Fri 13.07.12:

In Homer’s Odyssey, our wily hero Odysseus had his men tie him to the ship’s mast so he could hear the Siren’s song without dashing himself on the rocks. I’m fairly sure that the cruel and capricious Gods of Olympus are cooking up a similar ordeal for me here on the Isle of Serendipity. I meet a lot of people on the road and some are obviously better looking than others. Yes I’ve got a girlfriend, but even so, you can’t help but notice. Call it window shopping, whatever, we all do it, don’t look at me like that. But what’s making my head spin is the way that almost every female tourist I meet (Sri Lankan women being eerily absent from this country’s nightlife) is not just hot, but outrageously take-off-your-shoe-and-bang-it-on-the-table-whilst-howling-at-the-moon-hot.

If it was one or two of these magnificent (but ultimately deadly) creatures, I would give it the hey-ho, no big deal, not worth commenting on in my blog. But there’s been a staggering number of remarkably attractive women I’ve met here that, if I was footloose and fancy free, I’d totally be inviting for a picnic, if you know what I mean.

Is this beer goggles talking? No: I check my photos the next day and there they are, The Sirens, singing to me with their eyes. I guess it’s just one more string to Sri Lanka’s bow, a country that is rapidly solidifying its position in my Top Ten of the World. But why here? Why now? Is this some kind of test? I have no ship, my mast is my candour, the rope is my general bolshie disposition. Are we seeing the coming together of two classic Odyssean moments: that of the Saga of the Sirens and that of Calypso’s Isle?

Odysseus spent 7 years trapped on Calypso’s island.

Ah, sod it: I’m asking the wrong questions. I don’t believe in fate any more than I believe in the invisible dragon that lives in my garage.

Although I really wish he’d stop setting fire to my invisible car.