Busy busy

I am useless at this, aren’t I?

One thing I have learned is that there’s nothing worse than announcing a hiatus in terms of guaranteeing a total loss of audience, as well as any faint hopes of making time to write – a friend recently wrote in an email that he’d “stumbled across your blog (which I must confess to thinking dead)”. Whoops.

I think this ought to help, since everybody is now on Facebook (right?).

Since the last update, work has been busy but enjoyable, I still manage to get out of the city at least once a month (after a few years in Bangkok, this becomes vital to maintaining any level of sanity), managed to return to Cambodia last month (more on that at a later date), and have just reserved the flights for my first trip to the UK since October 2007.

I’m still enjoying picking up the odder Thai phrases – this month’s favourite so far is ตีท้ายครัว, which I first thought meant “hit the back of the kitchen”, but in fact means “have a dealing on the sly or at the back door” according to that dictionary site – for example, having a secret affair. And no, I read it in a magazine, actually…

In television, I just finished watching Torchwood: Children Of Earth, which was awesome, and am enjoying the very dark Psychoville too. In cinema, I still haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie. Waiting for the DVD now. Looking forward to the new Harry Potter, and refusing to watch the new Terminator and Transformers movies on principle. And in music, I am embracing Daft Punk 5 years too late…

I’m looking at a couple more trips outside Thailand to better explore this region of Asia (Bali looks good), and almost definitely the USA this year. I’ll hopefully get to Australia next year (been saying “next year” for a few years now, but I’m determined this time!). Burma/Myanmar is still intriguing, but can I justify handing over dollars to that regime in order to see the place? Tricky choice…

Anyway, with less than four weeks to go until I’m due to land in Manchester, when I shall purchase a bottle of Lucozade, a packet of Hula Hoops and a Ginsters pastie at the earliest opportunity, things will probably remain comfortably hectic until I’m actually boarding, and only get busier when I land.

As things stand, I’ll be hitting the UK on August 4, so get in touch if you’d like to catch up.

Right, that’s it for now. More soon. Really.

PS. 200th post!