21st February. 14 Million Tons of High Explosive.

"Bomb, bomb, bomb... flat! had been Grandmother's explanation as to the fate of her original family home.

A fact borne out by the War Remnants Museum in Saigon.

I make a lone expedition, claiming special interest, except it's all mixed up with the Apollo moonshots, The Monkees and anything else coming through the airwaves about the US in grainy black & white, 405 lines.

It's all here in full grotesque Technicolor; Napalm, Phosphorous and Agent Orange which certainly "Spread across the sky like marmalade", all 70 million litres of it.

Near the end there is a glass case containing the medals of a highly decorated American Sargeant, a gift to the museum with an apology in cross-stitch, "To the people of a united Vietnam, I was wrong. I am sorry".


AIR RECONNAISANCE DREAM.

I am strangely able to hire a light aircraft, a twin-seated Cessna, despite having neither a pilots licence nor any experience of flying. I ask J. Franklin if he fancies a flight up Glenshee since it's such a clear crisp day, that's ok with him.

We fly northwards, the distant snow clad hills glistening in the sun resembling more some part of the Himalayas than Perthshire...

The flight goes steadily enough, there's not that much to it really, this piloting thing. Then I have to take action to avoid some power lines, soon we are out of control, aeronautically and emotionally, panicking as I push foot pedals and anything else to forestall disaster.

Somehow we regain a level flightpath, great, except for the fact that we are now flying upside down. JF looks to me to rectify this matter, I push the joystick hopefully, then gritted my teeth as the plane twists round in one sickening manouvre.

We need fuel, I'm a little apprehensive of making a landing, never having done it before, but we spot a road in the snowy landscape, which now looks like Canada, miraculously we land and taxi to a gas station.

It turns out this isn't Canada it's the US. They refuse to sell us any fuel on account of me not having the right paperwork. Search as I might I can't find any documents relating to anything at all. We are stranded God knows where? and I'd only hired the plane for an hour.