Island and this weekend to Washington.  I had never realised what a magnificent city Washington really is.  Boulevards and buildings comparable with the best of old Europe.  A grandure to match Brussels and Budapest....

I am pleased that I have rediscovered something that I had missed.

An agreeable surprise......

I have oftentime said how good Indian Wine is.  The vinyards around Bangalore and those of Nershik to the North West of Bombay produce some quite good wines.   Tonight I had a nice surprise.

Dining alone in a reasonable (but not top 5) Indian Hotel I decided to let them, show me their wine list.  I found, for the first time, a Rose from Bangalore which was half zinfandel and half sauvignon. A mix which I might well accept from California but something totally new on the Indian Wine scene.
It was perfectly delicious and I accompanied it with a green curry ( from central India) and some butter Naan.

India is a big surprise when it comes to wine.   They have the sun, the soil and the grapes.  They had to import French skill and are turning out some nice wines which are much cheaer than the imported ones.  For those of some knowledge i would recommend the Sula Sauvignon Blanc and the Grover Viognier. Now I would add this Grover Rose.  Dont touch the reds unless you just want oropharyngeal disenfectant.

Their Wine Industry is like their Pharmaceutical Industry. So much good. So much crap.

I have been so very cheered up by receiving a mail, totally out of the blue from someone who likes my journal and writings....

I am in Mumbai.   I have been coming to Mumbai since the early eighties when of course we just called it Bombay and its IATA locator remains BOM.  But it has changed.   When I was here in the early eighties it was a place of excitement.... I stayed there in the Old Taj at the gateway to India.  I visited places like the hanging gardens, the Zoroastran Temples with the flames and even got a peek at the towers of silence.  It was exotic.

Since then, I have comeback regularly and I was speaking at a conference at the Hyatt at the airport when the recent terrorist outrage occurred at the Taj Hotel.

Today we had the usual Boardmeeting. Then a new experience.  ALL the drivers were gone so I had to take an autorickshaw - which is very similar to the Thai Tuk-tuk through the streets of Mumbai in the rush-hour.  I had a fairly large mumbai colleague and he came along as honorary air-bag and to speak to the driver.  What a rush, what an exhillaration!!   It was a truely amazing experience and one which I shall remember for a long time.  I am not sure if I shall repeat it, but I shall not be adverse.

But what is sad is how Bombay has become Mumbai. The excitement and the unusual has gone and is replaced by poorly constructed modern buildings and urban bling. Even the cows seem to have deserted the streets.  I dont meet people transporting a dead body on a hand cart to the burning ghats anymore. 

I am lucky , I go to Ahmedabad and Bangalore and Delhi.  I can take weekends in lovely places like Goa and Mount Abu.  But the magic of Bombay has gone.

Σας ευχαριστώ δική μου ωραία ελληνική φίλος.

I was just browsing, as these weekends in hotels in foreign countries are inevitably boring....

And I came across this remarkable piece observation which exactly matched my own from this morning. It is in the journal of a lady called nerea, from Minnesota. I hope she will forgive me quoting her She says......

There is something interesting that I'm noticing here on collarme .. That there is an air of desperation in people. I wonder why that is. Why are people so desperate to find someone to fit into the mold they have in their head about what it is that they do and do not want. It almost has the feel as though people are looking through a catalogue and deciding whether or not they want to buy. Its disappointing.

Desperation makes us do foolish things.. believe me.. I know. It makes us react instead of thinking.. it makes our thought process be processed as though through mud.."

This was the very same thought that came to me quite independently this morning. This desperation is associated with a lack of humour and appreciation of whimsy...it is what gave rise to my crocodile picture and its quote.

Are there really serious people here, who take 'the lifestyle' so deadly seriously that they cannot see any humour in who we are and what we do. And worse still, cannot laugh at themselves?

 Mummified monk, live monks and a gastronomic discovery.......

Two days ago we had the Annual General Meeting of the Tavistock family chapter of the British Necrophiliac Society.  We made a pilgrimage to a wat (temple) in Southern Koh Samui to visit a mummified monk. (see picture in profile).

Interesting kinda chap, had a full and free life as a local businessman till the age of 50 when he kissed goodbye to wife and children and family - having made sure that they were financially secure; he entered the Monastry as a monk and was confirmed in his holy profession and rose through time to be the Abbot of his Monastry.  He was revered as a holy man and a great teacher and when he died it was observed that he did not seem to decompose.  It is said by some, that he died in the seated position of meditation but irrespective of the truth of that, because of his lack of decomposition he was placed in a seated position in the entrance to his Wat and people revere his corpse.

I think that there are many definitions of decomposition as anyone who has read their Glaister can testify.  Close inspection of the body revealed to my eyes that his decomposion was rather like that of a dried apricot or biltong or salt cod rather than the wet decomposition of raw meat left in a warm place.  Certainly looking at his head, the skin overlying the skull has dried so that the sutures are visible through it and the tasteful pair of sunglasses which adorn the body probably mask some rather untidy eyesockets. But a nice interesting visit which gave one a good appetite for lunch.

Yesterday morning I had to drive to Koh Samui airport for the short flight to Phuket.  It was delightful to see groups of monks in their saffron robes walking down the street with their begging bowls and the householders waiting for them with food offerings.  The householders kneel and fill the monks bowl, the monk then invokes a blessing and then moves on.  This interesting ritual is performed every morning by all thai monks as a recognition that they have to beg for thir first meal of the day and it provides a means for the laity to gain blessings through good works.

Should any of my devoted readers be in Phuket, I have made a wonderful discovery.  In the middle of the isalnd, just down from the
Phuket International Hospital is a shack right on a crossroads, opposite to a megamall. This shack is called 'Farang food'; farang being Thai for foreigner. I was taken there by my hosts for dinner.  From the outside I thought this was the usual thai family joint service good spicy food in dubious surroundings. But what a shock.......

Apparently the restaurant was set up by a man who worked at the best places and then said Oh bother, I cant be doing with this...(or at least that is the gist of what he said)  so he set up this small shack. The food is stupendous in quality, taste and trendy presentation. My host had loin of pork,grilled with crispy vegetables on a truffled mash.  I ordered a pizza but the quality of the base and the superb presentation (even visually) equalled the best that London could offer.  For dessert we had tirasmisu which was good but unremarkable. Four bottles of Singha beer and the grand total was just under £13.

I hope that some of you will go and try...

T 

Sea Gypsies.............

Your correspondent is in Southern Thailand, on the island of Koh Samui.  Enjoying the delights of the tropical night which tonight has included an excellent pizza and a bottle of Chianti.  I have spent a lot of time in SE Asia and I have always found that the best italian food outside of Italy is to be found in this region.  I know not why, perhaps those who understand noodles and seafood also understand pasta...but why should they produce good pizzas?

But every time I have a pizza I think of a lovely sub that I used to see quite often.  Her idea of the ideal Dom was one who played fierce and hard till about 1:00am and then in the twinkling of an eye, she clapped her hands twice and ‘Bingo’ he transformed into a nice fresh pizza!

However I would like to muse for a while on the ‘Chaolay’, the Sea Gypsies who exist from Burma, through Thailand and Malaysia and round in an arc encompassing Indonesia and the Southern Philippines.  Those few elite members of this community who know me realise that I have a background in diving, and diving medicine in particular.  Those of you old enough may have seen me on Horizon programmes and such-like in the eighties.  But best that you don’t remember me in the context of this website.  The diving fishermen of South-East Asia have long been a professional interest of mine; a sort of perversion from the North Sea ‘roughie-toughies’ with whom I made my early career.

The Chaolay dive for fish and more recently, shells which they sell to the tourists. They don’t have scuba gear or nice equipment.  They dive using garage tyre-compressors and plastic hoses. They go deep and stay down long.  Over one hundred feet for over four hours is not unusual and they come straight up...so they end up with the ‘bends’ and in one population I surveyed, over 17% had nerve damage to the spine.  I have been to Rawai, to Koh Siray, where I worked my way through their villages documenting the ravages of decompression sickness fed by the tourist need. They were always a problem to the Governments who hosted them.  Like Gypsies in the UK; they are untidy, they are anarchic and they don’t pay taxes. But you have to look after them.

But it is academic now:  it is no longer a problem for the health services of Thailand.

The Tsunami sorted that out.

Cicadas and Racehorses.

It is a delight to find that one's journal is actually being read and followed by people;  I  thank  you for it is what motivates me to write.  Presently I am in a United Regional Jet 700 somewhere over middle-America on my way to Chicago.  It has been one of those horrible early mornings but San Antonio has brought back so many memories to me....not just what you think,   you dirty minded individuals.

 I am lucky to have spent some time in the Carribbean islands, mostly diving.  I used to run a deep diving programme at Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory in Jamaica in the eighties and this morning it was nice to feel again the hot sticky heat, the song birds and the endless cicada sounds - properly called stridulation - which tells you that you are back in the Gulf Area and the Carribbean.

However my delight of the day happened at San Antonio airport when I had a little mini-panic because I was not sure my watch was set to the right time. A charming and urbane looking gentleman was sitting at the table next to me so I just asked him the time.  As so often happens, he latched on to my wonderfully plummy accent to ask me where I was from, as if he had not already worked it out.

We got chatting.  He was a wonderful man, of the cloth...a chaplain.  It turned out that he was the senior chaplain of the Racetrack Chaplains of America.  He was a mini-bishop to a group of interdenominational priests and ministers who provide their ministry to the vast horse-racing community of America which is centered on Kentucky which of course is where he lived.  He loved the UK having studied theology at Oxford.  However he was one  of  those real-world chaplains that one meets occasionally and have their obituaries in the Daily Telegraph.  He had been in the military and had ministered  to the US Special Forces and seen action in some tricky spots in the world. We talked about ubiquitous nature of the doping of racehorses, about his leading a bunch of clerical spooks on a pilgrimage to Israel  - the whole group mandated to both follow the paths of Jesus and pray but at the same time keep their eyes and ears open and well briefed as to what to look for.   He related an interesting experience in a hijack operation in the Middle East and much more but of course he would have to kill me if I told you about it.   Delightfully, as I took my leave of him, he blessed me. 

How nice, how very nice.

Incidentally I have been gently chided by one from Texas who clearly has found my journal of interest.  Actually I have to admit that I have enjoyed my last two visits to the US  for I was here a month ago also. I first came to the USA back in 1969 when I was a medical student. Then I was back in San Diego twice during my fellowship.  I was in San Diego in 1969 and through the early seventies when it was a hippy-liberal culture.  It was then that  I was at a stage in my career and life where I was furiously trying to get my leg over everything that moved and those were the immediate post-hippy days when one had to lie on Blacks Beach at midnight listening to the surf and talking utter bollocks about the compatibility of ones star sign in the hope  that such empathic conversation would finally get one access to the target. I  made many such sacrifices in order to exercise my youthful virility.  Thank God I dont need to do that anymore. At least I got one who claimed to be a full blooded Sioux princess for my trophy room.

 I have regularly come back since, mostly to San Francisco but I have to admit that it is Manhattan that I try to visit the most.  My Texan correspondent felt that I had been a little un-generous to the USA in some of my descriptions. And I have to admit that is probably true; it is easy to write for effect without always considering if one really means  it or not.     I love Manhattan and San Francisco, I like  Boston, I tolerate Chicago and detest Miami.  It looks like I am going to have to develop an affection for Indianapolis during the next year but there is nothing there except the motorcar racing track and Eli Lilly, the Pharmaceutical Company. A boring hot weekend in Indianapolis is trumped only by a weekend in Salt Lake City....Yikes!!

If I had to improve this country it would be at its borders .  I would make the immigration people smile and look happy and take away their guns.  I dont like foreigners with guns, I dont trust them even in their own country.   But I see absolutely no reason why immigration officers doing passport checks on passengers who have been thoroughly screened for weapons and had no access to them should sit there with .44 calibre weapons slung from their hips and a uniform verging on the paramilitary. It creates quite the wrong impression.   But now we have done away with the green Visa Waiver form in favour of the on-line ESTA and we will see a return to the old swipe card I-pass I can avoid this display of armed militarism and feel more comfortable entering the country. 

That will be a good start.