Rumtek monastary in Sikkim India….The first monastary built outside of Tibet after the Chinese invasion.

New Orleans. Another man-made disaster. This is what happens when corners are cut in constrution, by using cheaper, inferior materials to build sea walls and levies in order to protect poorer neighbourhoods and in a part of the world  that is continuously battered by devastating hurricanes. A contastrrophy waiting to happen.

People always say.. ” I wish I had been to New Orleans before Katrina”. But trust me, NOW is the time to visit one of the best cities in America, if not the world. New Orleans needs tourist to help to rebuild and kept its unique culture  alive. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the city is on its way to its former glory but it is still a fine line between failure and success.

Apart from the disgusting minimum response to the hurricane from  Bush’s government, people are still displaced to this day !, without  means or funds to return and rebuild their lives in their own neighbourhoods, surely this should be a basic human right when living  in one of the richest countries on the planet ?  The fear is, that these poorer areas will conveniently be replaced and  ’regenerated’  into richer, middle-class zones , thus possibly losing the very essence of the place and the whole point in going to New Orleans !  Where in America can a city  boast of  hundreds of years of  history, deeply influenced by European, African, North and South American culture , where music, dance, food, spontaneous fiestas, the 2nd line and even voodoo, make-up the extraordinary hallmark of the New Orleans, traditions  passed down through generations of families living in these wards. So lets all get down there and PARTY ! , because this city is still KICKING..

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 ”I knew that I should have left the pub before things turned ugly….”

Let me introduce you to my personnal Zen Master from Jejudo island – South Korean, who, in just under 3 weeks turned me into the mean, lean fighting killing machine , but I have decided to put my new skills to a positive uses………

” WITH GREAT POWERS COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY…”

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But I do think, that it is the best TV show I have done….. Ooo…

FIRST up was Vernetta, a DJ , Actress and her family in Singapore… I knew that they would be the best family to be with as soon as I met them at the airport… Its all about that cheeky glint in the eye and they all had it. It was great to rediscover Singapore which I was beginning to see as one large shopping mall, but now I know it is just two large shopping mall’s. Vern showed me all the different districts, Little Indian, China town, the now trendy Arab quarter, markets , temples, nutty new builds, beautiful old colonial style places, bars and of course, the main attraction… FOOD ! which is out of control there and Heavenly….Two more weeks and I would not be able to pay the excess baggage to get home. We also got our feet and legs nibbled by small fish in a tank, which can’t be right, Vern’s folk’s, Albert & Doreen renewed their wedding vows with 80 Harley Riding Rockers guests , all dancing at the church and I got beat-up by a woman in the boxing ring which seems to happen to me in every show, care of Wayne, Verns husband…..but they are still one of the sweetest families you could hope to meet.. next to the Adams family.

SECOND was Sri Lanka. Not the normal image you would associate with this beautiful island, I was on tour with STIGMATA….. A brilliant Heavy Metal band from the capital, Colombo. It reminded me of my rocker days, lovely…  I  have shorter hair now but my air guitar will always be with me. 6 days on the tour bus…now  thats rock-a-roll  man. With the end of the bloody 30 year civil war and the start of rebuilding we were luck enough to travel to the rarely visited north of Sri Lanka. Elephant action, toddy drinking and a half naked press conference things were getting messy already…. But visiting a  Tamil Tiger rehabilitation camp where 53 couples were getting married that day was a serious reality check. The couples , men and woman were all ex-fighters in the war and as  one woman said, who was fighting for 2 and a half years , never believed that she would live to see this day. An amazing day for all of us, what an honour to witness it happening. Then we  travelled deep into the jungle to spend time with the Veddah people, who are the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka but are still hanging on, tooth and nail to retain their dying culture, I think that the Stigmata boys felt well at home…

And then as a last treat, we turning up at the hotel were the Sri Lankan and Pakistan cricket team were staying, before playing each other in the Asia cup. So, like you do, we tried to take on the best spin-bowler in the histroy of cricket Murali in a cricket knock about….. again it got very very messy, even my dirty body-line tactics didn’t work this time. Then, it was back to the raunch in Colomdo for an ear-bleeding live Stigmata concert ,  time to dust down the air guitar and roll back the years , the night did not dissappoint…. You know that you have been to a good gig bacause when you stagger out,  stinking of beer ,  soaked to the skin with sweat and you can’t hear anything for three day because of the ringing in the ears..

Then straight onto India for the Third programme in the series, hooking up with Bollywood superstar Arshad Wassi, who’s task it was was to get me into a Bollywood film and then make is as a movie star in India. I’m 45 , fat , can’t sing , dance or speak Hindi but we never let these minor details get in the way to my path to stardom….

The forth show was in Japan with my host Noria who is one of the last tradisional Geisha women in Toyko. Which, I have to confess,  I did think that a Geisha was a high class prostitute but now thankfully I know betternow…. She is more of a high class, all round entertainer and socializer highly trained in tradisional Japanese dance, singing and a musician with NO hankie-pankie who so ever… Also she has to be a brilliant conversationlist and a complete piss-head to be able to handle the gallons of Saki drunk by rich clients most working nights. I couldn’t keep up with these highly trained women when Noria and five of her friends  took me out for a quite little drink, and if anyone saw a figure being horrible ill outside their hotel a few months ago it wasn’t me… What an amazing insight to an amazing way of life and a sadly dying art.