General Chat

Ann - what a lovely thing to say.
John - the Sorbonne could probably teach her a thing or three now!
I don't think goth music and rock is included in the curriculum

Errol. My son is staying overnight in Bristol watching Sylosis live. Not sure if that is same music (I am a George Formby and Cliff Richard fan myself) but sounds like we could do a bit of matchmaking ;-)

somehow I doubt it

Vail Colorado drop dead best place on the planet. For wild skiing go to Russia.

Paphos was wonderful 30 years ago, hacking some Cypriot rent-a-wreck all the way from Larnaca. Now it has a busy and noisy airport, highrise hotels and not really the place to go. Unless of course you like wall to wall development in which case try Acapulco.

I used to work in Sunnyvale so have shared feelings about San Franciso. Pier39 is one of the worst tourist traps in the USA and that's saying something. For a holiday Santa Cruz, further down the coast is much better and it has a very decent golf course at Carmel on the other side of the bay. Fabulous beach. It would be difficult to go to Lake Tahoe at any time of the year and not be happy.

If you have the time and patience to visit Oz Singapore is well worth a stop over. It has marvelous restaurants, great shopping, a super zoo and sailing at Changhi. Oz is one good reason for hypersonic flight OR maybe a week by balloon. Anything but the 747.

The UK has lots and lots and lots of places which could be wonderful for a holiday but sadly are mostly mucked up with spec development and not very grand design conversions, urban grot ( signs, yellow lines and such ), jobsworths and the you-will-not-park zealots. The wide range of expensive awful cooking is another problem. I blame the tv cookery programs and the Home Office. It is difficult to find a wild place without the Clarksian 4WD nutters - they have even screwed up horse riding andf Snowdon.. Still, last summer we had some magical days in Essex at Mersea Island. Those of you who like Swallows & Amazons will know it as Secret Water. Hardly changed since I was a goss.

Ireland used to be so wonderful. Now when you survey the ruin brought about by the banking bubble and EU structural funds the only thing you can wish is to somehow reverse wind back to, say, 1985.

The place I'd like most to go is Maasai Mara in Kenya.