Greenwich-Vienna-Kathmandu

Kieron writes…

We were still surrounded by clusters of uncategorised prospective baggage, our backpacks as distendedly skinny as Stace’s belly. The airport transfer was due in 90 minutes, but we remained locked in the moral and ethical case for packing a 10th t-shirt each. I felt the need to stride purposefully into my bedroom to re-examine (for the umpteenth time that fateful night) my underwear choices including the appropriate ratio of regular versus trainer socks. When I returned to the living room, a growing air of tension hung in the air (or perhaps it was the continuing effect of the Turkish “last supper” on the Furlong digestive plumbing).

Any delusions that we’d catch any shut eye that night had surrendered like west ham’s rearguard at the feet of Wright-Philips - it had been a grim evening for Cav and I.

After bidding farewell to Karl’s dressing gown and my abandoned brother contained therein (I went back for a 2nd hug but still felt guilty as hell he wasn’t coming) this journal was relieved to change subject and onttroduce our 1st crazied cabbie, who currently occupies the top (and only) spot on the Taxing Taxi Talent Table. Admittedly, we were a smidge tardy for our 2.30am transfer, but as our driver waged (raged) a personal assault on the Greenwich to heathrow time challenge, I began to fear for the 2 Furlong tummies rolling around behind me. (The delicate digestive disposition of my traveling companions may, I fear, be a recurring theme of this epistle).

Norris McQuerter was not present to verify the Record Breaking 33 minute transfer, but we made it to Heathrow Terminal 2 almost a full hour before check-in opened - not the first time on this trip that the team’s buttocks will be exposed (not directly I hasten to add) to the cold tiles of an airport floor.

Oliver is a tall man. I cite this not to call undue attention to my esteemed former colleague, but when Oli and I go to a meeting, he towers over me like a bodyguard, surveying possible threats from his lofty vantage point. With this in mind, I couldn’t understand how a short arse like me could touch the ceiling at Terminal 2, and I watched in wonder as unremarkably tall people had to duck and dodge a plethora of low hanging, law-suit-waiting-to-happen ceiling signs. PMC would be delighted - not one hour into the trip and already Indiana Jones references, albeit to the descending ceiling in the inferior Temple of Doom installment.

Lacking any skulls with which to brace the ceiling’s apparent descent, we contented ourselves with a relocation to the Austrian Airlines queue, which had needlessly formed before check-in staff had even arrived for work. For if there is one redoubtable quality of every traveling Englishman, it is fondness for a good orderly queue.

The reality of our impending adventure set in for perhaps the first time as we joined another queue (yay!) for security. I compared our situation with that of a fella in a suit so cheap and nasty that it could only have been made from cereal packet cardboard to which a worn and unwanted blue table cloth had been rudely attached with sticky backed plastic, his garb topped by a tie so inconceivably tasteless as to defy my descriptive talents. He looked like a “Peter” so I christened him “Blue Peter”. I wondered what tiresome business trip had called Blue Peter to LHR at such an unearthly hour (perhaps a site visit to a perspective new conference venue?), whilst I smugly reveled in the infinitely preferable purpose of my presence.

Heathrow - Vienna: slept.

Limbering up for the much negatively anticipated 45 minute airport transfer was not easy in the Oliver-Obfuscating 11.5mm of economy leg room. The seatbelt sign ponged off and the majority of the Rushsticks’ defence rose from our seats, muscles tensed, primed for the sprint. Women, children and other human chicanes swiftly negotiated (or simply trampled under foot), we burst into Vienna International and cast urgent eyes around for gate A06, which I feared must be several hours’ trek from A55, from whence we came. B gates, C gates. A gates 10-50. Where was bloody A06??!!... Two steps to our left. Yes, the 45 minute transfer in fact took a total of 8 seconds (“and that includes the time it took to eat the pizza” - only fans of the Small Rouge One will get this).

So here I am on Airbus A330 an hour from Kathmandu, still reeling from the twin shocks that the new Bond movie was actually rather good, and that the flapjack I saved until last from my airplane supper turned out, tragically, to be an inedible slab of Ryebread.

Before I go, some statistical evaluations which I expect Parry to tabulate in Excel and leverage to demonstrate why he should be on an unprecedently generous performance based reward scheme. Austrian Airlines efficiency & comfort factor 9/10. Fitness of cabin crew (“Trolley Totty Scale”) 6/10. Weighted mean evaluation, 61%.

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