My passport photo

Ho hum. Yes, you may wonder "what the **** is he doing?" or "Gosh, he doesn't have that much hair on his head anymore," but I'm starting to get a little concerned what with all the jet-setting I've been doing why oh why do I always get stopped at airports and have delays getting visas.
Obviously launching photos like this onto the Internet may not be the wisest move, but what the hell, I have nothing to hide, except the hairy-ness of my chest.
This was during my holiday in Yemen, some time ago. For those of you who read my blog (hiya, Mum, Dad!) you may recall it was visits to countries such as these that got me in minor trouble with US Immigration back in April.
Now, everyone in Yemen has an AK-47. It's like taking your briefcase to work. Or your i-Pod. Okay, not exactly like taking your i-Pod. Still, it means your much more likely to get a seat on the bus, right? And if you are wearing an i-Pod, no-one but no-one is going to ask you to turn it down. Ever.
Unless they have an AK-47. Which they do.
What is my point? Well, I don't have one except it's been a while since I blogged and we were looking through some old holiday snaps and this one kinda leapt out at me. I decided not to go with the one with the stinger missile launcher since the lighting wasn't great.
So, where was I? Oh yes, jet-setting. Or not.
I was meant to go to India tomorrow, but alas my visa is still being floundering at the embassy somewhere.
I'm making my way through a great non-fiction book called 'India' by John Keay as part of my research into my next project. I don't know about you but I thought is was very cool when the Thuggee priest in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom pulled the beating heart out of that bloke then through him into a volcano. I remember thinking "Wow, I wish I could do that!" and how much cooler Thuggee were than Ninjas.
I love the old Indian myths and have an amazing pantheon of gods. Many with six arms and all armed to the teeth. Kali is (for reasons that you will discover) features heavily in the Thuggee mythos, and it's that which I am going to explore, should I ever get out to India.
I would reallly recommend getting your hands on some Indian tales. The Ramayana of course, but more so the Mahabharata. It is awesome and I would put it easily alongside the Iliad, maybe even edging it ahead as one of the greatest stories in the world.
I've always looked East and West, because of where I was born and where I felt I belonged. The world's too crowded and crowds make people ill-tempered. Try and check out how the other guy lives, and that's best done by looking at the stories that made them. If you've ridden the chariots alongside Achilles and Hector, now ride with Arjuna and Karna. See the battle field lit by flaming astras and the hear the thunder of the gods.
Read those stories. You'll be a different person by the time you finish.