Refresher course complete.

I was a little tense this afternoon shortly before starting the refresher course but it went well. There was nothing else in the water around us, me and the Canadian instructor, Noami or Nora, or whatever her name was. I don't think that she was bad at all if you're round this way and looking for diving lessons. It was a little unusual when she started one of the skills tests which was to remove her boyancy control jacket slowly infront of me. I didn't know this was one of the skills tests and thought I was going to get an underwater strip tease free of charge as part of the diving lesson. That didn't happen, she was very professional.

I was worried about the sharks, I had it in my mind to say you'll never take me alive, though I did feel
infected by the whole experience. I did say don't you want me to stay to a fish or two but all they could say say say was don't you forget about me, as if sometimes what I say doesn't matter in the least. There's only one way of life and that's your own is something that I would say from time to time but it's just a cliche now.

My mind wandered a lot last night. I wasn't that concerned about the diving today, I didn't find it difficult as such when I started. The PADI training is well thought through and a number of relativley complex skills are conveyed quite simply. The thing that concerned me was that I could not recall anything I had done within two weeks of training - I had one week in Adelaide for the open water diver qualification and the next week in Ko Tao, Thailand for the Advanced scuba diver qualification. After two weeks of diving you would have thought that I'd remember some of it although I don't at present. It felt very good being in the water more than anything else and controlling yourself underwater with an air tank on your back does leave you feeling as if you've accomplished something even if it's just a practice dive.

Tomorrow I've booked myself in for a couple more dives and I don't know where I'll be heading but there are some wrecks out there in the sea and a few relatively interesting little spots. I don't really recall how to plan a dive so will be with a DiveMaster, that is someone who's graduated and hasn't got a job and has done more than fifty hours of diving. It all looks pretty promising to me.

But anyway, last night my mind wandered back to the car industry in the Midlands. I know there is an episode of the Simpson's where Homer manages to destroy his half brothers car business by designing a car that is perfect for himself and not really of any use to anyone else and the thought of doing that does tend to appeal. I don’t know if there is anything else other than a potentially great chance that if a lot of people email Mercedes and suggest that a large number of people will aim to get there to be some form of reaction to the notion of a Mercedes Morris Minor, the BMW Mini has been popular enough perhaps a Ferrari Hillman Imp and Porche Ford Anglia will also be of interest. Maybe the new range of retro-British electric car is where everything in the motor trade will change....