On the train home one couldn’t help but notice that yobs had used a black and red marker pen and had gone to town defacing the train with slogans, logos, and telephone numbers.

To make matters worse, they didn’t just write on the back of chairs, they also chose to write on every window in the carriage, on the ceiling, below the information board, above the door… basically where ever there was a bit of space.

It just beggars belief that someone could stoop so low and destroy property that is there to service normal, hardworking people to and from work. It’s very sad that someone has a child out there that cares so little for the property of others.

If only our laws were alot stricter and punishment was a lot more severe for these hooligans.

Why is it that the government is blinded by all the problems and have no answers or solutions?

Bring back corporal punishment, public lashing, or compulsory army for youngsters who break the law. We need to make these hooligans stop and think before they damage and wreck property. I would even go one step further and say, if kids are caught graffitting trains, walls and buildings that the authorities do what they do in other countries (Chop off their hands). That will soon stop all these problems. We need more severe punishment or these problems will never go away. 

As crazy as that might read, it’s actually very simple to do and will cost you very little money, (unless of course your waterproof bag breaks and leaks, and @#%$’s up your expensive phone), in which case, "you try anything I have said at your own risk". Just make sure you buy the right bag. I bought mine on the flight over to Mexico. It was in the duty free catalog, and was selling for £15. In the box were three vacuum sealed bags, each with three seals on each bag. One bag was for a clam phone, another for a mini camera, and the third bag was for an iPod. It even came with waterproof headphones. A jolly good idea. Please note: Even though the camera bag is meant for a mini camera, a camera with a lense would easily break, because there is not much scope for the extending lense, but for the Nokia N95 it was perfect, because the lense does not extend. You do get bigger bags, but I can’t imagine it being very practical. It would be better to stick with a proper camera housing then with seals. For a test subject, I placed a tissue in the bag and sealed it. I then held it underwater in the bath. A few bubbles released, which I read were correct, and after a few minutes was pleasantly surprised. No leaks what so ever. It is actually very clever the way the bag seals and then folds over each other. There is a black plastic sheath that goes over the seals and it has some plastic yellow clips to secure it in place. The bag also has a strap which can be tightened or loosened as need be. The bag also floats, which is an extra bonus. So as mentioned above I tested the bag with my Nokia N95 inside, at a place called Xel-ha in Mexico. Xel-ha has the most spectacular natural aquarium of the world. It’s a large natural salt water inlet, and you are encouraged to snorkel and use a tube to paddle around the bay. There are tons of fish where ever you swim, and being in the Caribbean, the water is warm. It’s impossible to get cold. I took loads of photos with my phone in the bag, while in the water and it was incredible knowing i had a good camera around my neck, rather than one of those ‘cheap and nasty box, use-once and then throw away’ cameras that the shops sell for a killing. I didn’t just use it above water, underwater it worked just as well. Bear in mind this is a photo through the transparent plastic. No bad at all. Nothing wrong with those colours. (These photos have been resized for the web site). I didn’t just take photos. No way oze! The Nokia N95 has an excellent video camera on board, and because the bag was transparent and flexible, it was very easy to use the phone in the water, so I just flicked over to the video mode and shot loads of video as well (with sound). I had an 8GB SDHC card in the phone, which meant I could take over 2 hours worth of video. The web site or email video mode is sufficient as you will see, and about 2 or 3 minutes worth of video takes up about 4MB. High quality mode, which is viewable on a TV takes up about 21MB for every 3 or 4 minutes give or take, so you can take a lot of video if you have the right card. I had over 4GB’s of music on the phone as well, so it wasn’t a problem for me. Below are some videos that I took with the Nokia N95. They are also on Youtube.com if you’re interested. (Just search for Lookatbowen or ‘Nokia N95 Underwater’. Everyone out there on the bridge or in the water was extremely jealous that I had this camera bag, and some were even more surprised to see me with a Nokia phone in the water. The dumb founded stares were quite funny. So many people asked me where they could buy the bag from. If only I had a salesman brain, I would have bought the entire stock on the plane (Next time!!!). Finally I would definitely recommend this product. There are various sites selling these bags online. You can do the searches yourself. I am not giving them a free advert. Although be careful, as I have seen a few US sites selling them separately for ridiculous prices. I got everything (camera bag, ipod bag with waterproof earphones & clam phone bag) for £15 or $30. Mike

We had quite an eventful weekend for a change thanks to "friends of the family" who were in London for the day. We did what every person does when family or friends visit London…. became a TOURIST and I will tell you we had the time of our lives. We hopped onto The Bus Company tourist bus that does various routes around London, and braved the bitterly cold weather at the back of the bus. Not often one catches some rare naval tradition, but while we were looking for a pub near the Tower of London, we caught sight of a group of naval cadets marching from the frigate HMS Westminster. They were bringing a barrel of rum to the Tower of London. Read all about it below.

Navy revives rum tradition Sailors from a Royal Navy frigate visiting her home city will today revive a centuries old tradition by delivering a barrel of rum to the Tower of London. The rum is a present from captain and crew of HMS Westminster to the Constable of the Tower in exchange for the protection of the Tower of London’s guns. The Type 23 frigate is berthed alongside HMS Belfast, and during her stay in the capital will host visits from groups including Brent-based Sea Horses Sailing Club, Thames Clippers, and sea cadets from Gravesend, Sheppey and Medway. Westminster has recently has undergone an intensive period of essential maintenance and training in preparation for a six month deployment early next year. Race of Champions On Sunday we went to Wembley to watch the Race of Champions. Since England did so badly in the football, they decided to turn the "hallowed turf" into a mini race track. It was pretty damn awesome!. They had eight teams from different parts of the world competing against each, and there were many famous drivers from the Formula 1 and Rally Champions most notably seven times world champion Michael Schumacher. He reached the final by beating poor old Jenson Button (who should give up racing anything on 4 wheels, because he is what Tim Henman is for tennis - USELESS). Schummie beat the lap record a couple times, but Mattias Ekstrom was too good for him on the night. He won ROC for the 2nd year in a row. Note: I will add the rest of the photos to our gallery in the coming days.

Some clever people have planned and executed the perfect Jaccuzzi party on the summit of Mont-Blanc. Just look at that view. 

Click on the photo to be taken to the site, that explains it all. There are some great photos of the event.

Recently we visited Northern Ireland to stay with some friends and got the chance to do a bit of site seeing. As we are typical South African’s, the camera was snapping away at everything that moved (well almost everything). Somehow or other, we managed to take over 400 photos, which is relatively easily when you have two digital cameras, make that four if you count mobile phones these days.

Anyway, this weekend I have been going through all the photos, sorting out the crap ones from the wow ones. I also managed to set up a new website called bowen’s travel, which is not final yet, but I am giving it a trial. It uses the Pixelpost template and the great thing about this site is that is shows off the photographs in all their glory, with no distraction from the other parts of the website. So please if you do head to the website, let me know what you think?

The theme I have chosen is called Delicious by a guy called JaySoto.
It can be downloaded here.

I have decided to add a new section to my web site called "Featured Site". You will find it to the right of this post. It is highly visible for all to see and is bound to get a lot of exposure. I get over four hundreds hits a day, and this is steadily increasing. So if you want to see your website here, then let me know. (We can make a plan as they say!).

So for the first featured site we have RealAfricaDiscovered.com - They are specialists in photograhic tours and safaris and personalised sub-Saharan travel. The site is owned and operated by two South African brothers Brendan and Stewart Nolan.   They have an awesome website, showing off some fantastic photographs of the wildlife in South Africa and Botswana. Click on the featured site to the right to get an idea of what I am talking about.

If you want to contact them you can reach Brendan on (UK) 07711096709 and Stewart is available in South Africa  on +27 828753960.

We’ve decided to kick the year off with a visit to Rome. A weekend break to a place we have never been to. The hotel we stayed in was brilliant. It was central to everything and very close to the Metro station.