Red Wine: Thanks! Looks interesting.. if only in a Soviet space-era kind of way.
that chinese fella: Have done, thanks! Will reply in a couple of seconds.
overpitched: Cheers for the info. I understand what you mean with regards to the suit & tie being suitable in the city but probably not up in the top-end, so no problems there. In terms of the indepdence thing, I don't think I'll have any issues - I actually work in west Africa at the moment and so are pretty used to all that by now. Except for the chemical toilets, we just dig holes in the ground..! The ATPL and/or IREX thing is a bit trickier though, I think to some degree I'd like to have them before I went up but didn't really think far enough to realise whether it'd cause me dramas or not..?