At least, by the end of this instalment, I’d have bloody well got there. Hurrah, I hear you cry!
Well not so fast, because by the end of this instalment, in the words of Bon Jovi, we were half way there. (Well, probably nearly two thirds of the way, but who is keeping score?)
The story continues….
“OK, I’ll pull up here”. Viscount Brian pulled his roomy estate car over to the right hand side of the road on the Hammersmith One-Way System. This was where we would be cast adrift on our walkabout. An urban zoo, an awful underground station in the middle of a “gyratory system” on a dank, dark, dismal late November afternoon. We unloaded the gear from the back of the car, and set upon our way. I had borrowed a large suitcase from my brother’s mother-in-law which I was not confident was going to last the distance.
Lord, I’m off and rambling about suitcases now. When I went four years ago I bought a new case from a back street store in Eltham. Cheap in price, but roomy, it fell apart after the one journey. I’ve never used it since. Because it would probably disintegrate. I did have a smaller black case that has since done all the visits to the States, every weekend away, and indeed, South Africa. It is sturdy and although showing signs of age, is still intact. But no, I needed a bigger case, and this one was going to do. As I was pulling the damn thing through Hammersmith I was longing for the old case. This big blue monster was not going to make it, I could tell.
Any great journey starts with a small step, and this case it was buying a one-way ticket to Heathrow Terminal 3 on the Piccadilly Line. Tickets purchased we waited at the platform for the train to rumble in. When it did, it was packed. It seemed like everyone else had got on before us with suitcases, bags, pesky kids, noisy students etc. We somehow wedged ourselves in for what was set to be a luxurious 30 minutes or so! The journey was made all the sweeter when we came above ground and I was texted by Dmitri Jr to say WindyBricks were losing 3-1. It had been a great start to the season under our genius manager (who was fired pretty soon into it) and losing at the league leaders wasn’t a disgrace. It was also a little odd that I seemed to miss games against Robin Hood’s Wood due to travelling – we won 2-1 there on the day I flew home from South Africa, and beat them 1-0 at home on the day I arrived in Kazakhstan. I’m digressing again.
At Terminal Three (given the recent events in my life, my nickname for it “Terminal Cancer” did not seem appropriate any more), we disembarked and made our way to the check-in desk for Singapore Airlines. I recalled from four years previous that there was a bit of a queue and that Sir Peter and I had to sit in the middle seats on a 747 if we wanted to sit together. It was bloody awful, to be honest. I wasn’t able to online check-in for the flight this time around, for some reason or another, so we now had to work on three people getting put together for the flight. Also, last time around, going into Brisbane, both the London and Brisbane legs of the flight were packed. Given we were flying into Adelaide when the test was on in Brisbane, we hoped we’d get lucky and get a less crowded flight.
After about a 15 minute wait we were called forward. The check-in desk attendant took our passports and set about sorting out seats. For the flight from London to Singapore there was no chance of three together. Instead, Sir Peter and Danno were on the right hand side in two seats towards the front of cattle class, and I was placed in what the charming lady called “the big boys seats” at the back. These are the seats in a 747 where the row in front is of three seats, and the row you are in is of two. It allows us of wider disposition to spread our legs a little for that extra piece of room. For the second leg, we would all be together on the 777 from Singapore to Adelaide as the flight was “nowhere near full”.
Then a snag, and of course, it had to happen to me – Mr Nervous Traveller… the check-in desk attendant handed back Sir Peter and Danno’s passports and keeps mine. She mutters something about having to go back to the office behind her to “check something out”. You ever get that sinking feeling of total dread in your stomach? That churning inside….that is what I felt at that moment. Is there a toilet nearby?
At this point it runs through your head “why has she done that?” – if that isn’t stating the bleeding obvious, then what is? I booked on the same ticket as Sir Peter, so it couldn’t be a mistake on the booking, because he was fine, and she’d allocated me a seat. Maybe it was to do with not being able to reserve a seat and online check-in on the net and some problem there? I’ve travelled on that passport before, just a year ago,on long haul to Barbados, so what was the problem with it now?
It seemed an age before she came back, but smiled and said everything was fine. For some reason I didn’t think to ask what the problem was. When we flew home from Perth three weeks later, and the same thing happened, I did ask. The check-in desk attendant, who was a cheeky, noisy sort, said “I shouldn’t really tell you this, but I will. There’s a [Dmitri’s real name, including middle name] on our banned list, and we had to double check it is not you looking at further data like date of birth and any picture records of him.” So there’s an international ne’er do well going round with my name causing me grief (when I went to Orlando the following February, with Virgin Atlantic, this caused immense problems due to the US requirement to pre-register. I was ferried back and forth for ages at Gatwick, which is a garbage airport in the first place, and sealed the deal of me never flying Virgin again (if I could help it). I have never had these difficulties with British Airways).
At the time I was more concerned with getting on board, and that horrible self-conscious feeling that other people waiting in the dreadful queues at the time were being delayed by some problem I caused (when, of course, it was no fault of my own to be born with exactly the same name as troublemaker). All these people looking at you, thinking “what’s that effing idiot’s problem?” It ain’t nice when you look like your head is about to explode.
So, stress and panic over, we realised it was 6:30 and our flight wasn’t leaving for over another three hours. Killing time in Terminal Three is not the easiest. Given that one of us would have to drive at the other end, it was also not going to be the greatest idea to get tanked up in advance. I really don’t recall doing a lot, except maybe getting some water for the flight, some reading material, and lord knows what else. We might have had something to eat, I might have gone to the duty-free, but the time, I remember, went really slowly.
Ah yes! I remember now! Danno had somehow secured passes into the lounge at Heathrow. It wasn’t the Singapore Airlines one, but some sort of generic old tut. You didn’t get a lot of bang for your buck but you had the TV (Ramprakash in Strictly Come Dancing) and you could get free non-alcoholic beverages. We spent a couple of hours in there, and decided to leave. I decided to leave without my 2004 World Series Boston Red Sox cap, a harbinger of things to come. I like to think that some cleaner came along and claimed it for himself and I’ve created another Red Sox fan. It helps me sleep at night that other’s benefit from my absent-minded senility. I discovered the loss on the flight to Singapore, when I went to the bag and the hat wasn’t there. Miffed.
Once the delights of the lounge gave way to boarding time, we wandered off down the corridors to the gate. Being sat at the back I was in the first portion of cattle class to get on board.
On boarding the flight, I said bon voyage to the other two, and settled into my seat in the back on the left. In truth, I was dreading this bit. With the exception of the Adelaide to Singapore leg in 2002, the flight was dreadful, with no real leg room, cramped and dark cabins due to the flights being overnight, and the sheer length of time on board, it was horrendous. Singapore Airlines is a fabulous airline – their food was a delight – but it became an endurance test caused by space. Or lack of it.
This time, I got a result. This flight was not full. The chap assigned to the seat next to me took one look, probably thought “oh my God, 12 hours with that fat bastard” and said to me “if no-one takes the seat over the way, I’ll have that after we take off.” He didn’t even wait for that. So I got two seats all to myself, and had a pretty decent sleep, by my aircraft standards. To put this into context – on the flight to Singapore last time I might have got an hour. Possibly. For this flight, I got 4 hours.
I listened to music, watched Minority Report, I think (memory fading a bit) and visited the guys at the other end of economy a couple of times. I had a good chat with the old couple behind me who were off to Perth to see their daughter, and the flight passed relatively painlessly. I wished I could have opened the blind on the window earlier to see below, but I would probably have been shot.
As the flight wore on, the food and drink were as acceptable as ever, thoughts wandered to the stop over in Changi Airport. I have this wonderful memory of the airport from the previous visit; memories of a vast cavernous airport with nice shops, bars, food outlets and sitting space. I had barely given the 4th day’s play a thought.
The descent into Singapore takes an age. Once you’ve left Indian land, your disproportionate sense of distance leads you to believe you are almost there. Well, mine did. The Bay of Bengal is bloody massive, and it takes some time to make landfall (well you run parallel to the west coast) over (can you do that?) Malaysia. Pass Penang, pass Kuala Lumpur, then over the Malay Peninsula, looking at the islands below, then pass to the south of Singapore, turn north and land, just on the other side of a golf course I believe. It was grey, it had obviously rained, and I didn’t have a clue what time it was supposed to be!
As we wandered off the flight and the seemingly endless pedestrian walkways, I switched on the mobile, intending to send a text to Dmitri Jr to tell him we had arrived in Singapore. 8 hours ahead, around 6 pm Singapore time, it would be a reasonable time, so away I went. The phone was switched on, and once a signal had been picked up, so I was all ready to ring. The usual first text came up – welcome to Singtel or whatever – and then one came through from Dmitri Jr. Again, I don’t recall the actual text because it has long since been deleted. I was fully expecting it to say “England lost” as bro’ is not a man of many words (you’ll find that out from his match report via text of WindyBricks home game against Huddersfield).
It went along the lines of – England 293 for 5. Collingwood got 96, Pietersen is 92 not out.
I passed on the news to the compatriots on the travellator (or whatever it is you call them), especially pleased that “my KP” was still in. Not a lot of hope, but at least some fight was the consensus of opinion. “Previous England teams would have packed it in” was another view. I phoned the younger Dmitri to let him know we’d arrived in Singapore, and asked him this and that, and promised to ring / text when we got to Adelaide and beyond.
Ah yes, Adelaide and beyond. The sheer scale of our task hadn’t really entered into our heads, and reality would soon bite. Three jet-lagged Englishmen would hop into a car, head south out of Adelaide and on towards Melbourne, a mere 600 miles away. We wanted to do the Ocean Road, we wanted to find somewhere to sleep as far as we could get on the way there. To do that, we would land in South Australia and have to drive over 300 miles. A piece of cake.
We settled down to the business at hand, namely exploring the endless possibilities of Changi Airport. For some reason I’d brought some Euros with me, so used them to buy another memory card for the phone (and I was thankful for that, the amount of pictures I took required three cards). I got some Singapore dollars out of the cash machine and we had a couple of Tiger beers at the bar we drank at four years ago. We ate at the same noodle place we visited on our last journey out there.
After the loss of the Red Sox cap, I needed another to supplement my short supply of headgear (rationed by the stingy luggage limits). The offerings in Changi were on the limited side, but I did manage to settle on a nice little white Nike cap (which I’ve since lost – what a surprise) which could have come off a tennis court. I fully intended buying some caps out there, so there was no need to pack any others, but you can always count on my stupidity.
The pictures I’ve seen from the trip that relate to our little stay in Changi are not held digitally (unless Danno has finally reached the digital age and got a computer – I think not). I do remember faintly stupid pictures of me in the Santa’s grotto, but we’ll never see Sir Peter’s pictures of them. I never bothered getting any pictures of an airport.
I have located one of Danno’s pictures – it is of me with a Father Christmas. I’ll let my comments I posted on a WindyBrick board tell you what I thought of the situation…
“Nice first leg of the flight.
Amazing how we in the UK apologise about Christmas but this airport makes no bones that it is that time of the year. And this isn’t a Christian country.
Next stop – Adelaide. Be good all.”
Indeed!
Next Instalment – the second leg, Angus Fraser, an obnoxious arsehole in the seat in front, losing KP in Adelaide, a giant lobster, salt pans, a disapppointing Mount, and a chance encounter…..
