Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Follow the Yellow Brick Road…and meet the Wicked Witch of the West

Well after much running around like a loon and generally being my usual dis-organised self I finally got around to booking my flight to Oz for my brother’s wedding. In keeping with the preparations for the trip, the journey to Heathrow was equally as chaotic - in the pouring rain overnight a lorry turned over on the M25 and spilled it’s load of golf balls everywhere! One 12 miles or so tailback later nothing was moving on the M25 so we decided to go the other way round the M25, got through the Dartford tunnel to be confronted with another big jam due to a 4 car pile up…Oh joy! Amazingly I had managed to set off really early and after much cursing and swearing and calling the travel agent, the airport, BAA and Quantas nobody seemed to know whether I would actually be able to change my ticket if I missed the flight. Luckily the huge queue for the M4 (another accident) cleared and we managed to pull up outside Terminal 4 just in time for me to run around trying to find the right check-in desk, barge my way through security gates (not something to be recommended with lots of paranoid guys with guns standing around!) and running through the duty free bit I made it just before they were due to close the gates….where we then got to sit for nearly 45 minutes until they actually got pushed back off the gate! 

The flight itself was pretty uneventful on the first leg to Hong Kong, but I got to play with the new on demand video thingy which was fun….unlike Shrek the Third. Finally, after my buttocks were about to go into terminal numbness, we landed in Hong Kong, which was nowhere near as fun/sary as it used to be. In the good old days, you flew in between mountains and even apartment blocks, now all that happens is you get a bit nervous as it looks like you are going to land on the water until the reclaimed land of the runway suddenly appears from the water beneath you. The airport was not as impressive as I hoped either, but it was suitably daft - we all had to get off the plane, walk bloody miles down a corridor, go through security again, walk bloody miles down another corridor, wait for an hour, then get back into the same seat on the same plane we had left….

Off we go again towards Melbourne and I settle into the flight with some inedible chicken (which was suprising as most airline food is at least edible these days!) and a relapse of numb bum. The lights were all turned down, but I was trying to stay awake so I might actually sleep on my first night in Oz. I still had to ondemand gadget to play with so I flicked through, selected ’300′ and sat back. A little while into the film I got a note pushed through between the seats from behind. The note said ‘EXCUSE ME. DO YOU HAVE TO WATCH THAT FILM. I HAVE CAUGHT A COUPLE OF GLIMPSES AND I AM SCARED MY 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WILL. I WOULD APPRECIATE SOMETHING ELSE. THE LADY BEHIND.’ - yes it was in caps too! Now there is some t&a and some violence in there and I hadn’t realised there was a kid behind me….however, the tone was so Daily Mail, I was tempted to carry on watching at that point, but thought it churlish. However when I got towards the end of the flight I noticed what it was written on - the back of a leaflet claiming ‘The Gospel News for Eternal Salvation’!! Now not only was the woman being a pain in the arse and rude but essentially accusing me of being Satan (OK, maybe only a minor league demon, but that’s almost worse, I mean who really wants to be the Accrington Stanley of the underworld?) for watching a 15 rated film that even Quantas feel is fine to have on their media system! If they were really interested in converting me to their cause, the last thing you would want to do is piss someone off in this manner, it simply goes to prove that they have no real interest in spreading the word and every interest in sticking their noses in where it is not wanted. Unfortunately when we got to Melbourne I couldn’t find a bookshop to buy a copy of Dawkin’s ‘The God Delusion’ and give them as a little ‘thank you’….

Oh yeah to top it off, got to Melbourne, 3 or 4 planes arrived at the same time and they decided to only have enough staff to man one of the X-ray machines they insist you put all luggage through in customs - it was a complete scrum, there were a couple of fights….admittedly I was on the same plane as Shane Warne (An Australian cricketing legend who recently retired and is all over the papers here after lots of claims of adultery etc) and he wasn’t involed in any of them, mainly cos he had ’somehow’ managed to get to the front of the queue and by now had denied everything to the media, told the world how good it was to be home to see kids etc. say thanks to everyone, get into his car, get home, have a few beers, try to explain those ‘text messages’ to his missus, and make himself comfy in the spare room. Two hours after he had done all this I finally emerged into the Melbourne evening, 37 hours after setting off from home….

Anyway I am here now and oddly seem to be jetlagged as I went to bed and got up quite happily at the same time as my brother this morning….that never happens!!