I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Presidential Debate as an event. As things are, by all the numbers, and not by my choice etc, but Hillary will absolutely and certainly become the President unless she drops dead.

Love is deep and irrational, and you can see this in a very special way in Thailand with the death of King Rama IX. 65 million people in mourning, profound mourning. Deeply Personal Grief. I think the Thai people are quite unique in this way. Yet the manifestations of grief are universally human...and do include lashing out, scapegoating, shooting the messenger, rebellion, etc so it is and will be a very difficult time. I expect there will be a long period of sadness and respect ...six months...and then the country will fall into 3 pieces and the instability will spread throughout South East Asia and there will be a decade of instability in that region, including Australia.

As far as i can work out / guess the impact of lunar phases on people...the effect begins about three days before the full moon and last three days after the first night. Interestingly there is a difference in gender responses to moon phases...thus...women are affected by the full moon whereas men are affected by the new (no visible moon) phase.

My three fountain pens, the Platignum, London; the Waterman, Paris, the big Gold Chinese Lan Bad Shen Bi signature-writing pen. Favourite things.

Mr Dylan as reported China: 1.To win the Nobel Prize is not an inglorious thing,in fact it’s an encouraging thing,for if a pop singer could win it,then everyone could. 2.Scholars,preofessors and Dlitts will now argument that I’m not a singer but a poet,but what I wanna say to them is:if I were really a poet 50 years ago,I would starve to death in your sight and your silence. 3.I don’t know what R&R really is now,I thought it’s a prograss of Human civilization,but it might be a degeneration,for there are so many dancing hairy ape on the R&R stage nowadays. 4.The best way to kill a Rebel is to award him a prize,at least better than to use jails and tanks,like those happening somewhere at this time on the same globe of ours.Yet glory will forever belongs to those resisiting people,for the long-live freedom.

Henry Mancini SEND IN THE CLOWNS

The only other special writing instrument I have is a gold-metal massive heavy and long fountain pen my father in law in China (a newspaper owner prior to the Cultural Revolution) gave me a few years ago. It is as if it is made of solid gold or hard iron...and it has the smallest ink reservoir, as if only meant for signing important documents. I refill it with a 23 gauge needle and a 1ml syringe. The nib is gold-iridium and made in Germany, the rest is made in the Peoples Republic. That's a very special writing instrument. I only use it from time to time so the nib will eventually conform to my writing style. It will be well worn in and perfect for me in about 200 years time.