Hi, is there any interest in something like a locking pointer and a type that I call "lockable" that pairs any type with a mutex? Inspired by Andrei Alexandrescu's article "volatile - Multithreaded Programmer's Best Friend" on ddj I implemented a concept similar to a locking pointer called "lock_acquirer" that collects acquisition of a mutex and a volatile cast of the locked type. It is even more threadsafe to use than a locking pointer. Additionally I made a class "lockable" that pairs a (volatile) type with a mutex type, wrapping both in a distinct type, which has first the advantage that the type to protect and the mutex are glued together, and second that it encapsulates volatile qualifier correctly. Also, the locked type in a lockable can, if wanted, by a restricted interface only be accessed by a lock_acquirer thus forcing the programmer to a very threadsafe programming style. I can post my implementation along with a simple example to the boost vault. Klaus