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We caught the Metro from our hotel (there is a station in the basement) to the airport and all was well, until we boarded a dingy Finnair aircraft (codeshare with Qantas).  After a long delay on the ground we finally got going (Fin in air?), probably not their fault.

But then the plane started falling apart. As we took off, bottles of water tumbled down onto Wendy from a broken pocket above.

We were soon to be served an almost inedible one-course meal - no bread; no salad; no little chocolate or cheese, no desert.  We chose different options but both were equally horrible and pushed aside, hardly touched. It was like the Woody Allan joke in 'Annie Hall': comparing life in general to a retirement home: "terrible food - and such small portions".  We both asked for wine. Red or white?  No varietal sub-options. We were each given a tiny one-glass bottle. Wendy asked for another. Certainly madam - snigger. She's still waiting.

Oh well! Maybe breakfast would be better? But there was no breakfast! The only other food provided on the flight was in a small cardboard box, literally thrown, from side-to-side, as the attendant passed down the isle. It contained some sort of tasteless, bar only marginally more edible than the box it came in.

On the bright side the plane didn't crash. And we have now found another airline to put at the bottom of our list, that was almost worse than Aerolineas Argentinas. 

 

 

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Travel

Bali

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of February 2016 Wendy and I took a package deal to visit Bali.  These days almost everyone knows that Bali is a smallish island off the east tip of Java in the Southern Indonesian archipelago, just south of the equator.  Longitudinally it's just to the west of Perth, not a huge distance from Darwin.  The whole Island chain is highly actively volcanic with regular eruptions that quite frequently disrupt air traffic. Bali is well watered, volcanic, fertile and very warm year round, with seasons defined by the amount of rain.

Read more: Bali

Fiction, Recollections & News

A Secret Agent

 If you have an e-book reader, a version of this story is available for download, below.

 

Chapter 1

 

 - news flash -

Body in River

Monday

 

The body of a man was found floating in the IguazĂș river this morning by a tourist boat. Mary (name withheld) said it was terrible. "We were just approaching the falls when the body appeared bobbing in the foam directly in front of us. We almost ran over it. The driver swerved and circled back and the crew pulled him in. The poor man must have fallen - or perhaps he jumped?"

The body was discovered near the Brazilian side but was taken back to Argentina. Police are investigating and have not yet released details of the man's identity...

 

IguazĂș Herald

 

Everywhere we look there's falling water. Down the track to the right is a lookout. Over the other side of the gorge is Brazil, where the cliff faces are covered by maybe a kilometre of falling curtains of white, windswept water. Here and there the curtains hang in gaps or are pushed aside by clumps of trees and bushes, like stagehands peeking out into a theatre before the performance.  

Read more: A Secret Agent

Opinions and Philosophy

More nuclear medicine

 

 

 

As a follow-up to my radiation treatment for prostate cancer, that I reported here as: Medical fun and games, I recently underwent a PET scan, to check that all is well. 

When I first heard of them I imagined that a PET scan was a more generic all-encompassing version of a CAT scan - perhaps one involving dogs and rabbits; or even goldfish?

Read more: More nuclear medicine

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