Daddy working in Barbados - honestly (well, for some of the time)

Long ago, some genius at Durham Business School - where I work - undertook careful market analysis and identified a niche opportunity for MBA education in the Caribbean/ gazed out of his office at the unrelenting drizzle of a cold Tuesday in November and thought, "Bugger this, we need an MBA franchise somewhere hot with great beaches and some righteous seafood..."

And so it came to pass, Durham has an MBA in Barbados, where faculty are sent to teach the modules. For five years, I've not been teaching any of the modules, but this year a colleague pulled out of doing his, and I was asked to step in...

Good job I teach a class on the research into effective decision-making, eh? Otherwise, who knows how I'd have reacted?!

So, I downloaded onto my phone all my CDs from (the mighty) Culture, and headed off to teach an elective on 'Leadership'.

I stayed in Rockley, in the Christ Church district of Barbados, 4km from the capital, Bridgetown (looks a lot like Brixton: culturally of course but also - weirdly - architecturally).

Here are four photos of the place, including - for Liam back at home - the groovy little beach crabs that pop out of their holes, scuttle about and, in a fantastic scene one morning, hand out beat-downs to passing wasps. When they sense prey, their little legs kick into top gear! Surely they've got to go on the Deadly 60!



Barbados is a great little island, I liked it a lot, although I didn't travel round much (dedicated professional, y'see) and there are some even better bits elsewhere.

But I can recommend Tapas restaurant in Rockley itself - down by the beach, with amazing 'blackened flying fish' dinners - as well as Pisces restaurant in St Lawrence Gap, which is a fun-filled, DEAFENING REGGAE-filled $1 bus ride from Rockley (we need the buses in Durham fitted with sound systems).

And 4pm football kickoffs are on at the relatively civilised hour of 11am...