I’ve been researching my family history, which I knew was nautical themed, but never quite sure exactly how. With Parents, Grandparents, aged Aunts and Uncles also now long deceased, it is impossible to obtain detailed answers. However, the internet can indeed sometimes be a wonderful thing. How many hours it takes devoted netizens to archive, record and place available, online, sometimes the most trivial and esoteric data never quite fails to amaze me. Researching the Devonshire-Ellis’s was a bit of a task – the name is not always used amongst family members, and is carried down via the eldest son. On occasion, it’s been dropped from use altogether – fear of being cast as aristocrats or as wealthy was not such a desirable thing in post war Britain.

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I enjoy a good cigar, however this habit means I need to pay serious money for the experience. And even that is sometimes not enough – I have purchased cigars from reputable and expensive five star hotels in China, only to find they were fake,  and persuading a Chinese barman that the USD100 just blown – and tried – is fake isn’t going to work. Once lit, the deal is done with cigars. Even worse though was the entire box of fake cigars purchased at Beijing Capital Airport in the Government run duty free. That box of “Panamas” was even sealed.

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Although I have assumed the title of Baron of Coigach and been able to use it since 2011, Royal protocol dictates that as a new Baronial Blazon and Crest has been created, this needs to go through the correct approval procedures. As the Barony is a Scottish title, the responsibility of this lies with the Lord Lyon, being the Queens representative for Scotland. This is because Scottish Baronial law is different from the English equivalent.

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Having been in Asia for 25 years, yet being European, I have been feeling a little disconnected from my roots. When I left for Asia, Maggie Thatcher was Prime Minister, the Soviet Union still existed, Hong Kong was British, and Deng Xiaoping was the most senior Chinese official. The Euro as a currency did not exist.

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I’ve been fortunate this summer to spend a good month with friends of mine who have a Dacha about 100km south from Moscow, on the road to Minsk. Correctly speaking, Dacha’s were summer houses gifted to individuals who had ‘served the State’ – a traditional begun by the Tsar and continued during the Soviet era. Most Dachas today that are in family hands date from the latter period, and are often collective – with owners all having had the same background in the military or with specific factories or organizations. Consequently they are often grouped together in a compound, albeit out in the country, typically near a large lake or river, yet enabling a common and shared security.

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Stalin is his later years was not dissimilar to Churchill, corpulent, and a bit of a gourmet. When meeting Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta Conference, Stalin laid on gallons of Sovietskya, the mass produced, sweet sparkling wine as evidence that as a result of Communism, even the poor could drink ‘champagne’ in the USSR. Churchill wasn’t taken in by that, and wisely refrained from commenting, but he did appreciate Stalin’s ‘Cognac’ – Armenian Mount Ararat Brandy. Churchill went so far as to pronounce it “better than the finest French Cognac” – and I wouldn’t disagree. It’s the 20 year old  that is the one to try, although I make a Sovietskaya/3 year old Armenian brandy cocktail I call the Stalin when these products are available.

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Returning to my Ulaan Baatar apartment for the first time in a few months means opening up the balcony windows, arranging for a good clean – March brings Gobi dust storms and even with my tight fitting, German manufactured window and door frames, Gobi dust manages to find its way in – and I prepare the apartment for the summer and autumn. I like to use it as a base for adventures, exploring, and writing. I have a huge library here on all matters Mongolian, Tibetan and Central Asian, and listen to Shoshtakovich’s String Quartets while sipping Georgian Sapervari.

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Mongolia is blessed with pristine rivers and lakes, and due to the relative remoteness of the country, and the fact that the Nomads don’t usually eat fish (a lack of fats needed to bulk up for the harsh winters) these pure waters are left in relative quiet. I learned to fly fish in Scotland, hours practicing with just a line and trying to precision hit a clump of thistles 25, 50, then 75 yards away before eventually upgrading to Brown Trout and the nocturnal Sea Trout.

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 The monsoon arrived last week in Sri Lanka. It had been overcast for days, no sun, and raining on and off. It had been building up to this of course, but the previous past two weeks had been fine albeit with regular pregnant rain showers. The Monsoon actually made landfall in Bombay three weeks ago and has been tantruming and showering its way East ever since. It marked its full arrival in Sri Lanka by being moody and petulant; the garden birds sullen, the Ocean rough and disturbed, and the Fishing Boats have been erratic in their catch. One local, a boy of 18, has been drowned and is unfound a mile off the coast when a rigger capsized, and since then the waves have become even more unpredictable. Seven were rescued, and the local Temples have been festooned in white in mourning for a truly Lost Boy. Women have wailed, while local Monks remain stoic, and the Father drinks. He has nothing left but daughters now, and he is ruined. The Fishermen stay at home, annoying their wives and disturbing harmonious lives. Deprived of nets, and hooks, and the stench of rotting fish, they instead watched the World Cup until 6am and drink too much Arrack. Ocean swells have been replaced with Hangovers. Diets change from Mahe Mahe and Tuna to Mutton and Goat, and sometimes even those are the same. It has been time now for me to pack. I bear north-east to Mongolia for the summer, the Siberian grasslands and long evenings out with the horses, swapping Ocean Spray for Arctic Rivers.

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Colombo is of course the capital city of Sri Lanka, while St. Andrews is a very old and famous gold course. It is actually possible to travel from one to the other by locomotive – albeit if one settles for the St. Andrews Golf Course in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka’s central hill country. Sri Lanka has, a legacy of the British colonial times, a pretty good, and given the natural loveliness of the island, rather beautiful railway system that originally began way back in 1858. It is also one that for me, probably affords the best views to be had of the interior. Starting off though, one really needs to catch the early morning “Blue Train”, a gift from the Italians, and pulling the only air conditioned coaches in Sri Lanka. That means first class, but in the lowland sweltering heat that is rush hour Colombo, is well worth the additional few extra Rupees. I am somewhat amused by the name, as it echoes “Le Train Bleu” the overnight luxury Calais-French Riviera route that was operable prior to WWII. That was the inspiration behind the ballet of the same name, created by Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, with a story by Jean Cocteau, music by Darius Milhaud, choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, costumes by Coco Chanel and with the theatre curtain painted by Pablo Picasso. That’s quite an array of 1920’s premium artistic talent. I have seen the ballet, which basically involves exercises on the beach, some coy heterosexual and homosexual liaisons, and it is fun. In honour, I have the score on my ipod.

Waiting for the Blue Train

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