The Boy and The Coconut Tree

Does flattery get you anywhere and does flattery work with you? I ask this as something funny happened to me today and I shouldn't have been shocked. I was swimming at my gym and minding my own business as that is all you can do when you are face down in a swimming pool when I paused at the shallow end for a drink of water. A female personal trainer was standing at the end of the pool watching the swimmers. She introduced herself and told me she thought I was a good swimmer. Of course my ego was tickled and we chatted a little about how I love swimming, I used to swim in a team a long long time ago (I was 14 or 15) and swim a lot. She invited me to join the gym's swimming club on Thursday evenings. It sounded good, a bit of competition and coaching etc and she asked for my contact details. She then slipped in at the end that there was a fee of £5 per week to join in. Now my gym is not the most expensive in London but it isn't cheap. I felt a little cheated and rea

I recently found this quote from one of my all time favourite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I sent it around to a few of my friends: "No one deserves your tears,  but whoever deserves them will not make you cry" One of friends responded with a question about tears of joy and I realized I don't think I have ever cried tears of joy. Have you?

Another week has flown by and what a week. It has been a sad week for some. A close friend lost his mum this week. Something none of us can even begin to understand until we go through it ourselves. My thoughts are with him and hopefully I can be a supportive friend when he returns and tries to get back to normal life. Though I personally cannot imagine life without my mum. The weather was crazy all week and the snow came and went, the ice came and went and the trains continued to be a farce, delays, cancellations and overcrowded trains. South Eastern trains should be particularly ashamed of themselves. They ran a terrible service in and out of London Bridge all week and the confusion and overcrowding in that station was some of the worst I've ever experienced in London. The excuses ranged from " slippy tracks " , " bad rail condition s", " staff shortage s" and " severe weather " now having lived in North America, severe weather is not 1 i

"I love you", why is it the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we most long to hear?. "I love you" is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. Love demands expression, it will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. Its the cliches that cause the trouble. A precise emotion seeks a precise expression. If what I feel is not precise, then should I call it love? I want the diluted version, the sloppy language, the insignificant gestures. I was careful not to say those words too soon. I had said them many times before, dropping them like coins into a wishing well, hoping they would make me come true. I don't like to think of myself as an insecure person but if

This was written in the summer of 2012 Greetings from a rather sweaty English man who is enjoying/not enjoying the 40c heat. I think it is the hottest I have ever experienced anywhere apart from the Australian desert near Alice Springs and that was 45c, so we are not far off. Luckily I won't hire a bike here like I did in Alice Springs and go cycling at 2pm in the afternoon and almost die of coffee deprivation and dehydration. There are no good coffee shops in Alice Springs! So I am now in the final stages  of  my stay here, 7 weeks here, 1 week in Granada and one visitor between now and then. I've been lucky to have coped with the heat, the lazy students, the failing banks and the pesky beggars and pickpockets who managed to steal my mp3 player with its collection of very classic pop music and euro hits. Those poor people! So, the title of this email is because of Diego de León Metro station; Madrid has a great Metro system, one of the best i've ever used but s

As soon as I settled in Hanoi I began to explore the area close to Hanoi and further afield. One of my first visits was to the Perfume Pagoda  a day trip from Hanoi.  I joined a group of 10 people on the coach, we were from Germany, Australia, Malaysia and Russia. Thankfully all of us had a grasp of English enough to talk in the coach and on the climb up to the pagoda in the mountain. The trip involves a boat ride along the river. The woman rowers are fierce. They are able to row and sell you crappy trinkets at the same time. One of them asked me to marry her. I had to decline, I cannot imagine me being a house husband in the  My Duc  District of Vietnam.  The pagoda and the mountain are wonderful, despite the huge tourist shops and hawkers at the bottom of the mountain.  The Pagoda and the mountain Part of the Pagoda complex The path up is not steep but hidden in the trees were chained monkeys, and quite aggressive they are too, I discovered that when I tried to pet one

2013 has barely begun and I am restless. I am always restless. I have yet to comprehend the reasons for my restlessness but ever since leaving home in 1988 for university, I haven't looked back. I do look back to my home with fondness and I visit as often as I can, 4 times in 2012 and probably 6 times in 2011 but since that 18 year old wide-eyed youth left Sunderland in September 1988 I have been fortunate to visit 18 countries, work in 6 and live in 4. I want to see the world. I am not sure what brought be back in August 2011 to London. It was probably the naive belief I could slot back in, resume work and social ties that existed before and this is partially true. The friends I made before going to university and those made at university remain my friends, some friends have passed by. I spent new years eve with a friend I met 19 years but over the past few years the invites have fallen away. I can go weeks without socialising. I went back to my old job, a job which I dislike for