Food

Just realised that I haven't posted the London to Perth airline food. So, for Tim, here they are;

Chicken and beef satay:

Duck pate and Pork pate:

Pan fried chicken with butter sauce and celeriac and potato mash:

Apple something or other that I've forgotten the name of:

Omelette and huge, suspicious looking sausage;

There were some other bits as well but I was too tired or bored to take pics.

Vegemite Sandwich

You can always tell when you are back in Oz, even with the jet lag, as there's bound to be an advert for Vegemite on the tv. Or a trailer for a miracle cure/shonky tradesman/neighbours at war episode of Today Tonight. And so it was yesterday when I got back. The final flight was pretty uneventful as I slept the whole way from Singapore to Perth, which is a first, but meant that I missed my last delightful airline meal. Actually that's no loss. Even up the front of the 'plane the food is still pretty average, although allegedly cooked up by Gordon Ramsey.

The relief of finally arriving back in Perth after a two day journey was tempered somewhat by the joys of Perth "International" Airport. Firstly there is the queue for immigration control. But I'll give you a tip, if you go through the automatic facial recognition gate, but don't take off your specs, it doesn't work and you get to jump to the front of the regular queue! I knew there must be a use for the passports with RFID chips in them, apart from tracking my every move. After immigration it all went very downhill. Even though I got my bag in about 10 minutes the queue for Quarantine and Customs was beyond a joke. It wove back and forwards for about 100 metres moving very, very slowly. It is a complete farce. The signs everywhere from the Government tell me that "QUARANTINE IS IMPORTANT", but not important enough to pay for more than two scanners and three staff to man them apparently. If this is what people have to tolerate when they first get to Australia then it is a very poor first impression. It took me 40 minutes to get out of the arrival hall after getting my bag and I didn't even have to open my bags or get them scanned. Which is another tiny flaw with quarantine in my opinion, even though I declared the wooden replica of London in my luggage nobody wanted to look at it. Surely a system to stop items entering the country only works if it checks everyone in the same way. Not that would be a good idea in Perth, I'd probably still be there in the queue.

It was nice to get back though. Walking out of the airport at 7 am into 26º heat and sunshine was a tonic after all the snow and ice at home. What wasn't quite so good is the jet lag. I tried to stay up as long as possible yesterday, went for lunch by the beach, but at 3 pm I was totally exhausted and had to crash. Just a couple of hours did the trick and I managed to stay awake till 11pm. I have however now got a stinking, snotty head cold. I hardly ever get colds, now I've had two in two months. It's a bugger to say the least. I have taken to blaming the climate change and being trapped in an aluminium flying tube for 18 hours.

Anyhow I'm back, settled in and restocked with food. That's my next task; to shift the 5 kgs I've put on over Christmas. Wish me luck.

TIme passes

Sorry about the weird justification on that last post, they go like that when you blog by email for some reason.

So how do you kill 11 hours at Changi Airport? Not very easily is the answer. I arrived here at about 2.30 and felt pretty good after a few hours sleep on the plane. In fact I was only woken up by the hideous turbulence over Afghanistan which went on for about an hour. Really bumpy and not very nice at all. Anyhow I landed in one piece in Singapore with all this time to kill. So a shower. That took 20 minutes. Now what, OK, a cup of tea in the lounge. Right, so that's another 20 minutes. Well I suppose I can go into the city.

This is a pretty weird experience, after putting your hand luggage into storage you enter a country with just a passport and boarding pass. It would be great to be able to travel like that all the time, with just the clothes you are wearing. Of course you'd need to be loaded so you could buy a complete new wardrobe in every destination but it's really travelling light. Anyway I went into Singapore, sort of forgetting it's Saturday now. I have never seen so many people here before, it was absolutely packed. I think it's because Chinese new year is coming up and everyone is shopping madly for that.

Suffice to say after about four hours I'd had enough and now find myself back at the airport with a final four hours to get through. Looks like I'll finally have time to see the Terminal 3 Butterly Enclosure and sample everyone of the duty free shops.

Fendi handbag and $600 scotch anyone?

Americans

Why are all Americans at airports so loud? I'm sitting here with three

different groups of Americans arond me and I can hear every word they

put forth on every subject. Loud pontification on everything. They're

not like this when they are home. I've been to the USA many times and

try are nothing but polite and deferential people. It's odd how people

change when they leave their own country. Take the Germans. In Germany

they are polite and well mannered but get them over the border to

holland and they get all loud and demanding. And as for my

compatriots. In the uk they are polite, queue properly and tend not to

walk round the streets in a state if sunburned undress. Get them to

Spain though and it all changes.

I wonder how I change on holiday?

Last Days

Well I'm all packed and checked in, just got to go up to Heathrow in the morning. I'll let you know how it goes from there.

Travel in style

I can recommend the first class carriages on the Great Western railway, very comfy, very quiet and free snacks and drinks. It does cost a bit more, in fact if you book it far enough ahead it costs a huge £6 more. Which when you think how much a cup of tea on the train normally costs having a couple included really covers the cost of the ticket. The train was also ahead of time at every station. I've never heard anything like it, well except in Germany maybe.

Paddington station is a much more pleasant place out side of the rush hour I can tell you. At least you can move about and there is no rush for the train when the platform is announced. This is a very odd and slightly un-British event. Normally people over here are only happy in a queue, but at the station you don't know where to queue as they don't let you know which platform your train is at until about five minutes before departure. This means there is a huge knot of people around the departure board who all suddenly make a rush to the train and form a scrum to get on. Quite a sight I can tell you.

They have moved the statue of Paddington for some reason. He used to sit opposite platform 4 in the middle of everything. Now he's stuck under the stairs by Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Bit of a comedown for the bear that the station is named after. Possibly.

I have also found out that it is a lot easier for me to come back to the UK and work than I thought, in fact the GDC were remarkably helpful for the first time ever. I just have to fill in a 20 page form and give them £460! Still at least I know that my options to return here are still open.

Mind you the weather is making me realise how lucky I am in Oz. This morning we've had fog, rain, sun and snow. And it's only 12.30. I'll be glad to get back to the sun, even though it's 40º over there.

So just a couple of days left then back to Oz. What to do with that time? More chocolate and beer then I suppose.

Owww, me plates!

OK, I think I have destroyed my feet. I've got back in from a walk and I can hardly feel my toes. That can't be a good sign can it? Actually my shoes are a bit destroyed too, all the salt that they have absorbed over the last few weeks in the snow has started to come out and leave white marks on the suede. Bit of a bugger really.

I have noticed a weird thing about the British. Well, many, but one this weekend and that's the British habit of putting up statues of our enemies in the Capital. There's one of George Washington outside the National Gallery for example. Didn't he beat us in a war? Isn't he responsible for the British loosing the American Colonies? Isn't it a bit odd to have a statue of him in the Capital city of the nation he beat? Is there a statue of Winston Churchill in Berlin? Actually there might be but my poor knowledge of history narrows down the examples I can dredge up, but you get my point.

I had fun trying to get round this weekend as half the Tube was shut, including the Circle line and Hammersmith and City, which both run through Moorgate, the nearest station to the hotel. I do sort of know where to go in London on public transport, but as soon as a line is shut it sort of makes things difficult. It also means I have walked a hell of a lot further than I normally would have, but this seems to have made little difference to my excess Christmas flab.

I did the standard tourist thing and went to see a show on Saturday night. As you may know I am not a huge fan of musical theatre, even less so of musical theatre based on movies so the choice could be a bit limited. But since Andrew Lloyd Webbers back catalogue has finally left the stage there are a few plays available without unnecessary singing. I went to see one called The Little Dog Laughed with Tamsin Grieg which was very, very funny. The actors were doing american accents which was a bit odd to start but for once I managed to suspend my disbelief and only spent a short amount of the play trying to work out the lighting rig and set construction. It does slightly destroy the moment when the Tube trains go by but that's pretty normal in central London theatres. There seems to be an unwritten law that the longer a play/musical runs in the West End the more tragic the casting becomes. For example at the moment Hairspray has Belinda Carlisle in it. She's still a bit cool I feel. Later on next month it gets Mickey Dolenz. He is definitely not cool in any way. Metal Mickey excepted maybe. This is why shows should not have long runs. Mind you it does give work to all the old TV personalities outside the panto season I suppose.

I spent a bit of time in the British Museum as well yesterday. It's a great place, but just too huge really to get to grips with. It also seems to have stuff from every country except Britain. I thought I'd be able to get a nice, tasteful souvenir to take back to Oz, representative of my birthplace. Sadly the shop only had replicas of Egyptian gods, Mesopotamian treasures and knicked Greek marbles. Or actually not knicked according to the Trustees of the British Museum and I think they may have a point. In any case it's good to keep them just to annoy another of our European partners.

The Germans should love the British Museum however as the German guide book has the word "Führer" emblazoned on the front in 50 point text. Maybe this was not the best lexicographical choice in hindsight.

See London See The World

Or at least see lots of tourists. So I am finally in the Big Smoke, my favourite place in the world. I don't think there is anywhere else I've been that has so much history and so much going on in such a small space.

The train journey up was uneventful in the end, quick even, although I'm not sure who thought the pale purple and institutional-blue colour scheme on the trains was a good idea. I am staying at a Travelodge on City Road in the City because it is very cheap, £40 a night for central London is very cheap, but it does have a touch of the prison cell about it. Right down to the lack of hot water during the day and the rationing of towels. Obviously you are only allowed one towel and it is ok to let the shower run for 20 minutes before it heats up here. It is also the first place I have ever stayed that doesn't have those little bottles of shampoo and shower gel in the bathroom. It's also the first time I've ever forgotten to bring shower gel with me! Thank god for 24 hour mini-Tesco supermarkets.

I am just down the road from the Barbican, one of my favourite places in London. Most people hate it's concrete brutalism but it's a place I have always wanted to live, and at the moment I actually could, the prices are actually in my range. Well not for one of the three bedroom flats in the Cromwell Tower, they are still £900,000, but the one bed places are relatively cheap. In fact the prices here seem pretty bearable all round. I don't think I've been to London and not blanched at the price of food and drink for a long time. It seems a total global financial disaster has at least made my trip a bit cheaper. I'm sure it will change back to normal after all the bankers get their bonuses. You know, for doing such a good job over the last 12 months. It's no coincidence that Merchant Banker is Cockney rhyming slang.

The only thing that has got a bit pricey is the admission fees for the special exhibitions at the galleries and museums. They all seem to be £11 which starts to add up if you want to see a few. However as the rest of the museums and galleries are all free it sort of evens itself out. I've tried to go to a few places that are less well known this time, mainly to avoid the crowds everywhere else. I can recommend the John Soanes Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is full of the stuff collected by the eponymous architect. It's amazingly crammed with stuff and also is a rare chance to go into a completely un-touched Georgian town house. He must have been loaded, which just shows that there has always been money in architecture. The other place was a trip to the Royal Institute of British Architects (no, no theme, just a coincidence) which was actually a bit dull but was opposite the Chinese Embassy. Along with the traditional, yet eerily well behaved, Falun-gong demonstration outside I can report that Chinese diplomats drive 10 year old Renaults and have really terrible taste in net curtains.

Just off again now to visit the lovely GDC to see if I'll ever be able to work here again. Wish me luck.

High Flyers

The paper shop at the Station sells the International Herald Tribune.

Must be for all those high powered executives waiting for the 12:15 to

Maesteg...

Trains

I'm sitting waiting for the train at Gloucester station. My gods it's
depressing. Like a white trash and wino convention. Why do these
people use the trains? I means it's not that cheap to travel and where
are they going? Do they all have important business to attend to in
London? A conference to discuss a new formula of Tennants Super perhaps.

It's no wonder that people prefer their cars if train travel is as
depressing as this. I suppose I could sit in the pumpkin cafe and have
a five quid cup of tea but it's even worse in there.

I think the romance of travel is truely dead.

Escape

Well what do you do when you can't get out of your house for four days. Well one thing is to go up the pub with the neighbours. They were almost killing each other from cabin fever from being stuck in the house for so long. It was a pretty slippy trip up the village to the Nag's Head but the fire was going and the beer was still in stock when we got there. One thing that amazed me was how some people were still driving in the snow and ice. Just 'cos you are in a four wheel drive doesn't mean that you won't skid into me and kill me on the pavement. People are morons I suppose.

I finally managed to get out on the 8th thanks to the lovely crew from the Forest of Dean District Council who turned up with a truck full of salt and grit. I think they were only meant to fill up the salt bins but me and two of the neighbours sort of descended on them and sort of forced them into spreading some grit down the lane. I'm sure they got into trouble but I did make them a cup of tea with some choccie biccies. Always feed/water the help, you'll get much better service I'm telling you. I was pretty knackered after going up and down the lane about 20 times with shovels full of grit but it was worth it just to be able to leave the house. The rest of the village did seem a bit pissed off though, as we were cleared and yet the main road through the place was not. Oh well, the privilege of living here for so long I guess.

I was glad we did get the road cleared as I was going up to Warrington near Manchester to meet up with some very old friends and it was looking as though it wouldn't happen right up to the night before. I even left the car at the bottom of the lane in case it snowed again. As it turned out it was fine on Sunday morning when I set off. Not even ice on the windscreen. In fact the drive up the motorway was lovely, there was no snow and there was absolutely no traffic on the road. The only way to travel in my opinion.

It was great to catch up with everyone, we had a nice carvery lunch (which is a very British thing I think) and then sepnt the night at a hotel by the motorway (another very British thing too). The hotel was brand new, big and must have had about six people in it because of the weather. The staff must have been bored out of their minds. The whole day was lovely but reinforced the fact that I never want my own kids. I mean my friends kids are great, but I just couldn't cope with them 24/7. Especially when they are over-tired, over-excited and over-fizzy drinked.

I actually thought I'd be stuck up in Warrington as the weather forecast kept predicting 20cm of snow on Sunday night. They were only out by 20cm as there was absolutely none when I woke up in the morning. In fact there was very little snow left until I got back to Birmingham then it really started to come down again. We are forecast 10 cm of snow overnight so again I have visions of digging the car out tomorrow. In fact I've left it down the road just in case.

If the weather is OK I think I'll head off to Bristol tomorrow as I am going a bit stir crazy here, then it's off to London at the weekend for a few days. I'll just be glad when the weather clears and I know that I can go out and not get stuck on the way back.

See what I mean?

Snow+Cold=Ice

So I should be in London now, checking into the hotel and preparing to go to the BBC for a show recording. Instead I am stuck in the house again as I can't get my car down the lane due to all the snow and ice. It was -10ºC last night and is still -5ºC now at 2 in the afternoon.

I'm pretty pissed off with the neighbours actually. The local Council thoughtfully provides two bins full of road salt at the top and bottom of the lane and these are meant to be used to grit the road so we can all get out. Unfortunately the morons round here, mostly new arrivals from big towns and cities, seem to think this salt is for their driveways. So now we have two inches of solid ice on the road and no salt left. I managed to eek out the last few shovels-full but only got 2/3 of the way to the main road. I did ring the Council and the nice lady there has put us on the list for refilling but I can't see that happening for a few days at least, so in the mean time I am stuck in the house counting the cost of empty hotel rooms.

What is more frustrating is the fact that the main roads at either end of the village are completely clear and the traffic on the motorway to London is almost non-existent so it would have been a lovely trip through the sunny, snowy countryside. All thwarted by 400m of frozen road.

Bloody weather.

Let it snow...

Blimey, I've woken to 15 cm of snow this morning, with another 15 cm forecast for later. I think we'll be stuck. That's the peril of living at the bottom of a steep valley, even though the main roads are clear, the roads onto the main ones aren't.

I'm guessing we won't be going to London tomorrow. Why did I go and book non-refundable rooms!

Wassup?

My god, I am woefully bad at doing this this trip aren't I? That may be 'cos not much has happened really. It's just Christmas at home with the folks.

In fact it was just me and the folks as all the other people we were expecting sort of cancelled at the last minute leading to a very weird Christmas lunch. I can't think of a time when it was just the three of us. Even when we have been in Australia there are always one or two waifs and strays at the table. Mum was a bit depressed about the whole thing, considering in the old days we used to have dozens of people to drinks in the morning and then for dinner. But I suppose that's what happens when we all get older, people die and other people have their own kids they want to spend the day with. Or they get sick which is really the reason for this years cancellations.

I had a nice load of pressies this year, mostly dvds and a few books. However some people seem intent on buying me food gifts and things made of wood. Neither of which are very easy to get through quarantine in Perth. I think they forget that I have to carry it all back to the other side of the world. That sounds really ungrateful I know but I'd sooner just have their best wishes than a gift I need to leave behind. Or eat before I leave, which I really don't need to do. I am so fat now. The gym membership kicks in on the 25th January.

I've not done quite so much mad travelling round so far this visit, which is good. I've caught up with a few friends and will be meeting some more in Manchester, which is equally inconvenient for all of us. I did go to High Wycombe for NYE with my friends. A bit weird as they were all in fancy dress even though it was just 6 of us in their house. I guess that's what happens when you have kids, the mind starts to go. I did get a visit from Tim and Alison who are over from Kalgoorlie which was nice. They'd just spent time at St Davids in West Wales. Britain's smallest city however significant that may be.

I think Ali was still excited by the snow and ice but for the rest of us it's getting a bit much now. It always seems to snow just before you are meant to do something really important. For example on the 23rd we got about 3 inches of snow in the evening, making travel really dodgy. The problem was we still needed to go and get the turkey. Luckily by the next day the roads were just about passable so the poor thing did not die in vain. It's snowing again now and we are forecast 5 inches by Thursday. Just when I am meant to be taking the folks to London to see a recording of the News Quiz on Radio 4. This, in case you don't know, is a bit of an institution and is usually hilarious, hosted by Sandi Toksvig and a few other varying comedians. This is the 70th series which makes all those long running american comedy shows seem a bit sad really, yes I mean you Friends and Frasier. The best bit is that the tickets are free, good old BBC. However even though you enter a lottery to get them they still don't guarantee seats, you have to get there early to make sure you can get in. Should be a laugh as long as I can get in. I seem to have come down with a stinking cold with a very loud coughing component. Not really what you want in a recording of a radio show. So download it from iTunes and see if you can hear me being ejected.

I went out for dinner the other nigh to the local pub in the middle of nowhere, the Road Maker Inn in Gorsely. That sounds pretty boring but this pub has a special feature as hinted at by the signed photo of Joanna Lumley over the bar. It's actually owned by four ex-Ghurka Rifles soldiers and serves amazingly good Nepalese and Indian food. I'd speculate that it is also the safest place to drink in the entire country as no one in their right mind is going to cause trouble when there are Ghurkas in charge.

I can't really think of anything else that's happened in my current Lemsip addled state. Oh and cough syrup. And decongestant. And sore throat lozenges. Problem is none of this stuff does any good, I still feel like death warmed up. Hopefully I'll be better soon and I'll do some stuff I can actually blog about.