Irony.  It’s a funny thing.  Earlier this week, it rained.  Curious that, being in the middle of a desert and seeing rain.

I don’t know about you but when they said take an action holiday, I thought I might try some scuba diving.  Dodging civil wars and suicide attacks was a little bit more than I was expecting for my money but mustn’t grumble, it is certainly good value .  It does bother me though as I am running towards an army checkpoint that they might pull out their AK’s and rattle off a few rounds in my direction.  So long as they are as lazy as the Italian security guards in Genoa, I doubt I will have a problem.

So I am half way to my Scuba instructor exam and all is looking well.  I was the only person today to score top marks for our in water activity so that left me on a high.  Tonight is a homework free evening – if you exclude having to read the emergency first response manual and preparing a couple of slates for tomorrow.

I treated myself to some new belts the other day.  I got a deal too, three leather belts – all designer I might add, for 320 Egyptian Pounds which is around 27 of those Johnny English.  You see, the last time I bought belts, I had a rather rotund 40” waistline.  the old stuff has been re-drilled for more holes and had the extra 6” trimmed of the tail and were looking a bit messy.  I was well chuffed with my deal, so chuffed, I took one of the other divers on the course back to the shop tonight so that he could buy some and they offered him a price off the cuff without any bartering that was actually lower than the final price I got to agree on.  To make it even tougher to swallow, he was only buying two belts!  Worse still, they then settled on an even lower price so he ended up paying just 80 Egyptian per belt.

Just for the record – The Bangles were wrong – all the locals walk like everyone else in the world.

I started having fun with the street vendors.  Some of them have been annoying the living crap out of me. ”Hello, whats your name, where are you from, you look egyptian, I like your hair, I like your backside, Taxi, Drugs, what do you want” are all lines they have lavished on me. I always, without fail, respond to the first approach with a smile while looking them in the eye and say ‘no thank you’.  The 5 minute walk between dive centre and hotel means I will get approached at least 8 – 10 times so you can imagine how tedious it can get.  What really fecks me off is when you get one that keeps following you, on your shoulder asking more and more questions while clearly being ignored until the line comes out of their mouths ”what do you want?”  Now, I don’t need a second invitation so I stop, turn face to face with them and tell them that I would simply like to walk along the street without you fuckers pestering me all the way along”.  It’s amazing – they actually look at me as if I am the one that has done something wrong.

But I did tell you I was having fun with them right?  I wanted to try something more positive so I got all Caribbean on their asses.  Just like the confrontational approach, they have no idea what to do with me.  So, I see them coming from afar, choosing their line to intercept me and just as they are about to open their mouths, I put a Rasta bounce in my step, hold my hand out to give them 5 and speak some Rasta tongue like ‘wa go-an maaan, yah rass clot bumble’.  They are clueless, they have no idea what I said but then neither do I, I can genuinely make up complete bollocks and they have no idea what to do apart from smile and slap my 5 back and let me walk into the dusk.  Classic – whoever thought that speaking ‘ralphie’ would have such an affect on people??  It is spectacular.

I also did the double again today – no not the mother/daughter combo, god you lot are so perverse, the double run, 6k in the morning, 6k in the evening and I feel dandy.