When I am out and about with my camera I tend to avoid contact with other photographers. My naturally grumpy appearance tends to discourage advances from others, and why would I want to initiate a conversation with someone when all we apparently have in common is a camera (the obvious answer would include the word ‘breasts’, but she who must be obeyed would not approve).

But if someone is going to try and talk to me, there could not be a worse time than when I am trying to focus my camera on an arse-crack.

We were at Mini Siam, an outing that requires an explanation. I visited the place a couple of years ago, and my conclusion was that it was crap.

So why go back? It’s my wife’s fault (it usually is, even when it isn’t). You may recall her new craze for photographing dolls in a variety of locations. Well, she disappeared one evening and came back after many hours at Mini Siam. This is one of her shots:

In my younger days, when the world existed in black and white (or so my wife believes), my weekly rituals included the purchase of The Sunday Times. It was not so much the journalistic content, it was more to do with the sheer size of the thing. Never mind the quality, look at all these supplements.

Sunday morning was not complete without a trip to the newsagents to pick up a copy, which would then be scattered over the sofa for the rest of the day and consumed piecemeal over the following week.

Then we moved from North East England to Scotland, and I was aghast to discover that the ST did not make the journey north until mid-afternoon. So much for Sunday morning coffee and the ST magazine. I should have checked before accepting the move.

Then a transfer to The Hague where I imagined my ST days would be over, and I would be reduced to looking at the pictures in De Telegraaf. But no. A pleasant cycle down to the main railway station on a Sunday morning would find the paper waiting for me at the bookstore. Civilised Sundays were restored, surrounded by more print than I could read, with inky fingers and a feeling of contentment.

But then I came to Asia, and although Kuala Lumpur and other locations offered the ST, it could not be found on a Sunday, was only a re-print of some of the content, and it cost a fortune. My Sunday Times Sundays were over.

Until today.

Now I have this on my iPad:

Fresh from the previous post, I was rummaging around the fetid train wreck that is the interior of our fridge and, joy of joys, I discovered a remaining Flake behind what used to be salami but which has over time evolved into a new species.

Of course I had to eat it (the Flake, not the ex-salami, I don’t want to die), but not before capturing it for posterity.

If I had to rank myself with others of my sex, then I would describe myself as a lambda male; firmly positioned in the lower portions of the Greek alphabet along with all the other wimps. I therefore find it somewhat humbling to find myself in the presence of an alpha male; but such was my encounter recently.

I waited to meet him in the lobby of his hotel. He was late, out on some mission to secure peace in Korea probably (or maybe just in his room having a shit). But when he walked, nay strode, into the foyer; the impact was electric. Men wanted to be him, women just wanted him. In profile, there was a hint of Clint Eastwood, although that was not a gun that bulged every so subtly from his trousers. As the light caught his face we saw a glimpse of the carefully trimmed stubble, the steely eyes and the teasing smile. Here was man who knew his position in the food chain, and it was somewhere near the top.

Number 53, cat cushion