Imagine a cosy and dimly lit dungeon somewhere in Melbourne. Right in the middle of the floor a rather courageous girl sits quietly on her knees, visibly in expectation of something she isn't quite sure of. Knees slightly apart. Head down. Hair still wet and the skin glowing from a good scrub under the shower. Smelling like fresh roses.

The dungeon session was arranged some time ago, and several discussions had taken place on what to do, what to expect, what not to do and what was on the wish list. The girl had entered he dungeon on her own accord, leaving clothes and earthly worries behind, ready to submit unreservedly.

On entry of the Master the girl lifts her head and looks up. There is enough light to see the sparkle in the eyes of this brave girl with great expectations..... clearly ready for anything.....

What are you gonna do?

Life at 36,000 feet has taken an entire new dimension. Charlie has just returned from yet another trip to a cold and rainy Europe. This time wet snowy Bern in Switzerland and an even more grey Leipzig in Germany. Travelling that sort of distances high above the ground with no phone, no email, and not much else to do there is plenty of time to think over your sins. Flew the long stretches with Singapore Airlines this time. They seem to have the most convenient connections to the capital cities of Europe with a three times a day service from Melbourne to Singapore. And of course, one eye was looking out for the all new dancing and singing A380 with their fabulous sky beds, but that one doesn't come to Melbourne as yet. Sydney only. Some reporter in Europe had the comments: "They sell you a bed in the sky, give you the privacy, and then say you shouldn't do what comes naturally......."

So, no hanky panky on board of the Singapore Airline jets. That is 'verboten' or in more formal words 'discouraged'. Crying shame because that would be a rather nice experience and some other way to ghet through the 24 hours it takes to fly half-way round the world. We will just have to be happy with the looks and the fabulous services of the 'Singapore Girl', whom are on board in some quantity and ever smiling. Charlie lost his glasses somewhere in the chair whilst sleeping on the sector Frankfurt to Singapore, and the looks of three of these fabulous Singapore Girls in sarongs on their hands and knees trying to find them somewhere down under the chairs was really something to write home about :). You would loose something on purpose just to experience that...

Anyway, got home with a fricking cold from windy and rainy Leipzig. That's what you get if an Ozzie goes to an Ossie. (Ossies are the former East Germans from Ost-Deutschland). Nice people, but after more than fifteen years they still have trouble shaking off the communist stories. It's getting a lot better though. At least all visible signs from the dark past have gone. What's left is more some underground stream that is hard to kill. And Charlie now has his own kill to do. The incubation time of a common cold or flu is two days and it takes a week to get over it. Combine that with the jet lag which alo takes you a week to kill, the next few days here in Melbourne will be an absolute write-off, under the duvet with some panadols and something hot and strong. Don't worry. This boy will be over it soon and then I'm back on deck to clear the damage of the last weeks here in Melbourne... That will be fun :)

And if there are any volunteers here to test the limits on these fabulous A380 skybeds whenever they come to Melbourne, put up your hand. Charlie is planning his road shows for 2008 now and there will be plenty of travel..... But most of it won't be in those luxurious A380's. Charlie would wish it was. The hard yakka is far more down to earth, going to remote places on strange roads in countries where they speak different languages and by the time you figured out where to go they booked your room to someone else.... and all restaurants are already closed. Figure that one. How about some adventure in your life? But that's another story.

This Easter Monday Charlie and his dear wife went on their annual pelgrimage to the well known Swedish Ikea flatpack furniture outfit in Richmond. All of Charlie's children have now left the home and some of the seating arrangements are in dear need of an uplift of some sorts. Since the teener party days are now over and done, we can afford something a little nicer without having to fear that it will get trashed by the next hordes of school friends and other visitors.

Sort of re-arrangeing the deck chairs on the Titanic as it is likely that we'll be looking for some place a little smaller and easier to maintain in the near future. Might have to have a garage sale to get rid of the excess furniture. Just getting used to all of these empty rooms is something that gets you down a little now and then.

So, halfway through the Ikea store there is this cafetaria style eating place which serves the famous Swedish Balls. Meat balls that is. They now come in three sizes of portions and being lunch time of course we did engage in some.

The food is OK, but something in the arrangements of this Cafetaria just strikes me dead. There were big and conspicious signs on the walls and on the tables reminding the Patrons that tey should clean their tables themselves after finishing, and deliver the trays to the tray stations. Good and well. Very much in the Swedish community spirit of course.

Now, here in Australia we don't see the undertones but if you ever visited an Ikea store in Holland, or Germany, or in France you'll find that the U, Sie and Vous has dissappeared from the customer communications and was replaced by jij, Du and Tu. Like you are with your primary school friends. All respect for the Patrons has gone out of the windows, and in good Swedish spirit we are all equal and should clean our tables after use without complaining to the management. Nothing wrong of course with that McDonald style of attitude but there comes a stage in you life that you get annoyed by blatant arrogance and incompetence.

The cafetaria was rather busy and it wasn't actually easy to find a table to land with your tray. Then the one table we found was outright dirty. And do you think you'll find something to wipe it? Or heaven forbid find a staff member to do it for you? Now, that's expecting a but much hey. You got your balls so be happy, eat them and be quiet now! And don't forget to clean your table when you're done. Just like the YMCA!

So, reading a little further on these overbearing announcements to clean your table, there is a mention that this friendly cleaning act by the Patrons will free up the staff to do more of the cooking and save money. So, the Swedes can keep the price of their balls right down.

Well, this really does it for me. Melbourne is well endowed with eating places, and there isn't actually a restaurant in town where the cook also cleans the customer tables or the other way round. Restaurants are usually organised in military style with ranks and processes. And it is certainly very clear who sets and clears the customer tables and who does the cooking in the kitchen. But not in this Ikea place of course. Charlie thinks they draw straws at the end of the day to see who must do the final round-up and clearing of spilled food on the chairs, tables and floors.

Not that this yellow-blue Swedish enterprise would run out of money or save anything. As far as I can see they are serving a few thousand meals a day. Add 50 cents or so to the price of a meal and hire a few of these gorgeous Swedish young girls with blue eyes and long blond hair to do the cleaning. And in the process make the Patrons very happy. For the sort of money this store is taking, you can afford to hire what you want. And get the job done.

Anyway, Charlie will respectfully pass over the Swedish balls for a while. There is a small eating place in a new shopping mall on Wellington road where the food is good and the service is done fast and courteous by some lovely persons with their brains in the right place. Charlie is going to stick to that one for his culinary needs for a while. And the Swedes can keep their balls.

Last Christmas Santa brought good old Charlie a Blackberry.  This marvelous tool of the trade that keeps you in touch wherever you are whenever you go.  In business emails you see more and more "Sent from my Verizon Blackberry' or similar taglines.  People show off that they are now capable of emailing on the run and anytime they like.

Charlie's new Blackberry took a while to get to work.  It is certainly not some straight forward point and click affair.  There is much more to it in making it work.  Just the connection to the business email system was some of an adventure.  Both the phone company and the email company wanted extra money for providing the connections.   And it also took quite a bit of button pushing, trial and error here and there.  All in all it took a week and a bit to get going.  And going it did.   Emails can be read on the run and written on the spot.  Save a little trouble with reading larger attachments it seems a blessing for the road warriors, the people like Charlie who are always somewhere out and about or between offices where it is hard to get a decent Internet connection or a quiet place to pull out your laptop.  So, Charlie became just another happy Blackberry user. 

 Then something happened which put the Blackberry in a rather black light.

Charlie was to meet with a lovely girl for a coffee and a chat.  A facebook style poke buddy from alt who wanted to know a little more about Charlie's dungeon adventures.  Done with the exchange of mails and pokes it was now time for a real face to face meeting and discuss how to explore the emerging friendship a little further.   In traditional style for first meeting a busy public place was agreed on, in this case a well known and busy coffee joint on Melbourne airport.  Now, Charlie is not a stranger on airports.  He spends half his life on airports going somewhere, coming from somewhere or picking up visitors and bringing them away again. Charlie is well trained and pretty good in picking out his prey from three jumbo loads of people.  Even if he never had a picture or only some vague description.  So, this coffee meet was considered sort of a routine thing.  Low risk.  Nothing new.  Done it many times before.  An easy thing.  No problems.....

Well, that backfired prominently. Charlie arrived ten minutes early at the agreed place, looked around, found nobody that looked like his date so he ordered a Cappuchino and sat down on one of the tables for a sip.  Nothing exciting happened for a while, but his Blackberry buzzed and some intriguing email came up  about some tricky business affair that had started earlier this morning as a littlle bushfire but had since developed in to an all-out email war...    And of course  Charlie had to but in with a few words to see if anything could be salvaged....   One word invoked the other and half an hour later the flames were still relentlessly shooting over the screen...  Meanwhile, Charlie did look up and round now and then to see if his date had arrived, but seeing nothing that looked familiar Charlie went on to mind his Blackberry mail.

The date had Charlie's phone number and had promised to ring or text if anything would come between, but no ring and no text.  Charlie then rang her number but the phone was offline without voice mail.