When I lost my leg a few years ago, it didn't really cause me any great concern and still doesn't today, I don't let physical problems get me down, just something that you have to put up with and accept. So now I am 'legless' just accept it and make the most of it if you can. I find it a little amusing sometimes that other people feel sorry or pity for my physical disability, because I don't feel any of those things for myself about being an amputee, it's just normal for me now.

Living in Thailand now, every two months I have to travel to Penang for Thai visa regulations and I had been doing this for a while now. When I first went to Penang, I found a good, reasonably priced place to stay, the Blue Diamond Hotel in Georgetown. This hotel also has a good food and drink area at the front and features live music in the evenings, which I enjoy, so this soon became my regular haunt when visiting Penang. The staff in the hotel are very friendly and because I am a regular visitor, fairly soon they all recognised me on sight each time I went there. But probably because they have hundreds of different guests each week, the one thing that they had problems remembering about me, was my name.

So just after I received my first copy of my published book early last year, I had to go again to Penang for Thai visa regulations and whilst I was sitting in the cafe area at the Blue Diamond, just proof-reading my book, the owner of the hotel there spotted me, recognised me and came over to greet me. He was interested in my book and asked if he could borrow it to read, so I agreed and gave it to him. He then started to thank me and I could see that he was struggling to remember my name, but he glanced at the book and then said "Thank you John, I shall make sure that you have it back before you leave". I started smiling then and explained to him that John McMiken is only my writing name and that my real name is Ian, he had my book 'Legless in Thailand' in his hand, so I just pointed to it and said "Maybe it is easier if you just call me Legless" and pointed to my false leg and said "You know that I am legless anyway, so it will be much easier for you to remember".

So that was how my name Legless started and now everyone who knows me in Penang greets me by shouting "Hi Legless, how's it going?" and nobody forgets my name anymore.

Cheers for now, Legless