Pigs Eyes – Not doing that again!

Well I am back from my tour of South East ASia. It was a good trip. The schedule was rather too full, and we cae back exhausted, but we did catch up with everyone, and we had fun. High points included cable car rides, sushi, huge amounts of Taiwan beer, Oolai, Taipei 101, and Mei’s new bar. There were not many downsides, but I could have done without the boy cutting his head open and the subsequnt hospital visit for stitches. The trip home would also have been better without him throwing up on the plane as we taxied to the runway at Hong Kong. He’s fine now by the way. Stitches out and no further intestinal up-chuck.

We landed early on Sunday morning and Heathrow was absolute chaos. There were thousands of people queueing at immigration, and I do mean thousands. It took me and the boy about 90 minutes to reach the immigration desk, only to be waved through in about 2 minutes. It took the dragon much longer since she decided tyo go through the non-UK passport route. Usually we go through together but she didn’t want to get to the front of the queue only to be sent back again. It was genuinely chaotic. If we can’t do better than that when the Olympics come it’s going to make UK look like a third world country.

I haven’t actually been to Taiwan for a couple of years. The last time I was there the boy was only four, and although he was talking fluently, he wasn’t really an interesting conversationalist. At six, he is now much more interesting and amusing. What is facinating is the way he switches between English and Madarin without missing a beat. He doesn’t even have to think about it. It’s genuinely amazing. Up until last week I really hadn’t seen him speak Chinese to anyone other than his mother. It turns out his Chinese is so good, and he’s so confident that he interacts there just as well as he does in the UK. He makes friends with Chinese speaking kids so easily and so naturally, if I had any worries about him loosing touch with that cultural half, they’ve gone now. If I had to choose one high point about this trip, his linguistic performance would be it.

I will arrange some pictures of the trip when I sort them out. These may well include the picture of pigs eyes, which I ate as a sort of dare. I won’t be doing that again.

It’s Tuesday I’m still fighting the tail end of my jet lag and the big boss is in the office today. We’re all dressed upf for the occasion. I’m wearing a suit and tie. I like to put on a suit sometimes. Most other people are not wearing ties. I’m weearing a bow tie. I’ve had several people ask if I tied it myself. Of course I did you morons, elastic bow ties are for mortals.

I can’t work out the problem with deporting extremist scum bag Abu Qatada from the UK. Apparently he’s been arrested again and told that they are going to deport him, but that means he has the right to appeal again. Why don’t we just sling the dirt ball out? The only barrier appears to be the EU court of human rights. No other European country would take any notice of teh ruling.

I’ve written too much. Congratulations if you’re still reading. Here is a final little nudity story to amuse you. Last week a woman at Denver airport stripped naked for reasons I don’t understand. It caused a certain amount of panic and staff were apparently really not sure how to handle the situation. She blamed the episode on lack of sleep. It’s not much of a story, except that she seems to have started a trend. Yesterday a 49-year-old man did exactly the same thing after an argument at the security gate at Portland airport. How far is is Denver from Oregon? I can’t do US geography. Is this a virus? Is it air-born?