Preview: The Temple Of The Emerald Buddha

Meet the Emerald Buddha.

This cheeky little chap is a good example of how size sometimes doesn't matter. Despite only being 66cm high and tubby 48cm wide, he has managed to gather an entire temple complex around him...

Now, first things first, and there is a slightly awkward truth to get out of the way. The Emerald Buddha is not made of emerald, no; instead he is made of the still-green but slightly less precious jade. This is sometimes justified by stating that it is merely the emerald colour that the name references, but one cannot think that the name is slightly misleading. Trading standards in Britain surely wouldn't have it.

If the Emerald Buddha was made of actual emerald, he would fetch quite a handy price in the sales. Even at a very conservative price of $500 per carat, with a carat equalling 0.2 grams and the Emerald Buddha weighing an estimated 5000 grams, the value would be in the region of $2.5 billion. Likely it would be much more. That's a gross simplification of emerald pricing, but it gives you an idea. Being made of jade would lower the cost by about 90%, a still quite handy $250,000,000 plus. But that's not really the point, for a price can't be put on something priceless, which is what the Emerald Buddha is as a sacred and venerated icon of Thailand. To give a sense of quite how important the Emerald Buddha is, only one person in the world is allowed to touch him, and that is his caretaker - which just happens to be the Thai king. As anyone who has visited Thailand will know, the Thai people take their royalty a little more seriously than we in the UK do, and instead of hounding our figureheads to death, punishment is meted out to anyone who even insults them with up to twenty years in prison. Therefore, that King Rama IX, a figure of worship in Thailand, is just the man who changes the Emerald Buddha's clothes gives some indication of how precious this little 66cm high fellow is.

Yes, changing its clothes is one of the king's duties, performed three times annually. The Emerald Buddha likes to dress for the seasons, and so three times a year there is a costume-changing ceremony performed, with robes for either the hot, raining or winter seasons being put on. Traditionally, as part of the purification rites, the king would then spray water over the princes and officials in attendance in the temple that houses the Emerald Buddha, but this has been extended by King Rama IX into spraying his loyal subjects standing outside too. It's all become somewhat of a holy water fight. Add some buxom beauties and you've got a rap video.

The Emerald Buddha and his caretaker king are intrinsically linked, going back all the way to the beginnings of King Rama IX's Chakri dynasty in 1782. That was when his predecessor, King Rama I (all the kings in between have also been called Rama), began construction of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, with the intention of recreating the glory of the ruined Thai city and kingdom of Ayutthaya, destroyed mere decades earlier but that had once dominated south-east Asia. Within this palace, a temple complex - Wat Phra Kaew or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha - was built, with the actual individual temple to house the icon built in 1783. In the early days he was taken out on little jaunts and parades around the streets, to help relieve the kingdom of diseases and other misfortunes, but he has otherwise remained in his lofty position inside his principle temple in the complex.

Given the history of the Emerald Buddha, I would suppose he misses these little adventures, for the early history of the Emerald Buddha was quite action packed. In fact, it is difficult to separate myth from actual history, with some of the more mythical accounts rooting him right back to 43BC. In these, a devoted but grief-stricken monk called Nagasena was asked to retrieve a large precious stone in order to carve a Buddha, by the Hindu gods Vishnu (the supreme Hindu god) and Indra (King of the gods, and the god of weather and war), to pay their respects to the kings of Siam - even though Siam wouldn't recognisably exist for another 1200 years. Nagasena was a little afraid, for the precious stone location of Mount Velu was full of dark demons, but Vishnu and Indra kindly accompanied him, and everything was ok, as one would expect when accompanied by the supreme god and the king of gods. Nagasena successfully carved the Emerald Buddha, felt less grief-stricken, and the Emerald Buddha had many adventures over the following centuries, including flying kings and what could be interpreted as rampant time-travelling.

Something closer to reality has the Emerald Buddha emerging in the mid 15th Century, upon a 1434 lightning strike on a stupa in Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. This uncovered the Emerald Buddha, hiding underneath a more ordinary stone image. Regardless of whether this is true or just a further part of the myth that was spun around a particularly valuable chunk of carved jade, the Emerald Buddha quickly assumed venerated status and moved around a number of places before setting in the Lao capital of Vientiane for over 200 years, eventually making its way into Thai hands in 1779.

The Emerald Buddha is merely the centrepiece of the temple, temple complex and indeed the Grand Palace all built around it and in the historic centre of Bangkok. The complex is built in the traditional Thai architectural style, which is ornate and colourful, and features numerous buildings, statues and monuments. Unlike old ancient buildings, the Emerald Buddha temple complex is not frozen in time as a museum to its own existence, but is a "living" monument, undergoing a major restoration and repainting every fifty years, and continuing the same ceremonial functions for over two hundred years.

I'll be visiting the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in October, where I will give a fuller account of the history of the complex, as well as bringing a change of clothes for the Emerald Buddha himself (I feel he needs some smart evening attire).

Reviewed 23rd December 2011.

Preview: The Petronas Towers

About four years ago, I fell in love with a city.

That city was Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. I had spent the previous week somewhere on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia (i.e. the bit connected to Thailand), preparing for a job that was eventually cancelled. With that cancellation came a flight back to the UK, which naturally had to go via Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and so I requested a couple of days stopover in Kuala Lumpur, which my work granted. I had heard good things about the city, so felt I should give it a quick hello while I was in the area.

Like gazing at a divine frock-clad goddess poised elegantly on the other side of the room, it was love at first sight. Except unlike the goddess, who would keep moving away nervously before finally having me arrested (honestly, love, I was just trying be friendly), Kuala Lumpur embraced me. It was two days of heaven, ambling about in a daze simply enjoying the friendly atmosphere, and staying in an affordable but wonderful hotel.

The hotel - the Hotel Maya: I strongly recommend it - overlooked KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre), a development in the heart of the city's commercial district, the Golden Triangle. This landscaped area, with paths and ponds and green and grassy areas was the very model of a bustling but relaxed urban centre, with families and tourists and businesspeople all merging into a wholesome utopian society blur; and right in the middle were the two massive 452 metre spires of the Petronas Twin Towers.

The Petronas Towers were the clear centrepiece of the development, and indeed, of the city. They shared the title of the world's tallest building for six years between 1998 and 2004, and these days still cling on with battered pride to the title of tallest twin buildings. Instantly identifiable, they were built to be icons of a keenly developing city and nation - and succeeded. And then, because sometimes it's not enough to just build two very tall buildings, they built a bridge between them too.

It's the little details that can make the difference, and in an earlier entry I suggested that one common feature of all Wonders was the je ne sais quoi factor. Well, to directly contradict the meaning of je ne sais quoi, I would suggest that it is the bridge that gives the Petronas Towers that additional element that raises it above normal super-tall skyscrapers. Sure, it's big, and the floorplan's eight-cornered "star"geometry which reflects Malaysia's Islamic heritage give it a distinct identity, but it is the bridge that adds an eye-catching memorability to the Towers. Less than halfway up, at 170m, and only 58m across, the bridge is not especially high or big, and at 750 tons is positively lightweight - the 2000-year-old Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon has individual stones heavier than this. But it gives an elegance to the Towers, and rather than having them seen as two identical-but-separate towers side-by-side, it makes them appear as true twins, hand-in-hand. Plus, it makes things a hell of a lot more convenient if you've just sat down in your 53rd floor office in Tower 1 and remember you've left your stapler behind in Tower 2.

The architect behind the design and structure was a naturalised US citizen originally from Argentina called Cesar Pelli, who won an invited competition between eight different firms. He is also another who owe a debt of thanks to Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect on the competition panel who gave Jorn Utzon's ambitious sketches a chance to become the Sydney Opera House. In this instance, Saarinen was cited as a primary influence by Pelli, at whose firm he worked as a designer when in his 30s. It was a formative time for him, and Saarinen's belief that architecture should not be about one fixed style but rather have an adaptable approach depending on location and circumstance proved to be one Pelli himself adopted. This was not necessarily a fashionable approach in the 1960s, where concrete and glass boxes was the ghastly contemporary solution to all architectural questions.

Saarinen died unexpectedly of a brain tumour in 1963, and Pelli left the company shortly after, but he continued this ethos of adaptability, and indeed his firm continues to thrive today. Years before the Petronas Towers were built he had a long list of American skyscrapers to his name, and was also the architect behind London's Canary Wharf (actual name, One Canada Square), Britain's tallest building until two years ago. He had also been listed as one of America's ten most influential living architects. Therefore by the time his designs for the Petronas Towers were chosen, he was already a thoroughly established and respected architect. This professionalism ensured the towers both rose quickly and efficiently, with the masterstroke being having each tower built by different contractors. This added a competitive edge to the construction. Even better, one tower was by Japanese contractors and the other by South Korean. Having lived in South Korea for a couple of years, I can vouch for their ferocious competitive streak, especially in anything against their oldest rival Japan, and am not at all surprised that it was their tower - Tower 2 - that was completed first. Whether or not it will also be first to fall in an earthquake is a different matter...

Having already visited the Petronas Towers, I already know what to expect, but am looking forward to it. This goes double for visiting the surrounding city, and seeing if the old feelings return and my heart is set aflutter as I remember our time together in the spring of 2007. Like the best love, it made me somewhat irrational, and for some months after I plotted how I might move to the city and imagined the fabulous life I would live there, becoming fluent in both Malay and Chinese, and charming one and all. I even looked into apartment costs, and asked my work about the feasibility of living abroad, to which (possibly drunk) they gave positive murmurs. But like all good holidays romances, the grinding reality of my normal life soon set in and took over, and I forgot about my short rose-tinted fling.

I'll be visiting the Petronas Towers likely in early October, and will give a fuller account of it then, possibly along with a more graphic account of our love affair.

Reviewed 16th October 2011.

Preview: Marina Bay Sands

The majority of mankind's fantastic buildings and monuments have been built for worship. Stretching back thousands of years, churches, mosques, temples and tombs have been constructed for the worship of a variety of gods or the venerated deceased. For all that religion may be maligned by today's Dawkinsian posses or by twig-waving new-agers, there is no doubt that religious fervour has inspired a fantastic amount of the magnificent monuments that grace the earth.

But before the imams, monks and gurus get too smug about their architectural achievements, and start sarcastically asking atheists how many beautiful buildings have been raised in tribute of Darwin or the double helix, let us look at what the modern man now worships. Christ, Shiva, Mohamed and their pals may still have plenty of supporters, but they've kind of dropped out of the more fashionable circles. And while generations of followers once ploughed their resources into pleasing these otherworldly deities with world-class buildings, these days there is a new god in town: commerce.

The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore makes absolutely no pretence at anything otherwise. It is the most modern building on my list, and is resolutely built for profit. Costing a grand total of about $8 billion Singapore dollars - about £4 billion - the developers, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, were clearly hedging their bets that their reward would be not in heaven but in good old-fashioned earthly profit. And as all gamblers (claim to) know, don't bet against the bookmakers. Together with its fellow resort-casino, the Resorts World Sentosa, the only other casino permitted in Singapore, it was estimated to have made the equivalent of £2.5bn in profit last year, with this figured projected to keep rising, which would come close to outdoing the entire Las Vegas strip.

Regardless of the other attractions in this resort hotel, it is the casinos that fuel this massive profit, with gambling thought to be behind 85-90% of the Marina Bay Sands resort's overall takings. Singapore, a conservative island city-nation famous for banning chewing gum and over-exuberance, had up until recently banned gambling, but a re-think on strategy (i.e. no-one cares about principles when there's a billion pounds to be made) saw them allow two casino resort complexes to be built, just as long as they, you know, kind of pretended to be something else. Thus we have the Resorts World Sentosa masquerading as a family resort, with a child-friendly Universal Studio set and fun-rides, and Marina Bay Sands assuming the more mature role as a business and convention centre.

For me, personally, casinos don't have much appeal. I like playing poker occasionally, but have only actually been in a casino twice in my life. I happen, in fact, to have a 100% roulette record - 2/2 successful attempts at the number 18 - and have become a little afraid of playing again lest I lose this record. Therefore the casinos of Marina Bay Sands don't hold huge appeal for me, other than curiosity. However, although the profits of the resort are from what's on bottom - the casinos are all in buildings by the base of the three towers - the actual prestige of the Marina Bay Sands is from what's up top - the SkyPark.

This is clearly what elevates Marina Bay Sands from hotel-casino anonymity to a landmark that most predict will define the skyline of Singapore. Running across the top of the three buildings is, as the name suggests, a park. It is 340m long which is longer than Moscow's Red Square, and while just a fraction of perhaps the world's most famous park, Central Park, unlike its New York cousin it is in the sky, 191m high on top of three skyscrapers. Just as any good park should have, it has park-like greenery, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and most famously a 146m long swimming pool, called the infinity edge pool, which creates a visual effect of the water disappearing over the edge. The idea of this kind of pool isn't original - it's been known from the early 1600s in the Palace of Versailles - but the effect almost 200m high on top of a skyscraper looks somewhat spectacular, if not a tiny bit scary. The views across the city of Singapore, I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, are amazing. To my mind, the three buildings capped with this long park-in-the-sky look like gigantic cricket stumps, or even a massive glass Stonehenge, although the Israeli-Canadian-American architect Moshe Safdie claims the towers were inspired, fittingly, by decks of cards.

Marina Bay Sands has been added to my list for the very purest of reasons: about a year ago, I'd never even heard of it, but happened to catch a snapshot of it on TV and my immediate impression was "wow, that looks cool." I wondered why I'd never seen such a distinctive looking building before, quickly discovering it was because it was brand new. Being visually impressive is at the core of all Wonders, and this was very much the first impression made by Marina Bay Sands.

I'll be visiting Marina Bay Sands sometime in mid-to-late September, possibly being able to time it with the Singapore Grand Prix which happens to take place in the Marina Bay area. At the very least, I promise to play roulette and with number 18 at least once, perhaps offering a little prayer to any available gods while I do so.

Reviewed on 25th September 2011.

Preview: Borobudur

Sometimes the best way to save something is to forget all about it.*

The Buddhist pyramid temple of Borobudur is a good example, being lost for over a thousand years in the jungle of Java, Indonesia, but beautifully preserved as a result. Losing the biggest Buddhist temple in the world after spending three generations building it may seen like a careless thing to do, but they did things differently back then; besides, it's amazing what a little volcanic ash and jungle growth can do.

Underneath this millennium of jungle and ash, it was Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who uncovered it, in 1814 - or, rather, a Dutch engineer called H. C. Cornelius who was sent on his behalf. Although Raffles' name is now more closely associated with Singapore's Raffles Hotel and its Singapore Sling cocktail - neither of which he had anything to do with (the hotel was founded by Armenians, the cocktail concocted by a Chinese barman, both over fifty years after his death) - Raffles the person was in fact a little less decadent than this gin-and-pineapple legacy would imply. Known mostly for being the founder of Singapore, he was an enlightened governor of various south-east Asian territories, and although the British Empire and empire-building in general may not be in vogue so much these days, there's little doubt that Raffles was a force for good. He systematically abolished slavery wherever he went, improved conditions, and took a close interest in the people of politics of the region, including learning the language. This would be enlightened by today's standards - most expats (in the oil industry, at least) I meet extend their local interest as far as swearing in the native language and drinking a local beer if the Heineken has run out - but by early 19th Century standards must have made him seem like a raving liberal nut.

In the case of Java, it was an approach that led to the rediscovery of Borobudur. He had developed a good relationship with the local rulers, and had convinced them that instead of the slave children they were offering, he'd be more impressed if they could give him ancient documents or historical works. This way, murmurs of an ancient temple in the jungle filtered through to him, and H. C. Cornelius (the H. C., incidentally, stands for Hermann Christian but he preferred to go by his initials, O. J. Simpson-style) was sent to investigate.

What he found was so lost, so overgrown, and so hidden that it had been mistaken for a hill for centuries, and only closer investigation revealed that this hill was actually a giant, ramshackle stone temple. Raffles himself visited the location less than a year later, and began the long process of excavation and figuring out what the hell this big stone building was. It took two hundred men two weeks to clear the initial jungle growth from the surface of the temple, to reveal an edifice 42 metres high and 123 metres wide, covered all over in ornate sculptural reliefs (a sculptural technique where the background is cut away to make the image stand out in the third-dimension, kind of like an embossed effect with stone).

Architecturally unique and unlike any other building in the world, and without any written documentation about who made it or why, Borobudur is somewhat of an enigma. The 504 Buddha statues and 2672 sculptural relief panels featuring scenes from Buddhist cosmology make it quite evident it is a Buddhist building, but only extensive archaeology and scholarly extrapolation over the following two centuries have hinted at answers to the many unknowns surrounding the 1300-year-old building.

 An early photo of Borobudur, after clearing and cleaning, but before full UNESCO renovation

Ironically, the biggest threat to Borobudur came after its rediscovery, and especially in the various wild attempts to reconstruct and restore it, mostly from the Dutch, including early 20th century efforts involving concrete injections, and plans to build a giant forty-pillar-supported iron umbrella over it - because how better to enhance an ancient stone temple than with a massive iron umbrella? Fortunately, the world community in the form of UNESCO have since relieved the Dutch of their responsibilities and between 1973-83 performed a comprehensive restoration programme that, for the time being, has saved it from collapse.

Borobudur these days, if you're in a helicopter

These days, as with many of the ancient monuments I'm due to visit, one the biggest ongoing threats is that of modern tourism. Two-and-a-half million visitors a year is always a bit of a strain on the elderly. It does seem as though Borobudur's problems only began once it was found: when it was still lost in the jungle pretending to be a hill it was managing just fine. Poor old Borobudur's best chance at survival may just be for everyone to forget about it all over again.

I'll be visiting Borobudur in mid-to-late September, and will give a fuller account of its construction and its mysterious history and purpose, as well as my own impressions.

*does not work for relationships

Reviewed on 3rd October 2011.

Preview: Sydney Opera House

Let's be honest, when you think of Australia, culture isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind. Beaches, the outback, putting shrimps on the barbie, dangerous and improbable animals, Harold from Neighbours, sporting prowess, and running over aborigines all spring to mind, but a refined centre of the cultural arts does not.

Most modern-day residents of Sydney, I have no doubt, would not be greatly concerned at this observation, simply shrugging as they poured yet more Foster's down their throats and another aborigine disappeared over their bonnet. But this was a different picture in 1950s Sydney, where the residents - or the upper echelons at least - began expressing discontent at the lack of suitable venues for the performing arts. The then premier of New South Wales, John Joseph "J. J." Cahill, got on board and on 8th November, 1954, he announced "Crack open the tinnies, cobbers, we're going to build a bloody big opera house." (Or words to that effect.)

What then happened was one of those convergences of improbable fortune that when blended with just enough vigour results in something unlikely and marvellous. Something wonderful. Because by all rights, instead of the iconic sail-like structure that now adorns Sydney harbour, we should really have had this:

That was the runner up design for the Sydney Opera House, by Joseph Marzella and his team, evidently putting the whole "nuclear factory" aesthetic on how a modern opera house should look.

Alternatively, should the prospect of a nuclear factory in the heart of Sydney not have appealed, there was this option:

This was the third placed entry, by the husband and wife architecture team of Paul Boissevain and Barbara Osmond, who were possibly recognising that should an opera house prove too cultured for the citizens of Sydney, it could easily be converted into a school for their children. Don't worry, despite their disappointment at losing the bid to build the Opera House, they made up for it with future successes, just to show Sydney what it could have had. Here's their 1973 Finnart Campus teaching block in Greenock, Scotland.

Timeless. And their 1965 Hannibal House in London.

So beloved that it's scheduled for demolition in 2012.

If you want a look at some of the other runners-up, I would take a look at this website. And bear in mind that these are the pickings of 233 entries in J. J. Cahill's 1957 open competition for designs for a new opera house in Sydney.

To be fair, none of these designs are bad as such, and had they been used we would now have a perfectly functional and pleasant opera house in the heart of Sydney. But neither are they inspired, daring, original or with any aspirations of becoming iconic. And for that, and for the stroke of luck that saw a series of unlikely sketches win the competition, we have two Scandinavians to thank.

The first is the architect himself, Jorn Utzon, who in 1957 was a 38-year-old who had never designed outside of his native Denmark. His designs were wildly unconventional, he only submitted rough sketches and he'd not even seen the site, but he had a quite unique and particular vision for an opera house both pioneering aesthetically and structurally.

The second was an influential Finnish architect, Eero Saarinen, who was on the competition panel and who had the vision to recognise that Utzon's design really was something special and not just the scrawlings of a madman. He had the balls to choose something that, at the time, they didn't know how to build, or even if could actually stand. He was strongly backed by J. J. Cahill, who was also a big supporter of the design. The Sydney Opera House is not the only place on my list we'll see Saarinen's name - he had a hand in Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers, as well as being the architect behind the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and is considered one of the masters of American 20th Century architecture.

That's not to say that things were plain-sailing from there. Coming in at 1400% over-budget and many years late, with Utzon quitting/being forced out mid-way through and never returning to Australia, and with a wide range of opposition from tramwaymen to actors to government ministers, it seemed for some time it would never be built, and in the end some large compromises had to be made. But once it opened in 1973 and the dust had settled, it became quite apparent that something quite special and quite unique had been built. It may be have been insanely over-budget, but instead of something functional that looked like a factory or a school, Sydney had been given a world-famous and instantly recognisable building.

And so, after my snide suggestions that Australia may lack in the culture department, it turns out that with its Opera House, Sydney now has one of the most celebrated cultural centres in the world. "Screw you, pommie," they can drawl as they turn to watch Puccini's La fanciulla del West, throwing an empty Castlemaine XXXX tinny at my head.

I'll be visiting Sydney Opera House at around September 10th, for the second time following a 2009 trip, and will give a fuller account of its chequered history then, as well as my own impressions.

Reviewed on 18th September 2011.

Summer Beckons

Before the travelling commences, there is the small matter of summer.

Just a couple of days ago, I returned home from my last job with my now-former company and am savouring the prospect of a summer of unemployment. For those that may not have been familiar with my movements over the last five years, I have been working for a small oil service company that provides pressure and temperature data for oil companies, usually for exploratory wells but increasingly for completion and production purposes also. If none of that makes much sense to you, don't worry - it frequently didn't make much sense to me either. Nonetheless, it was a fantastically interesting job that sent me round the world to the most unlikeliest of locations and I cannot imagine any job in the last five years having suited me so well.

My previous blog at nev360.blogspot.com pretty much covered the highs and lows of this offshore existence.

A terrific job then, but not without a few glitches, and the most notable one was my absolute lack of routine. I effectively worked on call, and one phonecall could see me on a flight to somewhere, say, in Africa the next morning, for months sometimes. I might be home for a day or six months between jobs. While sometimes quite exciting, it could also be exasperating, and it made planning anything very difficult. Hence for the last five years, I've only seen patches of summer, and those patches have been unplanned and taken on a day-by-day basis.

This summer I have the joy of being able to plan, and the joy of three months at leisure. This means I have been able to plan all kinds of things that previously either wouldn't have been possible, or would have had to have been done last minute. As such, I already have trips to London, Manchester, Dublin, perhaps the Faroe Islands, and all round Scotland planned, to catch up with various friends I've been neglecting for too long. I also have a holiday with my girlfriend to Barcelona booked for August. The first trip I'm making is up north tomorrow, to Fortrose, to see my new niece, who was born a matter of weeks ago while I was away working.

What my free summer will also allow me to do is getting the remainder of my travel plans sorted out. I've already booked my one-way flight to Sydney, but am trying to figure out the cheapest way to Indonesia from there, and also trying to unravel the mysteries of how on earth to get a Russian tourist visa nine months in advance. There's the small matter of planning the best time to visit North Korea, and coordinating various fixed events during the travels, such as my girlfriend's friend's wedding in India in January. All these are things that were awkward to manage when on an oil rig, in a noisy unit with my brain melting, but can be managed much more easily sitting on a sofa at home with a selection of whiskies.

Finally, I now need to gather together my large mass of notes and make some sense of them. Although Wikipedia is a fantastic resource, I decided early on I did not want to make it my primary source of knowledge on each landmark I'm due to visit - it does great summaries, but I'm after something a little more in-depth. And so for the last few years I have gathered a small library of reading material, which I have tried to condense into a few pages of key and interesting facts on each place to visit. I've already retyped my astonishingly illegible handwritten notes, but now I need to translate what these oft-cryptic notes mean: note-taking is not a strong point of mine. Fortunately, the notes are all cross-referenced to whatever page of whatever book I was using, so during the summer, while I still have the books to hand, I can reword all my notes to actually make some sense. This will be quite a time-consuming process, but a useful one, as it will help my understanding of what I'm going to see.

Aside from all of that, I simply intend to enjoy two very simple things that I have not fully experienced together for some years, and may not for some more, and that is familiarity and freedom. The familiarity of being at home with familiar faces and places, as well as the freedom to move around at my own leisure. Hell, after 49 days offshore - which I've just returned from - even being able to go outside and walk to the shops is a treat.

And of course, like all out-of-work people, I look forward with great anticipation to drinking regularly every afternoon and showering intermittently. Ah, unemployed summer!