Excited ? Of course ! I've just crossed over and bought an iPad

I've had the longest bout of jet-lag I've ever experienced and it's still not flushed out properly a week after or so after I got back from Hong Kong.

I point the finger at the time difference and the unexpected strain of having to fly to Scotland almost as soon as I got into the office on my first day back, but I'd like to think it's to do with the tenacity of the grip that Hong Kong still has on me. It simply won't let go and I don't want it to.

This Far Eastern city state stormed all my defences the moment I stepped out of the plane that brought me there. Take me again. Over-run me. No walls left to batter down. I love the place.

It's an intoxicant for all the senses: enormous statement skyscrapers stand cheek by jowl with broad sweeps of lush forest and stern, jagged peaks and crinkling mountain ridges.

Like so many Asian cities I've been to, Hong Kong has that earthy aroma of fertility, things are going to happen and quickly: throw a seed on the ground, it'll bloom; a single brick becomes a skyscraper overnight; an idea thrown into the heads of these natural born entrepreneurs and it's a new business the same day.

Hong Kong is for cliff dwellers. The only way is up. It has to be. Hong Kong's typography mandates nothing else but. So for millions it's an aerial life in the honeycomb of a giant apartment block and if you're lucky a view to die for and if you're not, then a view of someone's laundry fluttering on those metal hangers which all these cliff dwellers hang their washing on.

I got back very late last night from a trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Two fascinating places; generous, friendly, hospitable, seriously modern, and wired with energy, especially Hong Kong. New York, the poster child for all that's thrusting and brash, has the fury of a Zen Rock garden, compared to HK, London is a doddering pensioner, and Paris, frankly extinct.

The East is the Future.

Interestingly - and this is an adverb I've somehow become glued to, I use it freely in business e-mails and other places where I've run out of creative steam - this is the first Bonfire Night I've experienced in London in some time. Typically (another adverb, I can't throw overboard), I'm usually out of the UK on a trip.

So it's been a fascinating night; the sky's been flickering luridly with each percussive wave of non stop firework salvos, and the streets, particularly around Kensington Church Street, are thick with the smell of gun powder. Still and clear makes a perfect night for fireworks.

I'm pressing the pause button on posts for the next two weeks. I'm taking my near customary November break. Normal service resumes the end of the month.

Wole Soyinka's motivation to write was his sheer wonderment at the human phenomena around him. Better words than any of mine and absolutely true.