On Tuesday 4th April we invited Tri and Jean to dinner at the Cat and Fiddle and the restaurant gained another two impressed clients. Picked up my new glasses from Tiara Optik on the Wednesday and I am as happy as a flea at a dog show for the finished product is as excellent as always. Thursday dawns with the realisation that our time here this trip is diminishing rapidly. Ever noticed that in a two week stay in Bali that the first week passes at an acceptable, easy and relaxed pace while the second week seems to flyby with the speed of a thousand startled Gazelles? The ball and chain had booked herself into the 'Natural Spa & Relaxation Centre' in Jalan Tamlingan just a short stroll from the Gazebo. It is her favourite panel and paint shop and for a comparable minimal charge settles in for four hours of relaxing attention at least once a trip and always just before we leave for home. Left to my own devices for such a period I ensconce myself at the Gazebo bar where, armed with a book and a ready supply of copious amounts of that life saving liquid gold, Bintang, I settle down to read and to contemplate the world around me and the passing parade as it moves unhurriedly along the beachfront promenade close before my eyes. As I contemplate my surroundings I realise how much has changed in the past twenty five years. I call up my first Bintang of the day and with the first intake of the heady liquid my mind drifts back through the clouds of time to an earlier period in Bali. An earlier period when there was no paved thoroughfare along the beach front of Sanur. When there were no restaurants or cafes along the way save for those attached to the very few hotels that bordered the Sanur beach. To a time when only the brave or the lost walked any distance away from their respective hotels along the beach. It was time when Des Austin was the voice of 'Radio Hyatt' and his gentle dulcet tones would herald the arrival of a new day to the Hyatt guests. It was a time when the word terrorism was vaguely associated in the 1970's with the Baader-Meinhof Group, more commonly known as the Red Army Faction of Germany or the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army. All of which were a lifetime and half a world away and had absolutely no relevance to this island paradise. Then in one terrible, sharp and disastrous movement Bali was ejected from Paradise by the actions of religious fanaticism and was thrust into a world for which it was not yet sufficiently prepared for economic survival. Bali had been metaphorically raped and her worldly virginity and youthfulness brutally stripped from her. By my third Bintang my thoughts are clearing and it becomes apparent to me that the brutality of these cowardly attacks upon this defenceless Island are driven by the frustrations of the wicked gutless swine who perpetrated these attacks who can no longer wait for the occupation by stealth to take effect. Why would these animals care if their wicked deeds cause the death of innocent Balinese as well as the hated westerners for they are not Muslim and so are infidels also and not relevant. You can bet my Bali Rolex and a hundred dollars to a pinch of possum poo that the object of these worthless fanatics is to cripple Bali economically so that total resignation and subjugation to a Muslim majority central government will be just a matter of course. The desire by the hardline Muslim faction of the government to implement the ridiculous pornography laws on Bali, will, if successful, achieve what the bombers had hoped for but failed to do, only much faster and without bloodshed and that is to cripple Bali financially and consign this struggling island heaven into economic oblivion.