Tiny Little Fractures

So I had a moment akin to what Spectral was going on about a few weeks ago, but the adjective was less beautiful and more unbearably cute (and I mean absolutely no disrespect). The last time I was at the Sri Lankan Airways office at the World Trade Center I noticed her, but just peripherally as being phenomenally cute and very, very good at her job. She handled a customer call from some joker wanting to buy a Qatar Airways ticket from Sri Lankan brilliantly, pure class.

This time around I actually got counter number 4 and man was I blown away. Just the way I like a girl, Sri Lankan, petite, bit fair for my taste, bit of a strange name Viyani I think, sharp nose and big, brown eyes (sorry savi3 I couldn’t see her legs, so not sure if she fit the long legs requirement) and oh so cute! The best part about is instead of me being tongue-tied and lost which has been the case since I lost my mojo I was actually (I think) pretty charming and funny. Had a nice banter about the weather in California and Sri Lanka, compared the beauty of both countries, the deficiencies of the British and American airport systems and rather confusing, intriguing number system they have going on at the office.

Dare I say if I had all my mojo intact I would have asked for a number, but the healing process takes time. And I was just happy to leave with a big grin on my face, knowing I still had some of my old touch. Actually the best part was that I, very truthfully, pointed out that I fly Sri Lankan all the time because of their excellent customer service and she was a shining example of that. And thus left her with a smile on her face and I’m hoping the contented feeling of having a happy, satisfied customer leaving with his faith in her airline intact. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making my day….and I hope I made yours!

Here are the village idiots in Sri Lanka, all together in one place, beaming for the camera, thinking less about salaries and constituencies than perks and trips to Thailand (to study their democracy/Tsunami response/etc/etc of course). As opposed to the 35 Ministers promised at elections we now have 104. That’s 1 minister for around 192,000 people. Those bastions of bureaucratic nightmares India and Pakistan on the other hand has one for every 14 million and one for every 10.5 million respectively. That for the mathematically challenged readers is over twice a magnitude in difference (I think? I’ll admit I’m fairly mathematically challenged as well).

Looks like it’s the same same song we heard from Chandrika, there’s just a moustache this time around (well a visible one at least).

I’m currently rereading Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje after about a two year hiatus. To be honest I was not very fond of the book the first time around, but it is sort of growing on me this time around. I’m still a bit rankled by the description of someone in a coat in Colombo, since in all my life I have never seen anybody foolish enough to do that in the heat and humidity. But that little glitch aside as I said I’m quite enjoying the read this time, though it is somewhat ‘uneven.’ There was one paragraph though that as I read it, it really affected me, which I found deeply insightful….

“When Gamini finished surgery in the middle of the night, he walked through the compound into the east buildings, where the sick children were. The mothers were always there. Sitting on stools, they rested their upper torso and head on their child’s bed and slept holding the small hands. There were not too many fathers around them. He watched the children, who were unaware of their parent’s arms. Fifty yards away in Emergency he had heard grown men scream for their mothers as they were dying. ‘Wait for me!’ ‘I know you are here!’ This was when he stopped believing in man’s rule on earth. He turned away from every person who stood up for a war. Or a principle of one’s land, or a pride of ownership, or even personal rights. All of those motives ended up somehow in the arms of careless power. One was no worse and no better than the enemy. He believed only in the mothers sleeping against their children, the great sexuality of spirit in them, the sexuality of care, so the children would be confident and safe during the night.” 

I actually felt ashamed reading this because I have in the past called for a ‘return to arms’ in response to events like the attempted assassination on Sarath Fonseka. I do however stand by my opinion that force is necessary sometimes, there are ‘good’, thoughtful ways to respond to provocations such as those that have been shown by the LTTE since the dawn of the ceasefire. Talking peace with people who do not understand at the language is in the end fruitless. I however do not and have never supported clarion calls for things like ‘utter destruction’ and ‘final solutions’ for the conflict. At the end of the day strategic necessities have to be balanced against the raw human suffering that is the above passage evokes. To people on the ground non-violence would be ideal but we unfortunately live in the real world, a world that is yet to learn that to kill is in the end utterly fruitless.

I am in the end not trying to provide a solution or pass judgment, I am merely noting that the big picture of what is going on in our island has to be balanced against the suffering of people on the ground, will they suffer for eternity if we give in the Tigers or suffer for a bit longer if we fight them, who makes that choice? Who has the right to make that choice? I wish I had some of the answers but all I have is an amorphous, gray mass of ideas and opinions that are constantly shifting, maybe there is no answer, maybe that’s Kuveni’s curse.

Jack fish! Of the family Carangidae. That’s what a paraw is! The answer all this time was right under my nose, in a Wildlife Heritage Trust produced book by Dr. Charles Anderson, Common reef fishes of Sri Lanka. A book I’m absurdly fond of because it is probably the only thing I have ever won in a draw so to speak, having thus far been unsuccessful in my attempts to procure free items ranging from Plasma screens to sofa sets. I still remember the excitement I felt when I was delivered, by hand no less, in its crisp brown wrapping, unwrapping it to see its ocean blue cover with its frontispiece of silvery yellow fish swimming past a coral reef. I can’t believe I had to suffer all that mental anguish and sleepless nights when all I had to do was to look at the bookshelf next to my bed!

So I seem to be going a bit crazy for sunsets today, not only did I get some prints but I took these pics down on Marine Drive, a typically spectacular Sri Lankan sunset. Next assignment, go help with the vegetable shopping at Pettah on Sunday, taking my camera with the 50mm 1.8 only and see what I can get.

Also can some one please help me with some Sinhala nomenclature, nobody and I do mean nobody seems to know the English name for paraw…anyone? Anyone at all want to shed some light on this conundrum?

I always wonder what people think when they look at certain images, so I though it would be interesting to put up three pictures that I took recently and request the world out there to tell me what comes to mind when they see them. It could be one word, it could be a sentence, but please do let me know. Incidentally these pictures were manipulated some in Photoshop CS and I’m going to print them up, matt them and present them to my mom as a peace offering for my irresponsibility over the last few months/year. So if they do happen to evoke emotions or actions like ‘hit’ or ‘throw frying pan at progeny’ let me know!

This image has a dynamism that brings to mind fun afternoons at the beach with the outstretched arm and the sun beams underneath the girl’s elbow.

This to me is kind of a cliché image, but there is almost a sense of relief that the girl is eclipsing the sunlight. I also like the dynamism in her blown up hair.

So this image brings to mind quietness and peace and a sort of brooding, because the girl herself is not very clear in the image.

So those are my rather poor attempts at describing some of my images and why I like them, go ahead my dear readers and please, do feel free to be as harsh as you want.

How do you eat an egg hopper? For the hopper neophytes out there a hopper or Appa in Sinhala is made from a fermented batter of rice flour, coconut milk and apparently a dash of palm toddy (though I doubt this happens very often in my house). It is crisp on the outside and soft in the middle, my personal favourite the egg hopper is cooked with an egg in the center. Over the last 25 and a half years of my existence I have perfected what I would like to think is the ideal way to consume the gastronomic delight that is an egg hopper.

You need the following ingredients, one egg hopper and two regular hoppers, preferably both steaming slightly fresh off the stove. The other essential ingredients are a spicy parippu (or dhal) curry, redolent with turmeric and a whiff of garlic, a good sharp katta sambol and a meat curry of some sort. The poison I picked for myself today was a lovely, orangey prawn curry. What I like to do then is rip an end of the crispy shell and carefully, with surgical precision work the rip down to where the brown of the appa meets the gooey whiteness of the egg, glistening with minute salt crystals and spotted with black pepper. I then further this incision about half a centimeter into the egg white, take a right angle, a few more centimeters and then another right angle and up. This gives me a rectangular piece of hopper with a sliver of egg white which I then, with a pleased chuckle to myself, proceed to dip into the parippu, diluting the egg white into a dull yellow, brightening it up with a bit off the red katta sambol, wrapping the whole parcel around a curled up shrimp and popping the result into my mouth.

I repeat this process until all the crispy part of the hopper is gone, leaving a disembodied yellow yolk floating in the white of the egg. Grabbing a new hopper I continue the process, scything away at the egg white until all that’s left is the yolk, shivering in its transparent sheath. That of course is when all the fun starts; with a fresh piece of hopper I dig a crispy dagger into the heart of the yolk. I time my consumption so that by this time all the prawns are gone and all that is left on the plate is the gravy from them, mixed in with the remaining parippu and sambol. Once all the yolk flows into this mix I dab the hopper into the yellow mass in the middle, gouging out pieces, sop up the mess at the bottom of the plate and continue contentedly munching away.

That is the way I eat every egg hopper that I am ever served. It usually gets me odd looks from the relatives at family functions and exasperated snorts when they realize they can’t leave the table because I take twice as long to eat my food as normal people. Not that I really care though, the hoppers are usually far too good for me to even acknowledge the disapproval. So that’s my technique for tackling the egg hopper, how do you eat yours?

In terms of writing anything meaningful, the last post is going to be a bit tough to follow for a bit. So here’s the worldwide premiere anouncement of the existence of my shutterchance account. Most of the pics may be familiar from my Flickr account but they look prettier in Shutterchance and I’ve included a bit more information about them. Please do let me know what you think and..cough…cough…if you want to buy/license any of the images…hey I can wish sometimes can’t I?!

http://ngun.shutterchance.com/ 

This is the last installment in this series, one that is a bit tough for me to put down in words, both because it is deeply personal and it is such an old memory that it is not even coherent in my head, just a series of disjointed images. Here goes anyways, actually this is a memory that doesn’t invoke pure happiness, rather a bittersweet sorrow (to quote either Shakespeare or Oasis I’m not entirely sure) for what could have been but at least some gratitude for what was.

The incident took place back in the mists of my past, sometime in 1987 (I think) before my father passed away, my family was fractured and life changed so dramatically for me. Before that I was a typical kid, son of a planter, in Royal College, part of a tight knit community. If that life was mine today I would probably (assuming I had inherited some of my Dad’s sports genes) have played either cricket or rugby for school, maybe even captained, spent vast amounts of time in remote parts of the country and actually known my sister and mother as complete family members instead of the caricatures that thousands of miles and years apart created. I instead ended up in the microcosm of an international school with its mediocre sports programs, excellent academics and accompanying attitude problems.

The trip was to Kala Wewa and as I was only about six years old I can’t really remember all that conspired. I do remember going across the tank in an old boat, Uncle D in the front, watching the greenish yellow water plants whip beneath the sides. I remember wandering what it would feel like to be in that water, what fish and other wonderful creatures lurked beneath. I also remember emerald grass, almost shoulder high for a man, my dad silencing me when with a grunt a water buffalo got up some feet away and eyed us uneasily. Him whispering to me to listen hard for the elephant that was in the tree line and refused to come out, the breaking branches and ‘huffs’ sending delicious thrills through me. I remember the yellow mud, heaped around the elephant’s footprints where he had visited a circuit bungalow, the excitement at listening to the caretaker recount the visit. I also remember at night, at the bungalow we stayed in, a wooden ‘tat,’ a lantern causing a surreal red striped glow reflected off a red wall around a solitary gecko.

Most of all I remember getting out of the Trooper when we got to the bungalow we were staying at. It was overcast and as I looked down I was fascinated by a line of red ants, possessors of a painful bite, but peacefully wending their way between my blue Bata’s, contrasting against the white sand and minute black stones covering the ground. I’m not sure how long I watched them, but that memory is crystal clear. The red ants, blue slippers and white sand, as the breeze blew in off the Kala Wewa, blowing the last few days of my old life away.

Note: That was actually a pretty tough post to write and apologies in advance for any excessive sentimentality.

The Moneragala moment is not the only one that keeps me going, while most of these perfect moments are from Sri Lanka there is one from England that I really enjoy recalling. A motley crew of us environmental science students was trudging through a typical English wood in mid-March, freezing our arses off and cursing at the multitude of pit fall traps we had to dig. After a few hours in the grey, moss strewn forest we finished our traps and wandered out to where the car was parked beside a field and a wide grassy bank.

We were too tired to contemplate the drive back to our digs and the bank just looked too inviting. All of us clambered up the hill and lay down in the late afternoon sun. Lying there, a warm red glow in front of my closed eyes and cigarette smoke curling out of my lungs was an experience. The grass was also alive with a myriad of early spring life, I could almost feel a million feet pattering around me, ants meandered over my feet while beetles ran into my nose and bounced back into the foliage. I lay on my stomach and watched the miniature jungle at work for a few minutes before laziness overtook me. Slowly our ribald conversation petered off, no more cigarettes were lit and all that could be heard was the breeze through the trees and the constant murmur of insect life. Lying there, my back cooled by the grass, my front pleasantly toasting in the mild sun I entered a state of semi-consciences that was one of the most relaxed states I have ever been in. That ephemeral moment is what Nirvana must feel like.

How many times a day do you think that? If I had a dime for every time I thought, well, I’d it at least have a passive income of a couple of thousand dollars a year. I envy those perpetually optimistic folks, those people who can smile and go cheerily about their business when the boss is yelling, the weathers freezing, the bank account ticking near zero and your credit limit is reaching maximum. I on the other hand start to think about how inviting the cold, grey waters below the Golden Gate Bridge might be. I have however with time developed a certain survival mechanism, moments in time that seem so perfect, even a hardened cynic like myself feels all sweet and gooey inside, the moments that makes one remember what it is to really live, what to live for.

One of these moments occurred in the backwoods of Sri Lanka in Moneragala, my assistant and I had just taken a bone-mashing eight hour bus ride in what was a blatantly falsely advertised air-conditioned intercity bus. The sun had just set as we strapped our equipment to our backs and walked 30 minutes through the undergrowth to the house we were staying in for the period of our research. After a cup of sweet tea by the lantern light to refresh ourselves and then wandered down to the nearby stream to bathe. I hadn’t been to Sri Lanka for over two years and it felt amazing to re-immerse myself in an experience that was so peaceful and timeless. There was still enough light in the sky from the faded sun to silhouette the tops of the mora trees and kitul palms. The water gurgled in a million tones, trickling through the pools and rushing through the bathing pipe, all the while fish were almost painfully nibbling at my feet. Innumerable birds from salelinnias to grey hornbills fluttered and called in the tree-tops searching for their night time roosts adding to the steady chorus of the cicadas. 

The final touch to this magic, as we washed the cities and town’s dust from our bodies was the fireflies which came out as the last bit of light faded. Sitting on a rock, taking in the little globules of green light drifting in and out of the trees while geckoes skittered through the rocks, I was glad to be home. I finally realized what it was about me that was stuck in our small island, my sense of place. I knew everything would be good.

That is a moment that keeps me going, not only the beauty, the sounds and smells but the feeling of home.

My assertion that we have matured may have been just a tad premature in light of this weekend, well week actually. A quiet drink on Wednesday snowballed into an interesting night at Tabu on Wednesday, involving far, far too much Old Reserve and Asti. Some friendship barriers were crossed, mostly due to me pushing buttons but thankfully no permanent damage was done. Just some additional therapy hours for some of us, which for some are long overdue.

The early morning shenanigans ended it was babies for breakfast, Chinese for lunch and some silence, arguments and confessions for tea. A misled flight plan meant I was solo for the night at Onyx, well solo in that none of the girls with us really tickled my nizzle so to speak, despite most being lookers. I think I need more than my fair share of therapy. The night was still pretty good, pickled my liver with white rum and toasted my lungs with Benson and then filled my belly at Holiday Inn.
 

This was all a warm up for Saturday though; the agenda was a chilled sunset and drink at Buba. Unfortunately due to my inability to comprehend text messages whilst half asleep and a resultant mix up in directions we ended up at Buba once the sun had decidedly set. Two bottles of white rum and six hours later in the idyll of Buba at night the mother of all club hops was conceived, Buba to Mambos.

In short, two hours, the highest recorded speed in the Fairlady, offers to lick Evil’s starfish and countless shit scared dogs later we were at Mambos, drinking, dancing and trying to spot some ladies. I as usual was bollockingly crap, my radar was somewhere over the Atlantic at that point I think, not much use when I’m standing by the Indian Ocean. I did however have my wingman moment with quite a smooth cigarette lighting hand-off to Y. Too bad he didn’t get anywhere with the Middle-Eastern bird, but at least he tried.

The drinking was followed by Y and I stuck at an officially ‘closed’ Rotti Stop where if not for the kindness of a stranger, and our ability to squeeze something out of nothing the lack of three rotis and a cup of tea would have resulted in our sure death from starvation. Bounty and Evil turned up from a detour in the World Heritage City to drop off some partiers and pick us up a largesse that even the six of us in our famished state could not finish. Satiated and worried by D’s attempts to put line to Chuti the Rotti Stop wench we decided to call it a day and….well try and figure out to do for the day. Debating on whether to sleep in the cars or try and figure out hotel rooms was enlivened by what looked like a Doberman the size of a Shetland pony charging out of Rotti Stop. I quietly sought refuge in the Fairlady leaving the rest to their fates before it was established the gargantuan dog was actually Great Dane going for his morning ablutions on the beach.

A bus thunders by in the early morning 

It was finally decided that Evil and D were good to drive (though the latter assertion was highly questionable) and Evil with me as co-pilot headed off with Bounty and Y in the back. D and P headed off in the Fairlady (now doesn’t that sounds like an interesting pun) and we all headed off in the early morning light back to Colombo. My job was to keep Evil up, which I tried by roundly abusing him at every opportunity provided. Unfortunately I just didn’t have enough material to keep me going, ended up falling asleep and then waking to what appeared to be an Intercity bus driver trying to park in my lap and with a feminine yelp of fear all sleepiness vanished. Evil simply smiled his evil smile, content with his achievement, swung back into his lane and continued on his way.

I then proceeded to keep myself entertained by continuing to abuse Evil and taking pictures of oncoming traffic. Most of the moments were pretty tame compared to S driving back from Hikka last weekend, but there was one moment that not only did I have momentary heart failure and coughed up a kidney but my camera was frightened out of its wits.

My camera has an apoplectic fit

That’s the only explanation I can make for the picture below, which I took as the bus passed us by a whisker yet looks like something out of my old college shroom-induced hallucinations.  Colombo was reached with minimal drama afterwards, Y and Bounty slept like babies the whole way, DP ran out of petrol but still managed to get home and Sunday was spent in bed that has never been as inviting as that.

Being a sucker for punishment I was out with the Akkis last night, well my excuse is that I don’t get to see them very often and at their decrepit age its most likely the next time I come down one or both will be married and boring and that will be a great lost to humanity. The fourth night ended with off-tune singing, wandering down memory lane, a female Indian fist in my mouth and a slapping of said female Indian’s arse, all in much required self defense of course.

It’s an odd sensation to be home these days. Back in college and actually until last December I used to come down with one aim in mind, party, party and more party. Drink until the wee hours of the morning, club hop till my legs felt like dropping off and trying to chat up as many girls as possible. Somewhere along the line however that changed, I guess that chat I had with Bounty on the way to the airport last time I was here wasn’t bullshit. Case in point, this holiday I’ve been out a grand total of twice, not counting 31^st night or a night at Buba, both times to Onyx. Well there was the night of Flygirl’s birthday which went on until around 5 in the morning, but that was relatively speaking a pretty chilled out night and it was a special occasion (which doesn’t really count).

I think the calming down is both a mental and physical thing. For one thing I’m unable to stay up until 6am, eat breakfast at Holiday Inn and still function as a somewhat normal human being the next day. I generally need at least 3-4 days to recover from a session like that, time that I can ill afford to spare. On the mental front I came to the realization today that I actually like hanging out with my family. I’ve always had issues with the fam, I guess it’s because I grew up with my maternal grandparents and that was a clash of cultures, especially in ‘modern’ Sri Lanka that was not going to go down well. The impatience and intolerance on both sides has however dissipated with time and now I just enjoy hanging out with them and talking. I even hang out with my paternal grandparents, to whom I had an emotion close to hate for taking something so important out of my life through their indifference. I guess its just time to let go and appreciate the good in people, despite whatever they did to you in the past. I guess it’s called growing up (something for the record I never thought I would do). Now I just have to figure out how to avoid becoming a square. 

Anyways family aside, the trip to Hikks, which was pretty much virgin territory for me since I was a kid, was awesome. There’s something so perfect about lying on a beach, staring up at a moon with Late Night Alumni’s Empty Streets thrumming in your ears. That is until the rest of the joker crew decides to turn up, throw sand at me, poke me and yell at me until I’m ‘sociable’ again. That and a stray dog attempting to nose my crotch got me up quick time as well. We then proceeded to head down to Mambo’s which was another world to me, I loved the fact they had trance music, and good trance music, playing. It would be nice to go rock out there someday before I get grey hairs and can’t move a foot without wincing. The beach boys could do with some less attitude though, one of the bartenders was a real dick, stole my drink before I finished and then gave me a gal look when I politely requested for it back.

All in all a good trip, heading down to Unawatune for the long weekend and then hopefully into the hill country the next weekend, if the last trip does go down this would probably go down as one of my better Sri Lankan experiences.  All in all this time down feels more like being home than ever before, which is going to make getting on that plane all the more difficult. What is however keeping me floating is that not only will I be back in August for Uncle’s wedding, but end of 2008, mid 2009 I shall be back here for good. 

There I said it, I’m coming back for good, come rain, shine or high water, Sri Lanka is home and always will be.

Bugger what everyone else thinks.

Got back from Hikkaduwa, extended my flight and trying to get busy and actually accomplish some stuff this ‘holiday.’ Need to find some time to write about the trip, maybe when I get back from lunch, but in the meantime, here are some updates on my Flickr account, enjoy and let me know what you think!

Thinking at Buba

I’m not sure why I’ve never been to Buba before? The folks in Mount appear to have been keeping the place a well hidden secret all these years. Trying to choose between a sweaty, cigarette stale night at Onyx and sitting on the beach with some friends is like trying to choose between a Singaporean style kidney caning or a luxurious full body massage from Eva Longoria. Maybe I should have listened to N when she used to invite me to sit on Mount Beach instead of pickling my liver and smoking my lungs at Clancys all those years ago. 

I don’t want to step into a club for the rest of my stay here, just sit on the beach and try and work up the courage to not think and just do. Forget about consequences, timelines, commitment issues, feelings and all that jazz that complicates life, just jump. I just don’t understand why the boys (and some of the girls) prefer to sit inside what looks like a mini jungle for the singular purpose of having a drink, either my liver finally got through to my brain or I’ve matured a bit. Eh, growing up aside, Buba is a place I would highly recommend and sitting on the beach and staring at the ocean the best activity to do there, having a beautiful male or female (depending on which way you swing of course) next to you is helpful as well.

I do hope I get to go there again before I leave, and next time, no thinking. Just eyes closed and hop into the deep, cold, dark end without a lifejacket.

And my decision not to wear a watch. After spending oodles of money, flying thousands of miles risking the chicken fever and a dodgy stomach for the first time I missed out on prematurely popping a champagne cork a few seconds to midnight. Instead I was emptying out my bladder for what seemed to be the hundredth time of the night even though it was still relatively early when the roar of fireworks alerted me to the fact that I had overlooked a minor detail of 31^st night. I returned to some right royal abuse from the boys, but at least I had a glass of Champagne in one hand and Vodka/Red Bull in the other, a combination sure to make anyone happy.

All in all Galle Face was quite fun, admittedly the location was nowhere near as good as last years and we didn’t have a nice big tent with sofas to ourselves either, nor, thanks to my slight oversight, any Patron. It was what can only be described as a ‘sociable’ 31^st night, no over the top rocking, just 5 minutes on a chair for old times sake, no random chat ups (despite what appeared to be the largest conglomeration of tight, mini-skirted, brown hotties on the planet) or excessive drinking. Evil wasn’t around for me to chuck an empty bottle at, which I’m sure he really missed, I know I did. I did however meet a bunch of old acquaintances, caught up and had a generally good time. There was a slight bit of weirdness towards the wee hours of the morning, but a couple of days and a good session of antibiotics should clear that up.

Cricket captain, in town to meet the in-laws was highly taken up by the whole Colombo 31^st night scene, didn’t know where to look in terms of cuties and made us solemnly, if a bit drunkenly swear an oath to come back next December as well. He did however look shit the next day, he’s excused though since he has got a few years on us and not had the opportunity to be hardened by the party lifestyle in Colombo. Also met an ‘ex-blogger’ who’s dearly departed blog was one of my favourites, and not just for the excellent music recommendations that were on it but a writing style I could only be envious off. Well actually it was the second time I met her, but the first time was a bit blurry and loud and a haze. Its always strange putting faces to online personas, and this one was no exception. She turned out to be younger and shorter than I ‘pictured,’ in fact she claimed to be five feet tall, but unless I’ve grown around three inches since 10pm on the last day of 2006 there was no way that was true more in the region of four foot ten or thereabouts. She also had a rather irrational hatred towards Coldplay, but I guess you can’t expect people to have perfect taste in music.

Breakfast at Intercon, attended by R (who managed to last all night for once), CP and Cricket Captain and some early doors comedy from one of the strangest morning persons I have ever met, rounded up a ‘satisfying’ night and an excellent way to bid adieu to 2006, a year of dizzying highs and marrow chilling lows, a year I was glad to turn my back on.

I hope everyone out there had a fun, safe New Year and has a lot to look forward to in 2007!