These notes really began life as an annual newsletter, you know the kind of thing you do at Christmas to tell everyone what a fab and exciting year you have had. Coupled with some command of a database, Word and mail-shot techniques, you thus had the facility to bore loads of innocent friends, relatives, etc, in fact anyone you had an address for.

Well strangely enough some people actually seemed to enjoy this. Even Lynda's friends who she would send this thing to, though it was often quite rude and irrelevant to them.  Thus they received this Christmas epistle without any editing on her part and often with the intention of offending them, so she would never have to bother writing to them again - she has the same view as me re Christmas much to her mothers despair. However, it seemed to me that if they enjoyed it then it might be worth putting it on my long planned web-site!

However, a couple of things happened in between, first I did not get around to doing a web-site because HTML looks a lot like hard work. Then it occurred to me that actually Christmas is really the worst time of year to do this. You may have noticed that nothing much happens between say October and Easter, unless you get a divorce, someone dies or you get an interesting sexually transmitted disease - none of them, things you actually want to advertise. All the exciting things generally happen when you take holidays and break the usual routines, besides, you can write really rude things about people you are unlikely to ever meet again. A satire on work could land you in serious trouble with the boss, someone bigger than you, or with access to your tea/coffee. Thus the Notes from various holiday destinations were born - with the added advantage that when you are on holiday you feel relaxed enough to express yourself and have more time available to do so.

This left a couple of problems, the first being that the Christmas thing developed out of a desire to get out of sending Christmas cards. I hate sending them, what do you say in them? Anything? Nothing? Have a nice year? Aren't you dead yet? Plus all those stamps, licking of various foul tasting objects and the tedious filling in of addresses. I'm not even that bothered about getting them especially when they say bugger all and have just been sent out of some misplaced sense of duty. What I did find though was that I actually enjoy other peoples newsletters, even if I don't know them and they don't write all that well, there is I suspect a voyeur in us all. You get the chance to test this out when you open post intended for previous occupiers of your house and Christmas is a great time to get these. (One year we got one intended for somebody who'd died years ago and the letter went on about how depressed these people were that all their friends were dead, dieing or in some advanced state of decay - grim I suppose but still morbidly fascinating - I would have written back to them but thought it might either depress them further or they might latch on to us because we are relatively young and healthy!). Still the other thing about getting older is you worry a lot less about what other people think of you, this had two immediate advantages: 1) I could cease sending cards at all 2) I could be even more rude and (hopefully) inventive when I did my notes.

The next good thing to happen is that more people are on line, "E" mail provided a short term method, but you depend on people having the right software, they are bloody big sods to download and you are limited on the multi-media side of things. Thus the web-site, though I still had to learn how to construct it - well if you are actually reading this I must have learned something.

In the future I will re-edit my past years notes for the web, as they do actually reference each other. Believe me you really do need to know about my interesting and well balanced views on Scousers, Brummies, Germans and the like, but it will take a little while to sort it out. So if strangely enough you find you like this kind of thing check back and you will find the prequels - a bit like Star Wars!

Below are this years efforts - of course they do reference things that were relevant at the time in terms of Politics etc (especially Crete). Do take the health warnings, if you are not a political person, and/or don't like character assassination then do use the links in the Crete one, use them anyway if you get bored. That letter is a long one and either you like that type of thing or you don't and that is the other great advantage over "E" mail or post, I can set the thing up so you can zoom around it, print it if you wish or just look at the pictures.

Anyway, if you don't know us or aren't interested, what on earth are you reading this for anyway? Still I hope you do find something to make you laugh.