Things I've Learnt Lately...

1. What happens in Vegas doesn't actually ever stay in Vegas! Especially if you're third in line to the British throne.... and you decide to get your Crown Jewels out at a pool party.

2. A Naked Prince gets far more press coverage than the sentencing of a Norwegian mass murderer.... or the ongoing massacres by the Syrian dictator.


3. One in 10 people react badly to the rabies vaccination... and that includes my poor hubby. High fever and headaches have knocked him out the past couple of days, but at least we are ready to face all those rabid dogs that are (apparently) just waiting to sink their teeth into us the moment we set foot in Thailand.

4. It is the Law of Murphy that on the weekend that you are stuck inside a hot, crowded dojo, in a hot gi, doing hot, strenuous exercise at an Aikido Summer School.... Britain basks under a hot, sunny sky. The following weekend (which also happens to be a long one!), when you have plans for picnics and BBQs and long country walks with friends... leaden skies will prevail, followed by monsoon conditions!


5. I sometimes get an idea in my head, or dream and that becomes all consuming... I have no time for anything else! That explains my absence from these parts of late - preoccupation with a little trip I have in mind for 2014. More on that another day....

Happy weekend everyone!

Life In Macro

Notes From Nat - The Olympics Souvenir Edition

Dear British Media

Please can we see a lot more of these types of celebrities.....

Jessica Ennis - gold medallist for the heptathlon 

Mo Farah - gold medallist for the 10,000m

GB's gold men's coxless four -  Pete Reed, Andrew Triggs Hodge, Tom James and Alex Gregory

Victoria Pendleton (gold and silver medallist for GB) and Anna Meares (gold medallist for Australia) 

South African Oscar Pistorius - double amputee - made Olympic history by racing in the 400m

Sarah Attar finished last in her 800m heat, but the fact that she was there at all is a huge victory - she is the first female track and field athlete to represent Saudi Arabia at the Olympics and received a standing ovation as she crossed the finish line

Nicola Adams - the first woman to ever win a gold medal for boxing

...and a whole lot less of the vacuous, I'm-just-famous-coz-I-got-my-boobs-out-on-TV, Big Brother contestants - so that the next generation grow up with more positive role models?

And another thing.... I hope these Olympic Games have shown you that Britain is pretty damn great at all kinds of sports! So can we please get a lot less coverage of the appalling antics (on and off pitch) of egotistical, way overpaid Premier League footballers, and far more coverage of all the lesser known sports?

Let's carry forward the stirring  "Inspire A Generation" motto of London 2012!

A good time has been had by all

...............

Dear Athletes of the Olympics Games

OK, it's official.... these are actually The Crying Games! Don't get me wrong, I can quite understand it's a very emotional thing... standing up there with that piece of hard-earned bling around your neck, your national anthem playing, your heart swells with pride... and you're reduced to a blubbering mass of tears! The problem is, I can't stop crying either.... it's reflex action, just like yawning!

Damn I wish I'd invested in Kleenex shares....

South Africa's Chad Le Clos clinched the 200m butterfly from his personal hero, Michael Phelps

Sir Chris Hoy - GB's most successful Olympian ever

Felix Sanchez (Dominican Republic) - gold medallist for the 400m hurdles

Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins after winning the women's double scull

What the Olympics are all about

Photos obviously not my own!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

After the rather sombre last couple of posts, I'm going to conclude my Vietnam trip photos... yes, the end is finally here!.... with some completely random photos of things that made me smile on my travels.

In no particular order....

'Knock-off' per chance?

This Cable Guy had his hands full!

Painting in a bar in Hoi An

And another one!

Proof that everyone is a Millionaire in Vietnam... it's all a big collusion! Or illusion....

Google Translate Fail! A sign on a toilet door (should be "Staff Only")

Bear in mind, in the UK "fanny" means something slightly different from our beehinds (like those of you State side)!

Not another frikkin' temple!

"Roll up! Roll up! Come and get weighed... just one dollar!"

A prince in waiting?

Hope you're all having great weekends... I've spent most of it glued to the Olympics on TV, watching Team GB rack up the medals!

The War Goes On.....

To continue from my previous post, on the war memorabilia I saw in Vietnam....

The War Remnants Museum

The War Remnants Museum houses a collection of the machinery, weapons, photos, and documentation of Vietnam's wars with the both the French and Americans (though the emphasis is heavily on the latter). The museum was once called the War Crimes Museum, which should give you an idea of whose side of the story is being told here. The museum calls for peace and a hope that history is not repeated. 

The exhibit includes a room listing war facts: troop numbers, bomb tonnage, statistics on international involvement in the conflict, and numbers of casualties on both sides. Then there's a room dedicated to the journalists and war photographers who were lost during the war..... to me this was a fascinating and evocative exhibit, often incorporating prints of their last spool of photographs taken just before they died. There are some horrific, haunting images of the human aspect of war.

One room is devoted to biological warfare, another to weaponry, and another to worldwide demonstrations for peace. I was quite disturbed by some of the exhibits, such as wall-size photos of the My Lai massacre and the bottled deformed foetuses, supposedly damaged by Agent Orange. Not for the faint-hearted.

There is also a large collection of bombs, planes, tanks, and war machinery in the main courtyard, and  a model of the French colonial prisons, called the Tiger Cages, on the grounds....

Reunification Palace

Designed as the home of former President Ngo Dinh Diem, the US-backed leader of Vietnam until his assassination in 1962, this building is most notable for its symbolic role in the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, when its gates were breached by North Vietnamese tanks and the victor's flag hung on the balcony.

The Reunification Palace is a series of rather empty rooms that feel like everybody just up and left one day... which they did! I quite enjoyed the period kitsch....

The President's Office

Entertainment lounge

Lacquer Room

War Command Room

Huey helicopter on rooftop

Front gates

Iconic photo of the North Vietnamese army tank crashing through the gates (30 April 1975)

Rex Hotel
Originally constructed to be a French garage in the early 1900s, the landmark Rex Hotel was developed into a commerce centre in 1959. Later, during the Vietnam War, the American Forces Information Service was headquartered there and it soon became a favourite haunt for US military officers and the scene of daily press briefings to foreign correspondents, known as the “five o’clock follies.”

After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the hotel was redeveloped into an international-standard hotel and renamed Ben Thanh, which it is still called by some locals today. The “Rex Hotel” was adopted as its international trademark name.

A good - if pricey - spot for a cocktail and live music at the rooftop bar....