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The following day, after an absurdly long wait at the border for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I ended up in the less than salubrious mining town of Veles, Macedonia. Not my most favourite of places, but needs must. A couple of meetings with some dodgy as hell looking – and, in fairness, simply dodgy as hell – people later, and it was on to Skopje for a few hours, somewhere i haven't been for several years and had feared the worst for. Astonishingly, I discovered to my delight that the old city is still completely intact and hasn't been demolished in the name of progress, although sadly McDonalds have penetrated the newer part of the city centre. I got locked in the Holiday Inn (I'd nipped in to use a toilet, and somehow got locked into, in the couple of minutes that i was indisposed), escaping only through a fire exit which wasn't quite a alarmed as it probably should have been, went for Cevapicci – Mmmmmm, cevapicci – with the lovely Lily who taking break from panic studying, gazed at the strange “London pub” [since when have London pubs looked like Starbucks? and please don't tell me that it's actually accurate, as I fear that things are possibly heading that way] and watched with indescribable curiosity as two middle aged men took off their shoes, hurled them into the river, watched as they floated down stream until they were out of sight, then walked off bear-footed back into town. A short (not really) and slightly complicated detour through Kosovo into Montenegro – my first since Montenegro has been independent – for reasons that even my blackmailer has agreed are not for public consumption, plus some more great pastries later, I was on my way north on a slow night train full of screaming kids [literally – in a carriage designed for 64, there were, i think 113 of the feckers]. Yay.

The Christmas tree in central Skopje between the two Christmas's, and a sign on a restaurant door which i can only assume means that handgunbs are allowed?

From there on in, there's not much to say. I had long enough in Belgrade to get to my favourite bakery and stocked up on Piroshka's, passed straight through Croatia to Ljubljana, where I relaxed a bit at the ever the brilliant Miha and Kajta's. I got rid of my final Tolars, and got my first Slovenian Euro coins (thus, barely 15years after being part of communist Yugoslavia, Slovenia became the first communist country to join the Euro), and took a trip on the new funicular, what can only be described as a scar on the face of Ljubljana. Ljubljana castle is on a hill,but it really isn't a big one. A free road train used to go up it. You can drive up. There are a network of paths climbing up from the centre, and you can walk all the way up in only 5 mins. However, for reasons which aren't entirely clear, the Slovenian government decided to spend a somewhat ludicrously large number of tolars (or Euro's, depending when they actually paid up) on removing half the trees from the hill, cutting a number of footpaths on the way up, ending the road train, and scarring the face of the hill on the city side by putting a huge unsympathetic concrete funicular there. It just wasn't needed, although it was the talk of the town (Ljubljana is basically a big friendly village, and things like this cause a big stir) and as it was free for the first week or so, most of the country was trying it out. It's already showing signs of wear in the concrete and it's doubtful if any of them will ever pay the whopping fee to use it normally, meaning that it's shaping up to end up as a white elephant of Millennium dome proportions.

And from there it was Augsburg, and the inevitable return trip to Sopron (they get worse each time i go there, and this one go rid of all progress from the previous trip, and then some), and then back to the office to be tied to a desk until Easter. In a compartment with somebody I was convinced actually was Meera Syal to begin with, her 4 kids and more luggage than stuff that I own.

Since I've been back, it's been nose on the grindstone stuff stuck in the office, and due to the size of what we're currently panicking about, spending much of my time crawling around on all fours with a small piece of clear plastic and an assortment of pretty coloured pens, looking for mistakes, some of which are not at all obvious, and many of which rely entirely on luck. One such piece of luck was overhearing one colleague saying to another “let's get rid of this Turks & Caicos as I don't know what it is”. After a little discussion, i was able to convince them that Turks & Caicos were worthy of being retained, but I can only wonder which other embassies or countries have been removed here on on other projects out of ignorance or because we didn't get that bit of luck. I was amazed that somebody wouldn't know what the Turks & Caicos were, but I've since had it in my MSN name for a while, and have had a number of enquiries about what they are, or people enquiring who the Caicos were as they've only heard of Turkey. I remain constantly fascinated and amazed by the number of people who haven't even heard of some countries, let alone know where they are on a map or anything about them. But I suppose it keeps me into a job if nothing else!

And here ends the Christmas and New Year (for those whose New Year has already occurred) trilogy plus one [i can't remember what a four parter is actually called, so i'm going, Douglas Adams style, for trilogy plus 1]. It hasn't been half bad, and I think I've managed to pad out complete nothingness enough to make my blackmailer happy, and preclude the need for me to write anything else for some time. I even managed to spend chunks of the whole period thinking. This was kind of unusual to say the least, and oddly informative for me. I think I actually came to some conclusions, although in line with my long standing “I'll give you 12 thoughts a year for free, any more will bl**dy hurt” arrangement I have with my brain, i didn't dwell on it. But, famous last words I know, I have a vague idea that 2007 may be different.

There's some very interesting, different and in cases, down right scary possibilities on the horizon, and I can't wait.

Do you ever get the feeling that there might be a higher power trying to tell you something? It’s amazing how things occasionally turn out. Whether a twist of fate or irony, things sometimes just happen and it doesn’t always make much sense. Thus it was that I found myself in quiet reflection, pondering partly (a) what the heck the Russian beauty was doing in the men’s toilet, but mostly (b) how on Earth a non flyer, such as myself, had managed to end up at Bruxelles airport for the 5th time within 4 weeks. Whilst living in Sweden.

A Dodgy mobile phone picture of Bruxelles Grand Place in teh middle of one of it's nightly Christmas light shows

Gawd damned it. At this rate I’ll be reduced to issuing lawsuits for discrimination and mental anguish with all these attempts to get me to fly.

Perhaps unsurprisingly when trying to produce large series of maps from a database, the standard and availability of data is hugely important. But in any dataset you are supplied with, there is always extra information that needs weeding and quality control to be performed. Thus it was that after matching some stupid number of London buildings to their TOIDs, we had the fun of removing many hundreds of thousands of entries, first systematically, then logically, then by kicking the PC to see what corrupted, and finally, painstakingly, by hand. As an aside, we admit that we do sometimes make mistakes, but we employ the proofing techniques around, which is why it only took us a week or so before we realized that we had somehow managed to accidentally delete the Royal Albert Hall. But I digress. Apparently I need to digress three times during this entry to keep my blackmailer happy. Stoopid fr1ckin blackmail.

All of this is entirely irrelevant to travel, I freely admit, except in a vaguely abstract way, that if you get lost whilst trying to use one of them [disclaimer – It’s not my fault] we did our best. And also as vague background [read: filler] as a way of explaining why I ended up trawling around London in the pissing down rain on a grim Sunday afternoon getting the French Ambassador to open the door to me in his Pajamas.

The day had started badly enough. Whilst waiting for the train, I received the kind of call, I always wondered what would happen. Yup, it was the one phone call. From Paddington Green police station. *sigh* From what I can gather, Laj, a Hungarian friend recently moved to London, may have possibly been in a bar the previous evening – and previous afternoon, lunchtime and morning – talking to a Ukrainian girl. Two dodgy drunk Eastern European guys were sat at an adjacent table, and one seems to have made an unsavory comment about one of them, unaware that the girl spoke Ukrainian. She of course told Laj what they had said.

What happened next is unclear. Punches were probably thrown, but it seems at least as likely that Laj stood up, and the two idiots suddenly realized that they might be in a little bit of trouble. To be honest, anybody stupid enough to be making comments about anybody as utterly thug looking as Laj probably deserves all that’s coming to him, but for some reason this hadn’t occurred to the idiots. But such thoughts seem to have rapidly occurred when a somewhat drunk, 6ft 6 and 270odd pounds worth of angry skinhead Laj – and from their observations, it would be unlikely that they know that he is also a martial arts expert – stood up and headed in their direction.

Anyhow, bottom line is one of the guys falls over a table – he may or may not have had help, nobody really knows - cracks his head and more blood than is ideal in such situation pours out, thus Laj ends up spending an all expenses paid night in different location than he had previously expected. And thus four hours of a Sunday were spent trying to bail a hungover confused and slightly sheepish Hungarian. And that was digression number 2.

Where were we? Oh yes. Pyjamas. As part of our data quality control we had compared it to an older, different dataset and noticed some vague inconsistencies. The French embassy, for example, was listed in different locations, and independent cross checking suggested that the older data was correct, and we thus decided to investigate further. At a loss as to how to confirm the specific use of the building, it occurred to me that I had nothing to loose by ringing the doorbell and asking. Why the ambassador answered in person, and why he was wearing his pyjamas at 4pm will forever remain a mystery to most of us.

Heading off at a tangent as normal, It is with great sadness that I noted the passing of the truly amazing Turkmenbashi - Saparmyrat Nyýazow - the ruler of Turkmenistan. Not only was he idiosyncratic and individualistic in a way that few leaders these days are, but in possibly the most surreal day of my life so far, he also kind of offered me a job ( http://gelli.travellerspoint.com/co/113/ ) back in the spring. It was an offer that I never really confirmed just how serious it really was, and eventually had to turn down for an assortment of reasons, although it will always be one of the big ”…..what if’s…” in my life. At this point, no, I have not been contacted since the sad occurrence, but I have been thinking about it more and more and wondering what it would have been like in the circumstances. Being in such a position after the death of a leader, particularly such a one where there was nobody being groomed or an obvious successor (constitutionally, he was next in line, and the next person in line is in Prison), would almost certainly have been an amazing experience, although potentially also not the safest place to be…

Hmmmm.

Sometimes things just happen.

Anotehr phone pic, of the bottom end of Hamburg Radhusplatzm with the Christmas market going, on one of my regular passes through the city

Which also kind of explains why I ended up in Essen a couple of times. And why I was tasked with trying to find a submarine. Actually, no it doesn’t explain it. I’m not going to explain it, partly because I can’t and partly because it’s just daft. Anyhow, long and short of it is that I ended up trying to find a submarine. Approximately all we knew was that it wasn’t where it should be. There’s lots of really boring stuff in here, but suffice to say that it’s not as easy as it sounds, that is if it sounds easy. If it just sounds f*cking hard, then you’ve more or less got it. Even if we’d had some fantastically accurate data about where it was last known to be, it would still have be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, or even submarine in an ocean… but as it is, we don’t even have that. Yes, it's all a kind of game. No. We haven’t found it, and I don’t actually think that we will, but all of my spare time is spent looking for the damned thing right now. I have this theory that it never existed in the first place [or it’s actually somewhere you wouldn’t think of looking, such as the West Edmonton Shopping Mall, or maybe Kansas] and this whole episode is just a front for something else completely. Nobody has yet told me that I’m mad – well, not mad in a different way to normal at any rate – and thus the hunt goes on. Expect this one to run and run. I wouldn’t like to bet if I’ll hear the end of Kiki or the submarine will finish first. Or, on current form, Kiki will be found on the submarine. Cripes.

And with that, it was back to Sweden in time for the Christmas party, a strangely relaxed affair of booze, food and some famous Swedish comedian guy who was occasionally reasonably funny. But for me, it’s just not Christmas until after I hear Slade ‘Merry Xmas everyone’ for the first time. It just isn't. In the UK, it’s played on every radio station about every 20mins from late November, possibly even by law. In Sweden, Mariah Carey and Wham are much bigger in the Christmas music stakes, and Slade never really hit Sweden. So, wonderfully, I got until 17.11 on Sun 24th December before I first heard it, and thus it was Xmas. The fact that Xmas in Scandinavia starts at 17.00 on the 24th is kind of irrelevant.

The Theatre in Kristianstad's Tivoli Park, Lit up at night (sorry, another dodgy mobile phone picture)

Christmas will be spent at my boss’s house in the country (where I am cat sitting for a couple of weeks – some of you will remember that I am allergic to cats, I know - whilst they are in California) and in the office, doing some bits and pieces when there isn’t any phones, emails or people around to distract me. And with that, all I have to do now is pray that in the next week or so I don\t manage to kill the cats, write off their car or burn the house own. And the worrying thing, I suppose, is that with my record, would anybody really be surprised if that happened?

That should keep you happy and from going through with your threat for a while, shouldn’t it. Please?

Have a great Christmas everyone.

I had no desire to do this whatsoever. I take no happiness from this. It was never mean’t to happen. It should not happen. It’s not going to happen. The idea alone is simply preposterous. But yet. Yet. Sadly, this isn’t due to popular demand. And in no way is this due to a delusional belief that people enjoy reading this garbage. And, no, I am not being paid by any pharmaceutical company to write this as a simple and cheap alternative to sleeping pills. Nope, this return is entirely down to blackmail, pure and simple. I gain nothing by mentioning names, so I won’t. But you know who you are. God damned it, I hope you’re satisfied with what you’ve done. This will be painful for all of us.

Still, if I have to do this – and feck knows, the specifics of the threat are enough to make me do this properly. Certain things really do not need to make it to the public domain – I may as well try and do it kind of properly. Apparently dairy’s (diary’s? Meh. Whatever) are supposed to be at least vaguely chronological. And as I can barely remember last week (actually, Wednesday) and according to records – kept by somebody else, I hasten to ask – it’s been about 4months since I returned, hence that I now have to actually try and remember what the heck I’ve been doing and where I’ve been in that time.

Oh great.

In any case, as you are here, all that remains is for you to get comfy (get a pillow, get drunk, destroy your PC so you can’t reach this website anymore, that sort of thing) and settle in to enjoy the delusion warblings of the rest of my - sometimes sadly - continuing existence. Actually, at this point I don\t really have the time (essentially, I can’t really be bothered right now) to spew out the whole malarkey. So to fill the time and my dutiful requirement to fulfill the requirements of a certain American blackmailer (Gretchen, don\t even THINK about trying to get in on this act), I’ll give you a quick overview.

Basically, the last 4 months have included, as well as the scary kind of work based stuff – don’t get me started on that – tales of severely drunken Poles in Finland; the World Cup Final; a trip to Bornholm and sojourns to Åhus; several daft detours across Europe; a robbery; my arrest for attempted terrorism; some Shifty Kazakhs; Some sadly deceased deer followed by assorted Mexican-Colombians in Göteborg and a group of crazed Slovaks in a rental car in Ireland.

I’m no longer homeless (although it took 6weeks of crashing on assorted floors and spare rooms of friends, colleagues, and drunk people I’d met only a couple of hours previously, a night in a tent in the woods and a couple of nights in hammocks on the beach); encountered a lovely inflatable sheep called Francine [aka Dave]; the Notting Hill carnival, the end of Clive (nooooo), a conference including a slight detour to meet even shiftier Kazakhs than the aforementioned Shifty ones, a Brazil home game in London, a and a 5am call to meet somebody at Manchester Airport.

I hitch-hiked around – well, across - Ireland (sans Fridge), ping-ponged back and fore between Hamburg and Bruxelles at an alarming rate; went to the Oxford Beer fest and took a trip to Stratford, and even hosted 3 film making eco-warriors for a couple of days in Sweden (don’t ask). I’ve managed to meet the glorious TP leader (congratulations on the forthcoming) and get to a TP pissup; catch up with numerous people from my trip – even including my great stalkers. I figured it was my turn to stalk them instead – embarked on a strange 3 week period when I ran into people randomly on no less than 10 occasions; met a couple of WOSers; went to a HC meet-up and caught up with assorted old friends (including some new kids) and the SPG, and even managing a surprise trip home. It was a such a surprise visit that I didn’t even know myself. Well, not until about 11pm one evening when I was in London unexpectedly and realized that I was homeless for a night and thus decided to head out and crash my parents house. To discover that they had changed the locks in my absence. Thus my surprise homecoming involved my hammering on the door at 2am and getting my brother off the toilet to let me in.

And that was that.

Every so often you just hit those periods, it’s strange. The last few weeks have been quiet in general terms, but it’s just been one of those months when lots of things seem to happen. I have no idea why, but it seems to happen for a couple of months each year. Why the world insists on constantly packing a years worth of stuff into a few weeks each year, I have no idea. But it does.

Anna managed to escape the evil clutches of T-Kartor*. Three sets of friends got engaged (WooHoo, congrats all, except Steve where I have to respectfully ask, just what the f*ck are you doing????) although Bangkok for one is probably slightly too far to travel to for the wedding. Shaz and Domi both got jobs. My stalkers have sadly split up. Dad quit his job. Crazy Finnish virgin woman with twins and a third child, is starting to really need sectioning, and her mother simply shot. Jenny gave birth. Andy and Charlotte (plus my godkids) have been granted entrance and are shortly emigrating to New Zealand – a great move for them, but not the most accessible place to head for a long weekend even if I did fly. Kiki, (I’m sure some of you remember her) is back on form and causing mayhem although details will have to wait. Chris managed to piss of a congressman, then get raided by the feds. And hasn’t been heard of since. If anybody knows anybody in Guantanamo who can find out if he’s currently enjoying their hospitality, please let me know. Sadly, I’m not joking. Miha and Katja tried to go to India for 6 weeks, didn't manage to get Indian visas and eventually ended up in, erm, Bulgaria. And returned home to discover Miha's prime time slot on the radio had been given to his best friend. The SPG is, well, being the SPG. Jon stopped working for Japanese and started working for the Aussies, which actually adds to his commute as he lives in London. Michiel and Evgenia braved the Chelyabinsk-an beaurocracy and got married, whilst 2 other couples have split, reasonably amicably, but a third set are going through what can only be described as a vaguely acrimonious breakup. Casey and Dave have left Japan and are now in Germany, Phil has left Beijing and is now in, erm, Whitechapel, and Emily has given up her job and quit Egypt. Tony is hoping to never hear the words "Polish" and "Builder" in the same sentance together. Jen is being kicked out of her house due to upcoming sprog being dropped, whilst Oana, in a city of 3million or so people and 1.5million cars (but who’s counting) managed to randomly crash into the back of her cousin. Andy, stunningly, finally left Pindar whilst Keith, another ex Pindar, colleague has tragically passed away. My sympathies and condolences to Lucy, and his friends and families. RIP, Keef.

I have, of course, been pondering future ideas, come across several interesting looking possibilities, and been scheming about future trips, plans, directions and dreams. A couple of them are real corkers. My mp3 player has new brother which, oddly, seems to be at least partly possessed with same sense of humour as it’s brother. With a much smaller capacity, I can’t wait to see what it throws up in odd situations. Oh, and we also managed to Loose a submarine. If anybody happens to find it, please email me.
And in between all that, I’ve even been forced to do some W*rk. Why me????

And finally, I would also like to take the opportunity to categorically deny rumours (thank you for that, Slim, amongst others) that I have been anywhere near any London sushi bar in the last few weeks. Why the heck does everybody seem to think I some kind of spy, I have no idea. I’m a simple cartographer, people. A cartographer.

It’s actually surprising how interesting and packed a few mundane months can seem when put down on paper-screen type things. But the main thing is, my commitment is fulfilled. I hope you are happy

* please note that the turn of phrase “evil clutches of T-Kartor” was plucked out of nowhere on the spur of the moment in order to meet a deadline for a certain blackmailer, and in no way reflects the authors feelings or mindset towards his lovely, fabulous and inordinately generous employers.

For anybody even vaguely interested, or who has missed anything, my previous blog - for my long trip away is still online at http://gelli.travellerspoint.com. Enjoy