…excusing a bit of  a time lag from unwinding the rubber band back to NZ over the last few days hence the silence…I was quite flattered to open up Cheeseburger on Monday to find one of my comments re the Birmoverse starring on the front page as it were. Certainly led to an interesting dialogue – people should check out the various discussions re what’s next in the Birmoverse and maybe even contribute if they have anything meaningful to say…while I’m interested in a 50s/60s sequel to the Axis of Time trilogy, I’m way more interested in a 21C prequel that explores the modern Birmoverse (less the wormhole device) – this would be a great tool (shades of self-interest!) to explore possibilities for where our version of this century might go…

Am now safely back at home (thank you very much to Singapore Airlines – truly a great way to fly!!) having enjoyed another brief stopover in Singapore which I largely slept through despite being booked into the Crowne Plaza Changi which is right by the main runway (ask me how I know that the last flight into Changi is at 0230 and the first out at 0600!!!. The beauty of Singapore though is that the light rail system can get you pretty well anywhere in an hour or so absolutely max so I still got to spend a good 4-5 hours in town hopping from one airconned enclave to the next. I very much enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Miniature Hobbies (03-380) in Marina Square – so fun fun to explore an unfamiliar top-class model shop and of course I managed to make a couple of acquisitions that I’ll probably never build: the Academy I-19 sub is very nice, more so for only $20 and comes with some very nice etch work; and the Trumpeter B-4 203mm gun is one of those big chunky ‘I was built in a tractor factory‘ bits of Soviet kit.

The Singapore Air entertainment programme for October was a bit weak – I was expecting Up, GI Joe and G-Force at least but had to make do with Transformers II which didn’t rock and I watched first movie straight after just to confirm that it wasn’t just a teeny screen issue…even though I was awake the whole Singapore-Auckland leg, all I watched was the canned TV episodes because there was nothing in the movies that appealed in the slightest…I did enjoy the first Doctor Who special from Season IV and have to wonder what is going to happen between the Doctor and Lady Christina who is just way too hot to be written out so early in the season…as I was watching Doctor Who of which I have always been a fan since it stopped scaring me witless in the late 60s, It struck me that the whole idea of the Tardis drifting aimlessly lost in space and time may have been inspired by a BBC writer who got caught up in the Oxford Ring Road space-time discontinuum (no, obviously, I’m still NOT over it yet!!)…

Just doing a final peruse of the blogs before I sign off…yes it is 0158 which just shows how screwed up my body clock is from the rubber band…anyway here’s a commentary on the Coming Anarchy about the US and China buddying up in Afghanistan – when you step back from currently-held models, it sounds sensible and when you get down to it, China has a pretty good track record for countering insurgencies as well – just not according to our book, speaking of which, David Kilcullen’s visit to Wellington on 1 Oct, from all reports, went exceptionally well and I hope to get a more detailed backbrief in a few days…

And making a good point for possibly the wrong reasons, The Strategist has mention of what is probably the best chance of success for Afghanistan ( as opposed to every other man and his dog who are trampling around the place)…good old COIN principle #1 Compromise IS Good!