… of the fleeting reference to you in a comment made by my dad. (I’ve deleted the comment because it now serves no purpose and might even confuse matters.)

When the power went down, I used my cellphone to leave a message on my parents’ home voicemail, asking my dad to put a comment explaining that I was now unable to email, blog or anything similar. I asked him to put it below your comment but he didn’t understand the message I left.

So nothing sinister, honest!

There’s a lot I want to say about the last 36 hours in Madurai. I thoroughly recommend it as a place you could easily spend a week, mostly just getting your head around the Meenaksi temple.

However, I’ve just been highly amused by something and wanted to share it with you.

I phoned home from an open international call box just outside the temple. The owner’s son and his mates were there. We got talking and one of them offered me a palm reading. (The palmist spoke no english but his mate, Ramesh, spoke very good english.) Most of the predictions were ‘your life will/can be nice, especially if you do (various sensible things)’ and ‘something very nice will happen in November/December’ but the thing that caught me was the prediction of me fathering 2 or 3 children; i.e definitely not by adoption but ‘by your own sperm‘. (This is a verbatim quote.)

I have the interlocutor’s email address so I will be very pleased to keep in contact about the number of children I sire, even if I end up less than pleased about what that number turns out to be.

Grinning like a loon, as ever!

OK, to make things clear for all: until I return to the UK, I will not send *any* emails with attachments without either a blog entry*, phonecall or a previous email saying I’m about to do so. Unless the attachment is absolutely urgent, I will obtain consent before sending it (via LJ for those who I know regularly read this blog, via email in most other cases and via phone if all else fails.)
*if I use this method, I’ll await the intended recipients’ permission before actually sending the attachment.

So unless I have already warned you that I’m emailing an attachment, please immediately delete any email that both has an attachment and appears to be from me.

BTW, it’s possible that I’ll not email anything for the foreseeable future. Electricity in the main part of Nedumkandam is very intermittent (and non-existent yesterday) due to road-works and attendant replacement of cable-supports. This cybercafe’s UPS is almost empty (in fact it emptied 30 minutes ago but the current’s been back for 10 minutes – then died again).

Further, since this place uses dial-up and windows 98, attaching photos is a pain I’ll avoid wherever possible. Even with ISDN, it’s tedious and costly.

It appears that something has got hold of various addresses that I’ve previously emailed and is sending spam to these addresses.

1. Sincere apologies for anything I inadvertently did to cause this. I hope you know I wouldn’t deliberately spam anyone.
2. It’s possible that another correspondent’s PC which received the ‘I’m offski email’ I sent before I departed has had all the CC addresses harvested. A couple of days ago I received ‘your virussed email has been bounced’ messages in response to things I didn’t send. I also received notification that a correspondant had tried to send me some infected pictures – and I know this correspondent wouldn’t knowingly do so
3. Apologies again for any hassle you’ve received

To try to assess what’s happened and look for a cure, please comment below if you’ve recieved any spam which purports to be from me.

The following isn’t meant to be inflammatory, just an expression of what I’ve experienced and a possible way forward. My opinion is just that, only my opinion, and open to change in the light of fresh information and cogently-argued thought. (And so I think I have learnt something from the exchanges in MsInvisFem’s blog.) So if you don’t like what I say here, comment here or privately and I’ll try to listen and act on what you say.

I’ve very rarely experienced anti-English racism in Scotland (and laughed like a drain at the example in Trainspotting. However, if needed, I could speak about the bullying and oppression I experienced at school. That hurt a lot at the time (a vibram-soled boot planted at speed on my back may have been the cause of on-going weakness in my middle vertebrae) and may have contributed to some of the nastier sides of my character. Certain people who may read this blog have seen far too much of these sides. With the exception of where I was attempting (and usually failing) to protect myself, there is always a tacit apology on my lips.

I still don’t like labels that divide humans from each other, whether perpetrated by majorities or minorities, oppressors or oppressed, even to draw attention to oppression.* It’s too easy for these labels to be a stepping-stone to ‘negation as people’.
*When oppressed or minorities use such labels to describe themselves, it can be seen to imply that they’re accepted or even desired by the oppressed or minority in question. Then even well-meaning but ignorant members of majorities or non-oppressed groups may well perpetuate such labels and the divisions and oppressions that go with them.

However strict avoidance would prevent me from saying things such things as

• ‘I’m from Worcester.’
• ‘My father is australian, my mother is austrian, I live in Scotland and drink irish whiskey and czech lager and eat indian and latin-american-style food. Now try to tell me my nationality!’
• ‘He/she/they /are (i.e. describe themselves as) brahmins.’
• ‘He is the “village-king” of this tribal village.’
• ‘Men do this while women do that.’

In this blog, such phrases are only intended to clarify who I’m talking about or state what I’ve observed*. They’re certainly not intended to mean that any group of people is worse than any other. We’re all human, and we all have our own particular mixes of faults and foibles.
*with the usual caveats about observation and narratives being far from the whole story

As far as I’m concerned (and with no intention to discount what others have experienced: if something hurts, it hurts and nothing I can say or do will undo this experience), the biggest issue is a person’s financial status. If minorities, etc, had the financial wherewithal, they could simply laugh off racist/oppressive comments, safe in their luxury apartments. However, this is currently pie-in-the-sky: often groups of related* people live together in terrible conditions which are an utter disgrace to our common humanity. One function of this blog is to report on the examples I’ve seen here and invite readers’ thoughts and action.
*This seems almost inevitable: if they can’t afford brick walls, how on earth are they going to afford transport to get to form relationships with other, better-off people?

I should add that this part of Kerala is probably nowhere near as bad as other areas of the globe: there are plenty of posh-looking villas on the way from Nedumkandam to Kattappana, for example. The fertility of this area is beautiful and stands in stark contrast to the dust-bowls and abject misery of north-eastern Africa (for example) that’s been on my TV since the early 1980s. There’s also plenty of luxury hotels* if you want to come and see for yourself. However, the best way would be to make contact with a family such as Ajeesh’s: you’re almost guaranteed a lovely time along with your practical lessons.
*The link is to the Edassery hotel in Munnar. However there’s an Edassery hotel in Kattappana and it looks very posh from the outside.

You are warned that some of the pix behind the cuts show me with my ‘local-style’ haircut.

respectable clothes/on the way to Munnar and Kanthaloor

All dressed up!

Gopalakrishna and I

jaggery factory

visit to orphanage

Bruce and Shaji

DS, Shaji, Anish and Ajeesh

a typical Keralan side-street

Ajeesh with some of the orphans

The orphanage children and staff

I’m starting to grow into the new hairstyle.

EDITed to remove pomposity and implication that my blog and I are always perfect and factually correct: we’re not!

CHAI-STORIES
Having moaned in my last entry about the travel agent (and there’s more moaning to come), it’s pleasing to report two good things:

• After escaping from the travel agent, I bought sheets of two different grades of sandpaper at a hardware/DIY store here in Kattappana. The shopkeepers apparently spoke no english but miming polishing the coconut-shell bowl I’m working on did the trick. I’m very grateful to the shopkeepers and slightly proud of my miming
• I’m also very pleased to report the cheapest khardum chaya yet: Rs2.50 at a cafe in Kattappana’s bus station with very friendly and efficient service. That’s around 3 UK pence or 6 US cents. Starbucks has a lot to learn! (Also their masala dosa and a wada cost Rs13 and were yummy.)

DIARY BIT
The bus home on Tuesday was one of the most exhilarating times I’ve had here. The bus was crowded and so most of the time I only had half my right buttock on a seat* while I clung on to the railings for dear life, much to the amusement of my fellow passengers. If you ever want an extreme roller-coaster ride, try the 7.30pm bus from Kattappana to Nedumkandam. I call it the ‘Kerala switchback’ and thoroughly recommend it.
*The rest of the time I had no contact with a seat at all thanks to the many bumps and pot-holes in the parts of the national highways that have yet to be resurfaced.

On the walk up to Ajeesh’s house, I met their neighbour Babu. I believe he’s a member of the local gram panchayat (village/town council) but can’t really have a conversation with him without a translator. He appeared to invite me to his house for a drink or two. I found out later that he was inviting me to have a drink with him in a bar in town. Apparently he has a wee tipple each evening. I thanked him for the invitation but I’m wary of mixing alcohol in local bars, communication difficulties and relative strangers: it seems a perfect recipe for disaster.

MORNING GLORY
Yesterday (Wednesday 28th) I was introduced to Ajeesh’s uncle, who apparently also arranged Jaya’s wedding or at least introduced Rajesh as a potential husband. I was told he has a suitable match for me. I get rather tired of going through the reasons why I’m not interested and of having to appear grateful for this extremely unwanted favour.

ELECTRICITY NEWS
I’ve often failed to charge my camera batteries sufficiently, leading to quite a few missed photo-opportunities. Yesterday I learned one possible cause: India’s domestic supply voltage is nominally 230 volts. However Ajeesh’s area receives 30 to 40 volts. Ajeesh’s family have a step-up transformer but it moans from time to time so is far from a perfect answer. To be honest, I’m amazed that electricity cables have been laid at all, considering the state of the roads to the house.

TRAVEL TROUBLES
On Tuesday I spelled out the options to the travel agent:

• flights from Calcutta to Singapore and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Medan and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Padang and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Pekanbaru and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Medan and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Padang and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Pekanbaru and back.

He asked me which option I prefer: I said I would prefer the cheapest overall way to get to Sumatra but that I’d decide when I’d seen the prices of ALL these options so I wanted prices and availability for all of them. Yesterday he gave me a price for the Calcutta-Singapore-Calcutta option only because that was my preferred (i.e. the cheapest) option. Gaaaah!

I didn’t have time yesterday to do any research myself because I was in a hurry to get back to Nedumkandam and on to a ‘social work’ function.

SOCIAL WORK NEWS
Here’s why I respect Ajeesh, his family and friends so much: you already know about their situation. Yet they take time and trouble to support people who are even worse off than themselves. Yet again Kerala has reduced me to speechless tears.

Rural poverty here and in other parts of India can be roughly assessed by the number of debt-related suicides amongst farmers. It’s a topic that bubbles under the headlines and occasionally surfaces onto the front page. Local banks have been encouraged to write off loans but I have no idea if this is yet making any difference.

CORRUPTION CORNER
To make things even worse, corruption appears to be a big issue. As you may have read in earlier entries, Ajeesh needs to find Rs200,000 for Jaya’s dowry. He tells me that he can’t borrow this from a regular bank because they only give business loans so has to go to a private bank. (I think it’s the Idukki Co-operative Bank.) However, to get his loan application approved, he has to bribe certain officials with around Rs10,000. This 5% ‘rate’ is apparently half the usual rate.

The officials are, allegedly, gram(a) panchayat(h)* councillors who are also somehow in charge of the bank. No bribe was mentioned when Ajeesh saw the actual bank staff but the need for (and amount of) a bribe was made clear in a separate meeting.
*I’ve seen several variations of the spelling of this phrase.

I’ve offered to accompany Ajeesh to future meetings and record proceedings on my camera and/or mp3 player, then demonstrate these recordings and my NUJ membership to the bribe-takers. I’d hope either to get them to drop this request for a bribe or (preferably) expose them completely and get them out of office.

Ajeesh is doubtful about this: the request has already been made so why would a further meeting be needed? (Maybe I can record and photograph the hand-over and stop the process at this stage.) Also, he’s afraid that he’d just end up being ‘black-balled’ in this area and so have to move somewhere else where he doesn’t have his network of friends and relatives.

Personally, I’m furious that this state of affairs appears to be normal practice. My fury is exacerbated by hearing that the officials who have demanded the bribe are members of a communist party! Well it’s a sure way to annoy people enough that a second bolshevik revolution can’t be far away. In fact it’s already going on: google for ‘naxalites’ and see for yourself.

OVER TO YOU!
I may have mentioned that Ajeesh, Shaji and DS (and maybe others) plan to miss a meal each week and divert what they save towards social projects. I’m going to follow suit. You can help me in one or more of the following ways:

• make sure I live up to what I’ve said and don’t cheat by eating loads at the meal after the one I’ve missed
• do the same yourself and make a suitable donation to the charity of your choice or to one of the projects Ajeesh runs here, maybe via the Red Cross.
• have fun the following way
  1. Obtain a coconut, a mango, some spices and some sandpaper.
  2. Split the coconut open equatorially.
  3. Make yourself some chatni and eat it with rice, iddlis or chapattis. If you’re adventurous, abandon cutlery and use your right hand to feed yourself. (You can use your left hand to manipulate serving spoons, etc.) Remember to wash your hands both before and after eating.
  4. Clean out and sand the closed end of the coconut shell until you have a smooth, dark-chocolate-brown mixing bowl.
  5. If you must, paint it Day-Glo.
  6. Flog it to a hippie.
  7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 as often as your RSI will allow.
  8. Distribute the proceeds accordingly.

BACK TO YESTERDAY AFTERNOON
After a fair amount of waiting for DS to arrive, Ajeesh, DS, Shaji, another journalist (Anish) and I pooled some money and collected further amounts from some other folk. (I saw one bloke hand over at least RS200.) They then went to buy food for a local orphanage. DS told me that they do this 3 or 4 times a year. Apparently they get most of what they need by leaning on wholesalers who they know have avoided inter-state import taxes. Shaji and Anish are journalists for a malayalam newspaper, Deepika and so can threaten to expose the wholesalers if they don’t cough up. I can’t say I totally approve of this system but I guess it works.

At the orphanage, they kids were fed vegetable rolls, bananas and milk. It didn’t seem a big meal but considering that the place is only half-built (gaps in the walls of the building that’s inhabited and another part under construction but still without a roof) I guess anything is better than nothing. Ajeesh and DS fed two children who were in an ‘infirmary’ bedroom: one has polio and the other severe cerebral palsy or similar. Then Ajeesh led a singing session: he has a good singing voice, IMHO, and the children appeared to enjoy it. I think there were about 16 children and four staff, led by sister Anna Rita Maria.

Afterwards we all returned to Shaji’s office. I have some (hopefully wonderful) video of the four of them singing in harmony. I can’t say how often how much I like the people in this corner of the world: despite some terrible problems, they are often laughing, joking and singing with each other and appear far happier than I do most of the time.

Ajeesh drove me halfway up the hill to his house: he stopped to visit a relative who is getting married today and I walked the rest of the way up the hill.

RACISM/CASTE NEWS
(With thanks to for helping to bring this topic to the front of my mind.)

Early yesterday morning, while dressed in his field-work clothes (a dirty lunghi and short-sleeved shirt), Ajeesh introduced me to an old lady who is a friend and neighbour. She wore a dirty, stained and frayed saree and underskirt. Ajeesh asked me if their clothing gave away their caste status. (They’re both brahmins but I think they’re in different sub-castes.) Of course their clothing said nothing at that moment. (Repeated meetings so I can assess their usual clothing might say more.)

I think the implied lessons are

• brahmins are workers as much as any other caste, except that their duties include religious work on behalf of the other castes,
• members of all castes can be poor farmers
• that dhotis and nice shirts are only worn as office/white-collar dress. (In all the films I’ve seen here, the politicians wear pure white dhotis and shirts.)

Also, allegedly, one of Ajeesh’s relatives was surprised when Ajeesh told him that we had visited a tribal village and drunk the coffee they offered us. I’m told that this relative feared the tribals’ food and crockery would be unhygienic and unsafe and allegedly opined that the tribals are a bit less than human. Well it appears to have had no bad effects on either of us (and you know I’ve received doses of Mughal’s revenge from restaurants in tourist areas that should do much better). Also, as far as I could see the houses were clean, just terribly overcrowded and smoky because they didn’t have chimneys. (I don’t like to think about the respiratory diseases this might cause.)

Ajeesh implied that the tribal people are outwith the main priest/warrior/merchant/farmer caste system* and disparaged his relative’s opinion. He wholeheartedly agreed with my opinion that they’re humans, just like the rest of us, and as welcoming as any other Keralan I’ve met.
*He says that roman catholicism, orthodoxy and protestantism are ‘castes’ of christianity.

TODAY’S SNIPPETS
I’m back in Kattappana to blog (hey, they have the luxury of ISDN here!), research tickets and make contact with the outside world. It’s ages since I’ve seen an english-language newspaper or seen more than a snippet of english TV news so I have almost no idea what’s happening outside of this corner of Kerala.

I was on the bus by 9.15am: I can hear former colleagues gasping that I might be awake by this time. before this, Jaya served khardum chaya and banana- and jackfruit-chips. I hope I can bring home some jackfruit seeds and banana seedlings: I’ve never seen in the UK the 3-inch sweet and delicious bananas that are so common here. Nor have I seen the big red bananas that are made into bananas bhajis. I’m going to really miss these and Jaya’s jackfruit-seed curry. She tells me she’d like to come to the UK and start a restaurant there. I can be her accountant, she says.

BUS BLETHERINGS
A word or two about the local buses: they usually have two doors on the left side. Running from just above them are strings that lead to a bell near the driver. The conductors use this system to tell the driver to stop, start or that it’s safe to reverse. (There are two three-point turns on the Kattappana-Nedumkandam route.) Where the strings are absent, they slap on the inside walls of the bus or shout ‘va va va!’ (for ‘go, go, go!’).

The windows have no glass but have rubber-backed metal concertina-style shutters held out of the way by metal gates. Pressing up on the base of the shutter allows the gates to spring out of the way and the shtters to fall closed.

Tickets appear to be of two sorts:

• either the conductor writes the cost on a ticket, with a carbon copy left in his or her* book or
• he or she has a metal case with around ten groups of different-coloured tickets screwed into it. He or she will tear off tickets to the value of your fare. (Each colour also has its price printed on it and may have places for the conductor to clip the date the ticket was issued.) I’ve also seen both systems in Goa and occasionally had journeys where I received ticket at all.
  *I’ve only seen one female conductor.

IT NEWS
In each town bigger than 20 or so buildings, I’ve seen at least one ‘digital studio’, usually offering photographic and/or videographic services and occasionally offering internet facilities. However, most cybercafes are stuck with Windows 98: it’s relative a treat to find Windows 2K or XP. I’ve not seen a hint of Apple stuff apart from a closed AppleStore in Pune. I miss my pismo so much it’s not funny!

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
I don’t think I have the budget to do all that I want and so I’m probably going to give Assam a miss. I’m told that it’s very similar to the tea-growing areas of Kerala and Tamil nadu and just now likely to be severely monsooned, making travel next to impossible. This morning Ajeesh again invited me to stay until I need to go to Calcutta to then go on to Sumatra.

Again, I’m very tempted but I don’t like free-loading. Ajeesh won’t accept any money for me staying there, even though it’s saving me at least Rs350 per day, because I’m a guest (and hence a god) and he feels like I’m his older brother. I pointed out that I can’t be both a god and his brother, and that if I’m a guest, I feel that I’ve overstayed already. I said that if I’m his brother, he must let me pull my weight domestically and/or in the fields.

If this happens then I’d be happy to stay a longer, learn (and, where possible, contribute) more and continue having a highly enjoyable time. I’d be very grateful for your thoughts: please, please comment.

His mother seemed delighted at the potential of gaining an extra son. They all want me to stay on for Jaya’s wedding (31st August, dowry issues permitting) but since my visa expires on 27th August and my flight home is already and irrevocably booked, I can’t.

OK, I think that’s enough for now. See you later, space-cats!

It took the travel agent 3 hours to come to the incorrect conclusion that there are no international airports in Sumatra and, er, not come up with any alternatives.

He didn’t want to believe me when I showed him documentary evidence that there are four international airports there (Batam, Pekanbaru, Medan and Padan). Even if there weren’t, he should have been able to see that Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are very near. (You can get by boat from Singapore to Pekanbaru in a couple of hours!)

So now I’ve spelt out the options for him and told him it’s his job to find prices and availability for all of them (not just the one I prefer), I’m to come back tomorrow. I think I’ll be better off going to Madurai or even back to Goa and finding a Thomas Cook.

Gaah!

Personal hygiene may be important to you. If so, read on…

• Warning 1
  Always, always, always take your own toilet-paper and torch with you in India. You are very likely to need to use a shopping-mall toilet and these are bound to have no paper and no lights.Remember your house of easement will have a ceramic hole in the ground, not a pedestal.
  • If you’re very lucky, there will be a flush mechanism.
  • If you’re merely lucky, there will be a bucket and tap so you can flush it manually.
  • Usually there will be neither manual or mechanical flush options.

  Then again, maybe you don’t want to see where you’re going. It will almost certainly be bad enough that you can smell it.

  Of course, if you’re in a mountainous part of Kerala, you’ll have your torch with you anyway for picking your way along the tracks after dark.

• Warning 2
  Indian english for ‘toilet’ is ‘bathroom’. I defy anyone to get a real bath in India. Usually you will wash by pouring water from a bucket over yourself with a tin or plastic mug. If you’re staying in a home*, your hosts may well heat your bucket of water for you.In hotels there are also showers as westerners know them, in the same room as the toilet [so wetting the seat is a real possibility]. I’ve only met two that give hot water but usually I’ve been glad of the cold.

On the whole, I’m enjoying these challenges. My major publishable, personal regret is not having learnt any Malayalam, Hindi or Tamil before coming here. Occasional withdrawal from soap-related activities is nothing compared to being in dire need of a bathroom and being unable to ask where to find one.

*If you are staying in a home, my limited experience suggests you will be treated like a god and have a fantastic time.

OK, this morning I took a bus to Kattappana*, the nearest town big enough to have a worthwhile travel agent so I can book my travel to Sumatra next month. I’m a bit doubtful as to whether I can afford it and spend time in Assam this month. Ajeesh has said I can stay as long as I want in his family’s house but given their situation, that’s too much like free-loading for even my conscience.
*It’s about an hour from Nedumkandam by bus, along well-surfaced but horribly twisty and undulating mountain roads that had a woman in the seat in front of me review her breakfast. Thank goodness the bloke next to me noticed in time and shut the window. Uurrgghh!

FUNNY MOMENTS
On the way back from town, Ajeesh and I stopped at a small stall so he could buy some paan. His car stereo came to a fairly fast bolly-techno track and so we danced in the road, much to the amusement of the folk at the stall. (These included Ajeesh’s father and neighbour.) Ajeesh passed around my hat and we netted a whopping 50 paise!

Before this, yesterday was Shaji’s pay-day so he took Ajeesh, DS and I to a small restaurant for dosas. At the restaurant, Ajeesh picked up a newspaper, saying “aha, today’s newspaper”. Shaji quipped “naw mate: it’s tomorrow’s”. DS and I fell about laughing while Ajeesh looked faintly boggled.

OBJECTIVE REPORTING
In the interests of fairness, I have to report I saw a man doing some domestic work yesterday evening: Ajeesh’s father was cutting shapes out of cake-dough. I don’t know who made the dough or then cooked the cakes (they’re fried in coconut oil, rather than baked, and bloody delicious) but I do know that Jaya made breakfast and served Ajeesh and I this morning.

FINANCIAL HORRORS
There was a fairly unpleasant moment this morning: the gas-bottle ran out and Ajeesh’s mum asked him to buy a new one. (This is understandable – their cooker is a gas double-burner. They have built-in wood-fired stoves but are socially not ‘allowed’ to use them because the house isn’t yet finished. [They need glass in the windows, not torn plastic sheeting and to fix the roof as a very minimum. After that, the packed-earth floor would need to be surfaced, then I think they’d want doors in the internal door-ways.])

Ajeesh screamed: today he’s due to see his bank manager about getting a loan for Jaya’s dowry. I don’t care if I’m repeating myself when I say it’s 2 lakhs (around 2500 UK pounds) and that it needs to reach Jaya’s fiance’s family by the 16th August. This will enable the family to build a house for the couple: they’re due to marry on 31st August. (Apparently this is an astrologically opportune date.) Ajeesh tells me that Rajesh, the fiance, wouldn’t mind if the dowry didn’t materialise: he loves Jaya and wants to marry her, not her bank-balance. However, Rajesh’s family does want the dowry, ostensibly for the house I’ve just mentioned.

So Ajeesh is going to try to get a loan from his bank. The interest-rate is likely to be between 6 and 11%. I’m not asking any reader to lend an unknown bloke a large lump of cash purely on my recommendation, even secured against Ajeesh’s family’s house. However if anyone can come up with any bright ideas for a lower-cost loan, please, please contact me privately or comment here.

(I should add that within moments Ajeesh, Jaya, his mother and I were back to their normal, jokey selves. One of the things I respect about the Kerala I’ve seen is the jokey, happy nature of people, even in extreme conditions.)

HELP REQUEST
Also, Ajeesh’s mate DS would like to consult with someone about lightning conductors. Again, please contact me privately or comment here and I’ll forward you DS and Ajeesh’s email addresses.

OK, that’s enough for now. Time to go back to the travel-agent and see what he’s come up with.