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You don’t need Guitar Hero to be a rock god like Dick Dale

We’ve just returned from a couple of days in lovely Penang, where we had lots of fun playing in the tropics. We stayed at the Golden Sands hotel, which was perfect for our little family unit, being very accessible for Sheridan and with lots of kid-related stuff like an indoor adventure zone and a great wading pool. We really struggled to get Mitchell out of both of these.

The only real negatives were that the visit was so short - only a couple of days - and someone broke into all of our suitcases between Penang and Beirut. Fortunately we didn’t have any valuables in the cases so the only thing they took was an old mobile phone. Unfortunately they wrecked the locks on the suitcases in the process, so the end of the holidays were spent filling out insurance paperwork with Malaysian airlines.

Bummer!

We’ve had a pretty crazy autumn here, with temperatures staying above 30 degrees until the last week or so. Then earlier this week we had some torrential rain and this dropped the temps to a much more comfortable 22 during the day and 16-17 at night.

Sounds very pleasant you may think. Well, it’s been great watching the Lebanese adapt to the sudden change.

It’s as if the second ice-age has hit. All of a sudden the women have ditched their tight fitting summer dresses for jeans, scarves and long leather boots (one could unkindly describe them as FMBs). One of my work drivers took me to an appointment the other day and he was wearing a long overcoat, scarf, gloves and cap - and it was 21 degrees outside. I was sweating just looking at him.

Now to be fair, the climate is a bit chillier up in the hills. There has even been a dump of snow on Mt Sannine, which is actually visible from Beirut because all the rain has rinsed the crap out of the air.

But come on. It’s not that cold, really!