I went to Cagic Coffee today which is only a short stroll from home. It does look rather expensive and upmarket but it was really quite pleasant and more importantly, the coffee was good.

I initially sat just inside the door because I spotted these two comfy looking retro chairs and thought that they would be perfect to sit and read for a while.

The coffee arrived at my table, I ordered a double expresso and was not disappointed. The coffee was strong, very strong in fact and it was a pleasant surprise indeed. I really did not think that this glitzy looking cafe would deliver a lovely double expresso for 20rmb.

I was reading my book, but the door was being opened too many times and the weather was coming in, so I headed upstairs and parked my arse at the window.

I sat for about an hour and a half reading James Patterson’s “London Bridges”. I started reading the Alex Cross series of books a few months ago and I’m still enjoying them, although at times I just have to ignore parts of the plot because it does get a bit silly at times.

It’s time to leave and as I looked around the room, every women that I see had their heads buried in their phones. A sign of the times indeed.

Everyday I wander through this world and just look around. I must be one of the few people not looking at my phone when I am walking around, well in China at least. For years I have been a people watcher and have had many hours of fun criticising and commenting on folk for many years and I am sure that I have also been on the receiving end, in fact I know I have. As an old white guy in China with a white beard and looking quite dashing of course, I get a lot of curious looks.

Women in particular fascinate me, one because I am attracted to them, but secondly because of the amount of make up they plaster on their faces. This is the same all over the world of course. No country is immune I think, but some countries take it to a whole different level. When I was back in the UK this year it was the fake tans that I focused on. There was also a distinct line around the jaw bone of most women where they must have thought their face ended because all of a sudden there was white skin. The fake face and the real face did not become a blend but it was more like a demarcation line. Some of these women want to lose weight, stop using the make up and see what difference that makes to the scales. For years I’ve wondered why so many women look as if they work in a circus, when really most of them should just bin all the product and go o’natural and many would look the better for it.

In China they chase the porcelain look, pure white skin is what they want here. The other day on the metro I thought that the girl who came on and sat down opposite was dead because I could see no colour in her at all, even her hands had a deathly hue. But in China the women don’t seem to wear as much make up compared to the UK for instance, so they do look a bit more natural apart of course for the zombies that you see from time to time.

However they are into their eyebrows, I mean you could set your watch by just how sharp some of these babies are. But then I always seem to get an image of Groucho Marx into my head when I see the crazy eyebrows here. I mean are they doing it for a joke or a bet?

They also get their eyebrows tattooed here, but they look quite ridiculous at times. The stick out so much that it’s Groucho Marx that I see and I can only see the eyebrows and not the rest of the face. The eyebrows have a mind of their own and they have a body attached to them. The eyebrows often seem to be in the wrong place on the face. The remnants of the real eyebrows stubbornly betray this fact. I just want to ask one question, “Why?”

Why would you get this optional extra and stick it on your skull for the whole world to see when it is so fucking ridiculous looking. The fashion icons of today have lot to answer for. I have one friend that has real eyebrows but she goes once a week to make sure they are sharp and on time. One day I’ll get into trouble for staring too much and they’ll think I might be a mad stalker, when in fact it’s the eyebrows that I’m stalking.

I also feel that many of them are very self conscious about them too. There is a certain air of “look at me, look at my wonderful eyebrows” But I think this is the eyebrows talking, there is a darker side to this whole affair……………….they have taken over the mind and body like a parasite does and it’s them that is in control. I think the eyebrow is trying for world domination and it has been a slow process up until now, but I feel that it is an insipid creature with malice aforethought and it will finally have its day. For many years they only seemed to attack men and make them look stupid. There are so many fine examples, even I have been attacked by them and I have to constantly fight them along with the dreaded nasal hair and ear hair. When all three combine then they can make your life hell and of course make you look completely stupid and powerless. Sometime the eyebrows will join together and when this happens then you are just a lost cause.

This even happens in women, but so far they have been lucky and it’s not an epidemic situation, but it only seems to affect women of certain ethnic backgrounds. But let’s get back to China. Why is it that this phenomena has finally reached the shores of China?, well I’ll tell you…………China has embraced many things from the west., like Starbucks,KFC and McDonald’s and the like and this is where the cracks began to appear. They look to the west and see how popular things are and they grab it with both hands because it makes them stand out, they want to be individuals…………….and it can be difficult to stand out in a country with such a large population. This is where the eyebrow saw a niche market and for a while there were only a few ridiculous looking women out there but now you see them everywhere. The price tag for this is not cheap. Eyebrows are raking in the money, at least $100 per pair for fake tattooed eyebrows and I have no idea what the running costs are for them But I think it might be cheaper to own and run a Lamborghini.

In a world full of uncertainty everyday and now we have to contend with the final battle of the eyebrow. We all know that Trump has been infected in many ways by cosmetic enhancements. He is full of parasites. His hair, his eyebrows, his skin colour and of course they have all combined forces to attack the brain and turn it into a an even more Twisted, Stupid individual. it wasn’t only the Simpsons that predicted the Trump presidency, in “Back to the Future 2” one of the characters is Biff and he was as thick as pig shit.

He happened to find an almanac from the future that Marty McFly had lost and he changed the course of history and you only have to look at the similarities of Biff and Trump to see what I mean. If you want to see what is in store for the coming years, watch Back to the Future 2. It’s really quite a sad tale.

you may think I am off topic, but no………………I am just trying to point out to you the path that we are on. We must at all costs resist the eyebrow and not let it take over our life and of course our face. If you could somehow rip them off and then stand on them and save these poor women, but alas I fear that we can only sit back and watch and so I will. I will continue to monitor the advancement of this invasion, it’s all I can really do. If I have an opportunity I will get pictures, but you must realise just how difficult this can be. They are very sensitive to being photographed and the host can turn quite nasty if they catch you. However I will endeavour to provide you with examples and I will risk life and limb in this pursuit.

Cars are more than just a mode of transport, although many people don’t see them that way. They just think it’s a car and it gets me from A to B, I don’t think that way at all. Cars can be beautiful and cars can be like a working breathing piece of art, especially the old ones. Cars can have a soul. Cars today are boring, stale and really only practical. Design is ruled by the puruit of being frugal and of course safety. There are so many legal specifications for a car now that beauty is hard to achieve, on the other hand praacticality and inovation have advanced. Most cars have the same shape and they all came out of the same wind tunnel. Cars of old were designed on a piece of paper with a totally different set of parameters and I wish they would bring that back.

The Shanghai car Museum is a huge building which is near Anting North and it seems to be in the middle of car country. When you get out of the train station it seems miles from civilisation. I had no money on me for the bus, because I forgot to take any and so my only option was to walk the 5 km to the museum. By the way I use my phone to pay for everything, you don’t need to carry money in China, but then again it seems like you do. I left the industrial area and as I headed to the museum and came into a more residential area where I had lunch.

It’s so well laid out and all you have to do is follow the road and the arrows and you wil eventually end up on the top floor. The entry fee is 60 RMB, but they asked me if I was 60 years old and I said yes and so I got a discount of 20 RMB. I know Karma will get me, but I think she knew I was telling a wee lie. Luckily enough this also covered my coffee and cake that I got later. The museum starts off at the beginning of the cars’ history and as you proceed through the museum the times change and the music and the backdrops that accompany each era. There is also some wonderful photographs of old Shanghai. There is one picture that shows a guy moving the traffic lights, apparently China used to drive on the correct side of the road, which we all know is the left and not the right.

I could have stayed for many hours just looking at some of these old cars and it would have been even better if you had the opportunity to sit in them and imagine just for a short time what it must be like to own and drive one of these icons. For me the car that stood out was the Green Aston Martin which was just exquisite. It was sitting alongside some good company too. There was a Ferrari, but I can’t remember the model and then there was the Jaguar XK 120 and the Gullwing Mercedes SL300. To sit and be surrounded by such beauty and better still I was there myself so soak up the atmosphere. In fact as I was leaving there was a school tour coming in and so I was very lucky not have to compete with them.

I had a great day wandering around this museum which I nearly had all to myself. There are so many great cars on show and if I had money then this is what I would love to do, collect cars. I can’t begin to imagine just how much money is tied up here, but the quality and the selection of the cars is very good. Of course there are many old cars that maybe should be in the museum but then it’s all a matter of personal taste. For me I thoroughly enjoyed the Shanghai collection and would urge anyone that enjoys cars to make the effort to go here. If you are visiting Shanghai then I think you can take metro line 11 to get there but I’m not sure of which station to alight from.

I went for wander around Suzhou today with the Album of Suzhou guys. We were visiting familiar places, although I had not been to the Taoist temple of Taibo before. Next to it is a symbolic gate which commemorates the leaving of many traitors and prisoners from the Ming dynasty. This guy below was the gate keeper of the temple and I wish I could send him after the two wee bastards that made a mess of the house.

This is the kind of guy you need to send after wee arseholes anywhere really.

Notice the middle finger in this picture, I never realised this gesture was so old. The temple nevertheless was an interesting little temple and worth a visit.

After here we went to an old street which is famous because it was the home of a very famous assassin called Zhuanzhu. A story for another day.

After here we made our way to Yipu, which is a lovely wee garden in Suzhou which I have been to a few times before, but it’s always good to return and get informed from an expert.

My favourite picture for the day. After here we went for a local dish of sweet soybean soup and a kind of fried bread which hit the spot after a few hours of wandering around in the cold. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of that, but I can share a picture of lunch 😊

Two new guests came on Friday and I didn’t like the look of them at all. I locked the door to me room and to our bathroom before going out as they just didn’t look that trustworthy. A young couple that seemed to only care about themselves and no one else. It’s interesting how you get one good guest only to have the next one or ones to be arseholes.

I left the house today before they did but I wish I had been here when they left and maybe they would not have left the room in such a mess. Fucking bastards!

They even had the air-conditioning set to 30c

The towels also look filthy, I said to Sissi that she must give them a bad review and she tells me not to get angry but why should I not get angry? These wee fuckers will go and do the same thing somewhere else and maybe they already have, in which case Sissi would have known and maybe said “No sorry you can’t stay” She doesn’t want to rock the boat, me I’d drown the wee bastards……

The pollution is high today, so I thought I would try this mask. It’s a good look I think but the only trouble is that my specs are fogging up and I can’t see a bloody thing and so as I wish to ere on the side of safety I shall poison myself instead…..

A few days go a young student arrived to stay with us for a month. She is very petit and very skinny and has a cheeky smile and a twinkle in her eyes. On the surface she looks quite shy and innocent but I was not fooled by this exterior one bit.

Today Sissi and I went out early and the young girl headed out to class. Sissi and I went to the Suzhou Art museum which is where I went the other day, but today we went to another hall which has a static exhibition on the history of Suzhou covering all the people that have influenced the development of Suzhou over the millennia. There is not a lot of English on offer, but when there was an English translation I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was British English for a change, I mean it is so nice to see an inscription in stone where the English is elegant and spelt correctly………none of this American nonsense.

After the museum we went for lunch, which was mutton and vegetable soup with dried blood and tofu chucked in for good measure. On such a cool day it hit the spot and warmed me cockles. After lunch we went our separate ways as we both had things to do, I headed home. Just inside the door of our flat there is a small seat to use to take of your shoes. I had just parked my arse on the chair and I heard giggling and the bedroom door opened at the end of the hall and out stepped the boyfriend of the young girl in his birthday suit, he stopped so quickly and stared at me like a rabbit does when it gets caught in the headlights. He quickly covered his junk with a small square white towel and shouted something………..the young girl stuck her head out the door and just laughed and then they both disappeared.

There is a door that can shut off the living area off from the bedrooms and this door was soon closed. The young guy left about 30 mins later and he scurried out the house with his head hung low. About an hour later the young girl appeared as if nothing had happened. This innocent persona had returned.

The morning was cold and crisp and after I had been to the park for my early morning constitutional I caught up with Lydia for lunch at my new favourite North Eastern restaurant in the Wuzhong district of Suzhou. We went there last week too and had some amazing sweet and sour pork which was done in a lemon based sauce. The pork was tender and the batter thin. Dumplings and cabbage were also on the menu and after we finished every bit I felt fat and ready for a snooze. And so yesterday I was happy to have the same thing again but instead Lydia ordered spicy pork, mutton dumplings and eggplant and potato which was also very good, but I would have also preferred the sweet and sour pork. As you may know or not know, when you order food in China you can do it in two easy ways, which are the usual way ordering with the waitress or you can use the APP by scanning the QR code on the table and then doing it yourself. By doing it yourself it is usually cheaper and yesterday we ended up getting a 15% discount. It’s relatively easy to use but of course it is all in Chinese which makes it a little tricky.

After lunch we jumped on the No 26 bus to go to the art gallery and for those of you who know Suzhou then I will tell you how to get there. If you go to Renmin Lu between Beisita and the moat then you will find it on the south side of the road, easy n’est pas?

The art was varied and diverse and some were just a little too abstract for my liking but I  don’t spend too much time analysing the art I just like it or I don’t and I usually make this decision quickly………

We must have stayed in here for about two hours wandering around the gallery and in fact we were the last to leave. When we came outside the winter was once again on show as the cold wet night made the idea of hot food very palatable.

I arrive at the venue, I warm up the bones,

Do some stretches and feel the body moan,

I warm up my arms and get the body warm,

Just like the car in a darkened winter’s morn,

My legs soon forget the cold, but my hands get worse,

I feel that they are burning from the ice cold touch,

My fingerless gloves give my hands some protection,

But the bars are so cold, I need a thermal injection.

I go to the park wearing my shorts and a shirt,

Every morning since May, but this morning it hurt,

Fingers were numb and the bars were so cold,

I’m either a bit stupid or maybe a little bold,

Bystanders and commuters stare in disbelief,

I do some sit ups to get some relief,

From the cold and the cutting wind,

But don’t stop for too long,

Or the wind will blow off your thong………

A lap of the park to get the heart pumping blood,

Circulate the heat and work that butt,

Fingers move like playing a flying concerto,

And accompany swift feet pounding the ground,

Another lap done, that’s another round.

Chin ups and pull ups and push ups too,

Fire up the muscles with lingering burn,

Stretch the other way to let the acid run,

My breathing is heavy, I rest between reps,

Do some more sit ups and then some more steps,

One more lap and just one more round,

My fingers complain as the snow hits the ground,

It’s just above freezing my body is tired,

And that hot shower is looking good,

I think it’s time I retired,

For today………..