Yes, it has been rather quiet over here. It's not that I don't have anything to say. I have a couple of blogs bubbling along, but I can't really get them right. It seems to get harder to say what I want, how I want. But, it's the end of the year, so I thought I should get something down and show vague signs of life.

Christmas was good, a much needed break from the exhausting daily slog to and from Canary Wharf. That's meant to end in April, and I really hope it does. Canary Wharf is like Hong Kong - but only the anonymous sanitised parts, which in Hong Kong were brief interludes in a vibrant, humid and continually engaging place. Canary Wharf is packed with shops and thousands of people. If you get claustrophobic around large groups of people, like me, lunch times are a nightmare. Stumbling through the malls to get a sandwich is a daily ordeal. I plough through, constantly weaving and dodging in a desperate attempt to preserve my, and everone else's, personal space.

Of course, Hong Kong was a highlight of the year, so I suppose it's fortunate it took up half of it. Japan, Lisbon and Los Angeles were also highlights. Simply reeling off those place names reminds me how lucky I am to be able to travel around so much, even with a full time job. Without the promise of elsewhere, I really don't think I'd be able to sit at my desk, day after day. The irony is that, without the job, I wouldn't be going anywhere.

For the cynic and the pessimist (like me) New Year is a time to reflect on how fleeting life is and how the years wither and die with increasing speed. To dampen my natural inclination to ponder such things, I have compared two photos of myself. The first was taken 9 years ago, in Six Flags Magic Mountain, a theme park just outside Los Angeles. Al and I are on a roller-coaster called the Viper. This year I went on the same ride with Les, and got a similar picture. Not much has really changed, just my hair length.

Viper 1997


Viper 2006