With izdihar currently stuck in a holding pattern whilst I work on some stuff behind the scenes (should be good, I promise), I thought I'd give you something good to look and listen to whilst I'm getting things sorted. It's something that came on the iPod whilst out in the car this morning. I'd not really listened closely to the lyrics before, but a couple of lines caught my attention. If this is what infatuation sounds like, it's perhaps not such a bad thing...

Depeche Mode: In Your Room

In an ideal world, this place would somehow probe the deeper meaning of something somewhere, but instead it continually rattles off the minutia of life; a trip here, a happening there, perhaps a snippet of life previously unreported. Did you know that they sell memory sticks in the shape of a penguin, ones with a cute little blue rubber scarf no less? I got one for Christmas you know.

You see what I mean?

Here is not really place for great revelations or world events. To engage with those might reveal more than I'm comfortable with, give a clue to what's inside, that inner seething mass.

So instead you must piece the puzzle together for yourself, but as yet I've not given you the corners and precious few of the bits of the sides. Do you see a picture at all? I think I lost the lid of the box some time back, the picture was faded and peeling anyway, so I'm not sure it would help you in any event. Maybe some lyrics would help here...

The Chamber Of 32 Doors

Artist: Genesis
Album: Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

At the top of the stairs, there's hundreds of people,
Running around to all the doors.
They try to find themselves an audience;
Their deductions need applause.

The rich man stands in front of me,
The poor man behind my back.
They believe they can control the game,
But the juggler holds another pack.

I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.

I'd rather trust a countryman than a townman,
You can judge by his eyes, take a look if you can,
Hell smile through his guard,
Survival trains hard.
I'd rather trust a man who works with his hands,
He looks at you once, you know he understands,
Don't need any shield,
When you're out in the field.

But down here,
I'm so alone with my fear,
With everything that I hear.
And every single door, that I've walked through
Brings me back here again,
I've got to find my own way.

The priest and the magician,
Singing all the chants that they have ever heard;
They're all calling out my name,
Even academics, searching printed word.

My father to the left of me,
My mother to the right,
Like everyone else they're pointing
But nowhere feels quite right.

And I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.

Id rather trust a man who doesn't shout what he's found,
There's no need to sell if you're homeward bound.
If I chose a side,
He wont take me for a ride.

Back inside
This chamber of so many doors;
I've nowhere to hide.
I'd give you all of my dreams, if you'd help me,
Find a door
That doesn't lead me back again take me away.

PS: For those who liked the cliffhanger at the end of the last post, you'll be pleased to know that the dead PC is now well again. Resurrected, Lazarus like, courtesy of a power supply replacement. Some small pride at having been able to diagnose and rectify the problem, a small part of my world that could be changed to the way I wished to see it, an opportunity to use long ago acquired skills, the sort that are never likely to become surplus to requirements.

Some days after the return to work and there seems to be a return to the position in which we found ourselves before I departed for the festivities. Things look much as they did before providing a sense of ambivalence - on the one hand things are no worse than when I left, on the other, neither have they improved. Hence the stasis.

I even looked the word up and found an slightly unexpected application for the word

Pathology Stoppage of the normal flow of a body substance, as of blood through an artery or of intestinal contents through the bowels.

I feel a desperate urge to share here, but in the interests of decorum, I shall instead just blame the meds...

Sleep since the return has been at a premium. 02:00 alarms for 03:00 taxis off the back of 30 minutes sleep do not make for good travel companions. When combined with 3 hour waits for aircraft that take-off late, barely getting to the connecting flight in time to wait on the tarmac for a further 3 hours whilst the aircraft sits in the anti-icing queue, you begin to understand the rather disjointed feeling AM and I had on finally making it to Riyadh. It was a kind of an odd weekend where sleep fell wherever it came. It's finally coming right, but the tiredness persists, compounded no doubt by the New Year imperative to exercise.

Reality is starting to kick in though, its inbox cleared of its assorted detritus and evidence of carefully laid plans discarded in absentia. Recalibration is being applied and asserted where needed, concerns assuaged and strategies reviewed. This too will come to pass...

Closer to home there are the inevitable piles of newly acquired gifts stacked on the dining table, the sense of not quite being home and the next escape to be planned. Calls to book flights already as strong as the northerly wind outside - OK, so it is in February, before when I need a new visa, a new driving licence and a new iqama (residents permit). Bureaucracy here is such that these things must align with the precision more commonly associated with a Cruise missile strike if I am to escape these parts in a little over 6 weeks time.

Before then there is the music PC to resurrect, whilst away, it died. It has been resuscitated, fitted with a pacemaker, has died again and must now face surgery. What I really need is for a Gregory House like figure to step into the breach and identify the true cause of the emergency before I undertake a wholly unnecessary (and expensive) procedure with limited hope of success. Time I think to contact 'GomezMan' - where are you Eddie?

For want of anything else to write about tonight, I thought I'd dip into the guitar collection and see if there weren't a few points of interest to share with you. Here then is my Yamaha SA2200, a quite stunning 6-string semi-acoustic I picked up a few years back.

Sometime back in 2000, not long after I came out to Saudi, I decided I need to bring a guitar with me to see if I couldn't improve my playing (a lot). At the time the only thing I had was another Yamaha, an MSG Standard. So I duly packed it up in its hard case and trundled myself off to the airport to come back here to Riyadh - I had a lot to learn I think about travelling with an instrument. It should come as no surprise then, that when I collected the guitar from the carousel, not all was well. I could see that the case was damaged, one of those little metal feet they put on cases was punched clean through the case, and I could also see that one of the catches was undone. An on the spot inspection confirmed my worst fears that the case had been dropped. What was worse, was that the MSG was now resting in the case with its headstock snapped off - all looked very terminal. To cut a long story short though, BA held its hands up to having responsibility for their lack of care and one £200 repair bill later, Sounds Great Music near Manchester did a sterling job of repairing it for me. It travels no longer.

Stuck once more for a guitar, I was left with a long stretch in Saudi until I could get home again and pick up something else. Fortune smiled on me and up popped an alpine white Gibson Les Paul Studio on one of the many notice boards - not a bad guitar at all in the circumstances. One short negotiation later and it was mine. It didn't take me long to realise that all was not entirely right with it though. Sharp fret ends protruding out from the edges of the fretboard told a rather unpleasant story. This guitar had not survived the ravages of the Arabian climate well and the lack of humidity had taken its toll, with the wood shrinking and so leaving the frets ends standing proud. At the time, I neither had the tools nor experience to sort it out, so I gradually grew to dislike it intensely - it just wasn't nice to play. But time passed and other acquisitions meant I could quietly forget about it.

So we get to around 5 years ago and in a speculative moment, I thought it might be worth bringing it back to the UK and seeing what it might be worth in part-exchange for something else. I'd had my eye on something in a local shop and thought the LP might well get me a good proportion of the way there, so back to the UK it came with me. A deal was struck and I found myself the rather pleased as punch owner of the the SA2200 you can see here.

The soundness of the deal was confirmed to me a few months later when I called into the shop again, only to see the LP hanging on the wall in a rather sorry looking state. Back in a country with moisture content in the atmosphere, the wood of the Gibson had started to absorb the humidity around it and expanded as wood does. It had the most amazing crackle glaze effect across the whole of the front of the body and did not look good.

The SA2200 is still with me, though at a distance. It plays wonderfully well and is a joy to hear. Only a couple of weeks till I'm back home again and I can give it another go.

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