It’s been quite a week since I landed back in Chennai on Sunday, so much has happened that it would be quite boring to even list it all out, but  can sum it up in three words. 

Hospitalisations and Crises. 

I’ve had a lot to think about and I could probably easily write a long piece on the nature of mortality, our place in a huge dazzling universe and the legacy that we’ll leave behind. 

Fuck that though, I’m immortal.*

But if I do go, I want to go out like my Granddad. 

Peacefully in his sleep, untroubled by his last moments, slipping into blissful rest aided by a few beers and some shots of decent scotch. 

I certainly don’t want to go out like his passengers, screaming in terror as they crossed the reservation into the oncoming traffic. **

THIS is the view in front of me as I type, my campaign against my Guns N Roses T-Shirt has continued unabated and it went for a swim in the pool this morning and is drying on the table in front of me. 

It’s holding up pretty well really, which sort of sums up the week and how things are. 



There’s a lot more laughter on the TotallyFuckedProjectOfAbjectDoom (TM) these days, we’ve all worked out that the only way to get through this and maybe get our lives back is real team work, which for a lot of us extends to the late cab journey back to grab dinner before the restaurant closes. 

I had a lovely meal of four quadruple vodka and tonics last night and I believe that there may have been some food served at some point too, best of all I stitched my German counterpart up with the bill for a table of twelve people. 

It’s still hard to imagine that this place was a fort all those years ago and it staggers me to think about the months-long boat journeys, backbreaking work and frankly ludicrously hot uniforms that those soldiers had to cope with. 

If they were lucky, they would have had somebody in their troop who would read and write, so they could send letters to their families and have the replies read to them many months later. 

I’m sitting here typing this on an iPad, listening to music on a bluetooth speaker and will be transmitting the whole thing via a wireless network to some strange thing called the Interweb or something. 

I’ll be calling home via Skype or FaceTime or old fashioned cellular technology and I’ll get real-time updates on the world back home. 

We live in a world of everyday miracles and are truly blessed to be alive and able to enjoy the world around us. 

It’s turtle hatching season here and the staff in the beach hut have played mum a few times to some batches of baby turtles whose parent didn’t get back to see her eggs hatch. 





They took this batch to the sea a few hours after I took this photo and released them straight into the water, giving them all an equal chance to live and maybe one day return back to this beach. 

It’s a nice gesture and it sort of sums up the attitude of most people here, I’ve grown to like them a lot. They work hard and I see small everyday kindnesses so often that it will be strange to go back to the harder, colder world of London and commuting. 

My friends the crows are watching me type and perform the odd fly past to remind me that they’re still here. – They’re actually hoping I’ll leave my sunglasses on the table, they love the shiny stuff. 

I’m in a good place inside my head and I hope that you are too. 

Have a great Friday and enjoy the weekend.. 

*So far anyway

** a Bob Monkhouse classic