Well I don't know how many people have followed my friend Joe's story, but he's ended up living in Kuala Lumpur, and his Australian girlfriend is hopefully joining him soon. He's been a good friend over the years, and I'm sad that he's a long way away as it'll make it harder for me to visit him, but we'll hopefully be doing a concert in KL soon and Steph and I can always stop off there on our way to/from New Zealand visiting my parents, so it'll be fine. I got my first text from him out there yesterday and he reckons it's like a Muslim Canary Wharf (high-rise part of London) which sounds kinda crazy.

I managed to stop off in KL on the way out to my parents a few years ago; my first impression was that the airport was way too far out (at least an hour's drive) and my second was that they had built up the high-rise buildings (the Petronas Towers were once the tallest building in the world) and the commerce without really catering for their own people, but I think that happens a lot in the East. China, for example, has one of the worst human rights records in the world (ongoing) but we trade with them because they have cheap labour, and they build big buildings with the proceeds while killing ordinary people because they had two children. Interesting. I'm sounding like a leftie! It won't last.

So anyhow, there's a cool bar in KL which I went to which I think is the saving grace; it's a sort of big wooden hut with an enormous grill outside that they cook mean seafood on (all v cheap too) and a big fishtank in the middle, behind the bar, with sharks swimming along inside it! Ok, so they're really dogfish, but it's still pretty cool, especially at feeding-time.....