Hey, let's start with the good news of the week for a change! To start with, and in no particular order, I have to mention the glorious 3rd Welsh victory against the French on Saturday. This is good news as I actually got to see this game, and live too! This is unlikely to happen again as the only channel showing live games out here is the French international channel TV5 and they're only showing the French games (quelle surprise). Still, that's 3 in a row with the only hard game left at home so who knows how well this might turn out. I'll be in Dhaka for the last 6 Nation weekend and we're on for the Grand Slam I will be combing the expat community for someone with the fabled South African channels that show all games (or so the myth goes).

Next up on the good news front is that Habib is now back in office. He is going to Dinajpur quite a lot for physiotherapy but at least he's doing his own e-mails now, which I was really starting to hate. There are only so many times a chap can write the same message saying that all the information a prospective volunteer could hope for, including the application form, is already available on our web site (and why the fuck didn't they read it before e-mailing us by the way?) before getting very bored by it all. Some of these people seem to think we should also be providing information about airline flights and embassy addresses around the world... If it was down to me I'd take such questions as proof that they're not going to make it in Bangladesh, and for some I suspect Bournemouth would be a struggle.

I heard this week about the job with the ILO, and no I didn't get it. Apparently the 3rd candidate had more experience for the job, and while he was more expensive they decided to go with him. The chap who interviewed me did however say he thought I could do some other similar work later so will keep my CV under his elbow as the French say. The silver lining to this one is that I'll be able to go to the annual VSO conference in 2 weeks instead! It's on the coast at Cox's Bazar in the South-East, and it with the final party being a Caribbean night. The competition is already on between one of the organiser's Graham and myself to find the worst beach shirt, and I've already spotted a couple of winners while out shopping Saturday so should be a good night.

Finally, and to confirm what I was saying last week, Lucy has had 4 puppies. Mother and daughters appear to be doing well, though that is to my untrained eye. They are all of course ridiculously cute and the kitchen staff are giving them left-overs while the training courses continue to run. I'm not sure what'll happen to them, as to be honest we don't really need 4 more dogs around here.

Some of you may have already pieced together the clues to deduce that I was in Dhaka (again?) this week. I'll spare you the details as to why, but I had to get there pretty quickly for once so had to take a night bus. I'd always avoided doing so before, and my prejudices turned out to be well founded. I also had to travel with a different company as my usual carrier didn't leave late enough for me to arrive at a reasonable hour in Dhaka. Apparently the lad at the counter when I bought the ticket wasn't usual staff, and said he couldn't confirm that there was a seat on the midnight bus until his brother came back with the mobile phone an hour later. After pressing him a little bit (with help from 2 colleagues who were on their way home anyway) he agreed to call the main office in Dinajpur and confirm availability. Now, imagine if you will that you have just been negotiating with a young lad for 15 minutes (in an attempt to give the little bugger some business let's not forget it) and that at every turn he seemed rather reluctant to meet you half way. Well, imagine my reaction when, having got him to go to a phone shop and call his office there and then, he literally walked 3 meters to the stall next door and spent the princely sum of 4 taka so that I could buy a ticket worth 200 taka from him. Once the ludicrous nature of the outcome became clear to me I just had to laugh at the lad, and naturally I paid him back the 4 taka for the phone call.

So now to the journey itself which began at 11.45 pm. It really was Hell on toast, and I got virtually no sleep. In fact, I can only assume I got SOME sleep as the 6 hours seemed to go mercifully quickly. The first thing I noticed was that the bus only contained men. I should really be used to this by now, but not having a single women on board just made the whole situation that much more wrong. Because I had booked late I had to take a seat right at the back over the rear wheel axel, which meant it was extremely bumpy even compared to the usual agitated ride I'm used to. None of this bothered my fellow passengers of course, and in particular the man sat next to me who slept the entire journey. All of it. The only times he woke up were when I physically woke him, and I didn't just do that to get past him to venture out to a toilet during a fuel stop either. You see, this guy had the delightful habit of sliding across his seat and resting his head on my shoulder. Now, I could probably have tolerated the snoring (oh yes, he snored too, a real catch this fella), but snuggling was definitely out of the question. Initially I tried being gentle and subtle, but that just didn't work at all. In the end, the only way to get the guy off me was to clip him very firmly in the head with a good shoulder and send him back to his own seat. This usually provided only brief relief before he came swaying back to his preferred resting point. By the end of 10 minutes of this I was really belting the guy around the head as hard as I could with my right shoulder, and eventually he turned the other way and started sliding towards the corridor. I'm not even sure he woke up at the point to move round, but in the darkness it looked a lot like at least 1 beady eye was looking at me, no doubt on the look out for the next potential blow...

I will end on a positive note, which is my experience on Saturday of buying 2 pairs of trousers. I went to a covered market in Dhaka expecting to pick up some simple cotton trousers for working in Dhaka this summer. In the first decent shop I was served by the owner who spoke good English and who also had a fabric shop. After trying on a few things it soon became clear that nothing I liked was going to fit, so off to his fabric stall we went to look at fabrics to make some trousers up for me. He didn't have anything I liked, so we went to a wholesaler where I did find some nice stuff which I bought. We then went back to his usual tailor and got a better price for his services. After some basic measuring the same guy gave me a lift home on his moped, and 3 hours later he delivered the finished trousers to my door! Granted they weren't quite perfect so I'll have to go back for some alterations, but talk about service! And in the end I didn't even spend a penny with him!! He said he has some nice summer shirts so I promised to come back for those, and with a bit of luck he'll have some really nasty ones for the conference party too.