rlsb
Having flown with you for a year or so, longer ago than either of us would care to remember, I know you to be a person of acuity, resourcefulness and persistence. I am amazed, therefore at your lack of successful bookings. I suspect that LJ is right: you have been spectacularly unlucky. Over an almost identical period in which I have made forty or fifty booking attempts, I have been unsuccessful only once - in December 2002 at three days' notice.
I trust that you are as comfortable in rural Somerset as I am in urban Hong Kong.