sitting in a comfortable reclining seat on British Airways with all the legroom in the world while sipping on single malt Speyside Scotch that's older than the girl sitting to my left and burns like a slow-burning cedar fire is a wonderful way to start a trip. it's a shame that i'm crammed into a shitty little seat on bumpy BMI flight drinking Johnny Walker Red and Pepsi which is more like a kerosene lamp belching smoke in a rude mud-hut. BMI seems to be roughly where Qantas Domestic was a decade or so ago - screens hanging from the ceiling, not the seat-back, seat-separation designed to comfortably accommodate 12-year olds, cheap fucking scotch... actually, i don't think Qantas has changed in that particular regard. at least the drinks are laid on, unlike fucking Tiger. do i sound grumpy? i guess i must do. being woken up before 5 after passing out somewhat after 1AM is not high on the list of things that will put me in a great mood. being woken up before 10AM comes under the "you better be making this worth my while, preferably orally" category of irritations. that said, getting to Heathrow on time for the flight to Cairo fits that particular requirement and so no one died by my hand this morning. i'm being a little harsh - the Hosties are polite and friendly and the food is actually some of the best i've had on an airline. forget Coon or Cracker Barrel - these guys had good quality aged blue and decent fucking crackers. the chicken was actually chicken, not something congealed to look and taste right and the coffee doesn't make me want to go Scalding Jihad on the cabin crew.
the last week has been another one of 3-4 hours/day on the tube, working myself into a supersonic oscillation and not getting enough sleep. i've had no particular interest in going out and doing things, choosing instead to sit around the house of an evening, cook, watch a movie, pass out with the notable exception being Tuesday. St Patrick's Day is one of those festivals i like to observe when i can. Chinese New Year is another. it's almost like Ireland's version of Anzac Day. it means something important, but everyone just sees it as an opportunity to have a holiday and get drunk and i'm all for an excuse to get drinking (you know, like that the name of today ends in a "y". it's a miracle! you get the beers, i'll pick a lemon! i swear that Louise and London have teamed up in an unholy union to turn me back into an alcoholic). leaving work early turned into arriving at base-camp late thanks to a tube that decided to stop every 500 metres to have a rest. down 12km of track. i staggered in the door, sat down to read my email and had the amusing sensation of the room starting to spin around my head. i took myself back upstairs, pricked my finger and got a glucose reading of 14.3. i was pondering the consequences of this when my head decided that enough was enough and made a break for the floor. i was sitting in bed at the time and managed to divert it towards my pillow, where i proceeded to lie for the next couple of hours. Louise wandered in after a while - Inspector Morse had arrived to join in on some beers for the evening and i'd sent her to let him in just as i was about to eject from the cockpit and she'd popped in to check on me and see if i'd be coming to grab a bite to eat. i tried to say oh sweet jebus i don't feel very good and i'm afraid i'm not actually able to move at present. please come and give me a reassuring hug before you head off to eat. i was thinking it REALLY loudly. what came out was more along the lines of groan, moan, whimper which didn't really seem to get the point across because at this point she turned the light off and left. apparently i had the most shocked look she'd ever seen on my face when she walked in. somehow i'm not surprised - the whole experience was surreal like Dali.
regardless, by the time she and Dan got back from the Oval Lounge i'd managed to get back on my feet and was strapping on my boots to come find them, swaying on my feet as we went. i felt drunk. not tipsy, but seriously, appropriately drunk regardless of my drink-deficit. i felt cheated - all the effects with none of the joy of actually drinking the stuff, but then i had a couple of pints of Guinness and everything started to line up nicely. come Wednesday morning i woke up, dragged myself out of bed and through the shower before deciding that work was just not going to happen that day and called in. i slept square away until midday and spent the rest of the day feeling fuzzy in the head and enjoying the occasional dizzy-spell. by the end of Friday i was unemployed again - another contract come, gone and passed on to another temp. he made a comment as we walked out to the bus to GTFO that it was one of the most comprehensive handovers he'd had to date, and i basked in the glow of reflected professionalism. an hour and a half later Louise and i was catching the last 10 minutes of Happy Hour at the Bar Bar Black Sheep down the road from base-camp and working out way though a jug of freshly made Long Island Iced Tea. i'm liking the idea of celebrating the end of a working week with cocktails - the week beforehand it had been Gin+Tonic w/Lime slices. i'm going to have to get another job pronto so we can finish off the bottle of tequila we got started on after i finished cooking the Chicken Korma.
there's nothing like getting back in the swing of things again - getting the job done, digging into problems and being able to tell a user it's all sorted. you're good to go. after being out of the game for half a year i was actually looking forward to getting to work each day, almost as much as i'm looking forward to eventually getting paid for it. that all said, finishing my contract meant the imminent departure for the fossilised remains of one of the oldest civilisations on earth, nestled in a land of sand, disease, carnivorous lizards and millions of people who are desperate to walk away with some of my money. you might say i'm a little conflicted about it all, but i kinda like being on holiday and i cna get another job when i get back. maybe. hopefully. cross your fingers and toes.
yesterday i had two key tasks to complete: packing for Egypt and watching the last (ever!!!) episode of Battlestar Galactica. everything stopped for BSG - a double-length episode that promised to wrap up all of the loose ends and mysteries? i wasn't getting distracted from that. we managed to get a few other unimportant details sorted out, like getting our clothes washed and dried, having hour-long Skype video conversations (Louise's folks are looking healthy and Sandra's hair's grown down her shoulders - looks good!) and making an appearance at Jeff's 30th at Tiger Tiger (one of Piccadilly Circus's most popular, and thereby exclusive clubs. i fucking hated it and every motherfucker in it - 5 minutes after migrating from the restaurant to the club area my fighting-instincts were high-alert, my adrenaline was pumping and i was primed and ready for the first pretentious fucktard to get in my face. we got out of there REALLY soon after that). i'm somewhat relieved we thought to check the tube times for the morning before getting some shut-eye though - we had to change route at the last second when we realised that there was no tube that'd get us to Heathrow early enough to be SURE we'd be on time and wound up having to bus it to Paddington (the shops near the station are FULL of Paddington Bear plushies. awwwwww...) then take the Heathrow Express. great. a £3.80 tube ride suddenly morphed into a £17.50 bus+train ride. joy! not...
there seem to be express services to all of the airports if you know where to look. Victoria does them to Gatwick, Heathrow is from Paddington. Luton, City and Stanstead i've not seen yet, but i'm sure they're out there. they're all considerably quicker than regular tube or overland services, with the trade-off being that they're also considerably more expensive. still, we didn't have a lot of choice this morning so in these situations you do what you have to, which is why two bleary-eyed Australians were standing at the bus stop around the corner from Oval Station this morning at a quarter to 6 this morning. a Red Bull each vaguely took the edge off, but not in the same way that a Sugarfree Rockstar, half a litre of coffee and a double-nosefull of Columbian Snow would have. unfortunately, i've not found anyone stocking the Sugarfree around my place in Kennington, there wasn't time for coffee and i wouldn't know where to get cocaine (although i've been reliably informed that it's easy enough to score in London) so you go with what you can. the good thing about it all is that while it takes around an hour to get from Leicester Square to Heathrow Terminals 1,2&3 by tube, it's nominally 15 minutes by overland from Paddington, so if you're in a rush and don't give a fuck how much it costs then it's the way to
go.
at least getting through security and immigration at Heathrow was quick and easy. immigration especially - it wasn't there. no one checked my passport, no stamp to indicate exit. my paranoia circuits triggered at that one. with nothing to prove i've left the country and no passport swipe on the system i'm unsubstantiated. maybe it's just memories of the constant fear in Singapore - checking all the passports at each step to ensure exit and entry stamps all in the right places to avoid spending the next few months as a guest of the Malaysian government. Heathrow Terminal 1 is big enough to classify as a Decently Sized International Airport. what fucks you up is that it's one of five, and Terminal 5 is FUCKING HUGE. sitting in a plane looking across the apron is like looking out over a suburb. in fact, if they add another runway rumour has it that they'll have to concrete over an area the size of Croydon to do it. the joke is that they might as well just concrete over Croydon and call it a draw. look at it all on a map or an aerial view and you realise that it's big enough to have its own postal area code. the island i spent a few days on in Fiji would fit into the area of Heathrow and have room left over for the reefs and lagoon. do not underestimate the scale of that place. keeping it all working and operating with any efficiency must drive perfectly normal men grey before their time. for mere mortals like me, we just have to follow the bouncing ball until we realise we're sitting in the plane out on the tarmac waiting for our 30 second window in a never-ending queue of aeroplanes who are all wasting fuel while they wait for their turn to GTFO.
what can i say? i'm looking forward to landing and being surprised. my head tells me that i'll be showing up in a crumbling dust-bowl, but i've seen too many recent war-movies like Spy Game and Black Hawk Down so my perception's skewed. as long as i have somewhere (vaguely) secure to dump my kit and some streets to walk down while it's still light before i retreat to something resembling a bar to drink cheap Egyptian beer i'll be happy. come tomorrow the adventure really begins and i find out how many of my assumptions are real and how many will get blown out of the water like an unfortunate dolphin who became overly friendly with a sea-mine.
oh, and somewhere in there i anticipate i'll be trying to get some sleep. right after i finish trying once again to drink myself happy...
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