Fareastdriver,
What a story yours has been ! (for I take it, the combination of anno domini and your cataracts (join the club !) must spell the end of your life in the skies - at least in the driving seat ! And I'm sure I speak for all of us in saying a sincere "Thanks" for so entertainingly recording it for one past generation (mine) and for the present and all future ones for whom this matchless Thread of Cliff's will form such a priceless archive.
I must say I feel a tinge of regret when any good thing comes to an end. This cavil doesn't affect that at all; but from an old-timer's viewpoint, it seems a pity that most of the old place names we knew in boyhood have been given up without a murmer of protest. Once it was Bombay and Peking, Madras and Canton and Formosa and Ceylon. Now we must say "Mumbai" and "Beijing", "Chennai" and "Guangdong" and "Taiwan and "SriLanka" (was poor Delhi hiding behind the sofa when the new names were being given out ?)
As I said some time ago: "The good folk of Bombay can call it what they like in Marathi, why should it trouble them what we call it in English ?" The French say "Aix-la-Chapelle", the Germans "Aachen", it's the same place, but nobody bothers. We once lived in Cologne for a while, the Germans around us lived in Köln, we were all quie happy with that.
The most ridiculous example was when "Calcutta" became "Kolkata". Phonetically, it's almost the same word, there was no need for it (except for a perceived need to change for its own sake).
Rant over, now this is long enough (more comment and questions soon).
Cheers, Danny.