Centrefolds uploaded

You can now grab some of the latest pictures that I've uploaded to the gallery for your filthy pinups.

Two categories I've updated are: the UAE and Copenhagen sections under "Europe, Middle East and Africa".

Link address should be on the left.

In the words of Jon Stewart, here's your moment of Zen:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=116&art_id=qw1121754962821B261

I have hungry/J'ai faim/Ich habe Hunger

For some reason this is one of the few occasions through my 24 year career at this job that I haven't found it easy to plonk my head on the pillow, stare at the inside of my eyelids for a few minutes before drifing off to a listless sleep. Instead I'd better festoon my blog with some updates before it starts to become passé. In the meatime, I'm waiting for the room service guys to bring some Nasi Goreng at 2.45 in the morning.

In the last couple of weeks, I've signed myself up for a Scuba course. It's split in to three sections. 5 modules of theory, 5 confined water dives (basically means in a pool) and 5 deep sea dives. Here in the UAE, since the water temperature hovers around the 35 degree mark during summer, there's little need to wear more than a thin body suit during the dives. I'm looking forward to straping on the long round cyclinder and getting amongst it (in a completely heterosexual manner). Speaking of which, it's no surprise that the UAE is extemely homophobic, and hearing that Canada recently legalised same sex marriages will bring much wailing and knashing of their teeth. What is also little surpise (to me at least) that one of the less straight hostette-in-training that I've heard of here has managed to liberate his swimmers four or five times in as many weeks, and they're not all foreigners. You draw your own conclusions.

Work's pretty busy these days, so I lauded myself for waking up at a healthy 1pm on Thursday (the middle-east equivalent of Saturday). This week I might get a chance to have a bit of my own time, so I'll check out a few more of the clubs around Abu Dhabi. One of my more preferred haunts is a place called the Captain's Arms, just down the road from the hotel. 25 UAE Durhams (about 5 Euro) for a feed of fish and chips, and they've got Stella on tap. Choice.

The latest word is I'll be repatriating myself to England for a couple of months from mid-August onward. I think it's in London, but don't blame me wrong if that turns out to be completely false.

You mean you _didn't_ go to Roskilde

I did the boost at about 1am on Thursday morning to Cophenhagen from Dubai for the Roskilde music festival (www.roskilde-festival.dk). It was such a wicked time. Roughly four days of pumping music, beautiful Scandanavian girls and great weather made for a phantasmagoric time. I did a quick tour of Copenhagen on Thursday while the festival was warming up - a nice city. Didn't have any Copenhagen icecream though.

Staying at a hotel for 800 Danish Kronor a night wasn't really an option when I could have bought a tent for a quarter of the price and camped out with the 80,000-odd others there. So I did.

The highlight of the first night (and probably the 2nd best performer there) was Armand Van Helden. He has real talent for mixing music and put some Nirvana in half way through his set of two hours. The next night was Autechre and was a bit of a blow out. I shouldn't be surprised, but from what I had heard of other warp artists (Squarepusher) that even though they put on "out there" performances, they were still entertaining. Autechre had the lights dimmed down to about 10% and nothing on the TV screens behind him. I would honestly prefer to listen to his music (which is pretty cool by the way) with headphones by myself since the atmosphere was pretty downbeat anyway. About 85% of the acts I saw were all in the metropol tent, which was pretty much dance/electronic bands.

There was also a cuban reggae band in the early Friday evening - very energetic. It was called Ska Cubano. Worth checking out if you're in to that sort of hanky panky. Captain Comatose was a bit average, but DJ ATA had some good dance tracks. He was aparently from Frankfurt, but he didn't make any appearances at U 60346, where most DJs (including Carl Cox - twice) played. Audioslave was also pretty ace but the dude's vocals were a bit up the corks.

I missed Jimmy Eat World since I was boozing it up with a bunch of mettlers from Denmark and Sweden (there were buggar all Norwegians at the festival I noticed). Real friendly dudes, and I'd say the Danish have the best English of all Benelux and Scandanavia. Carl Cox, Foo Fighters, Royksopp, Alter Ego were also kae te nui te pai choice and at 4.30am on Sunday morning I decided to call it a day after hanging at the camp fires singing Stairway to Heaving 25 times with some dudes.

So flying back to Dubai on Sunday night and arriving at 7am the next morning to hit the ground running at work was a bit dicey but I think I fooled them and pulled it off.

This week is a real ball-buster at work, so no weekend for me. I'm looking forward to trying out some water skiing in the next few days. Aparently they've got it at the hotel here...I had a good time hitting black balls at squash tonight....also at the hotel.

Maaalo....Choice.