Heading for Linz, Austria...

Tuesday 7th August: I left Heathrow Terminal 3 at 1135hrs, or thereabouts, on a British Airways flight bound for Vienna, a city I love ever since I visited last June (2017) and spent a lot of time riding a bicycle. They're better than taking cabs everywhere and if the weather's good, which it was in June 2017, then there's nothing better.

Awaiting breakfast at Heathrow T3...

I am now on my third visit to this great city, although I must point out that I am currently on a train to Linz, the 1533 to Salzburg and there's a woman across the aisle wearing 'a little black number' who keeps laughing at messages somebody is sending her on a mobile phone.

Outside, the heat of the past few two or three months appears to have eluded Vienna, although I know this not to be true as the whole of Europe has been experiencing the same heatwave as the British. Perhaps it's just that we make more fuss of decent weather. But it's grey out there and the scenery is pretty uninspiring. Outside of the window right now is a huge marshalling yard full of goods wagons, some of them garnished with graffiti.

"You'll ruin your dinner..."
Boredom is behind a great deal of my eating and right now I am considering a snack from the buffet car, which is a couple of coaches behind me, but I don't want to spoil my dinner tonight and I've already fallen foul of that old 'two breakfasts' problem I've been having these past two days. I blame the hot weather and the early sun, which wakes me up at some ungodly hour, forcing me to rise early and eat my usual breakfast – that of multi-seed porridge, blueberries, sliced strawberries, raspberries and grapes. This morning I was eating at 0500hrs and sipping a decaffeinated tea in a Cath Kidson mug and then later I enjoyed a cheese and ham omelette and a mint tea in The Curator, a restaurant beyond passport control at Heathrow's Terminal 3. It was, I have to say, very pleasant, especially the cubed potatoes, fried to perfection. I suppose most people would call them hash browns.

Breakfast at The Curator, Heathrow T3...

The woman across the aisle has gone and she's been replaced by a girl in denim shorts who is also playing with her mobile phone. We've arrived at Vienna Central, otherwise known as Wien Hauptbahnhof and the coach is slowly filling up, much to my dismay as I wanted to travel in peace, just me and this notepad, but now the murmur of conversation, the sound of babies whining and I find myself longing for a family holiday I might not get until the end of the year. We'll see how things develop on the money front.

There's a man in a black tee-shirt sitting opposite me and he's talking to somebody on his mobile phone in a foreign language. I mean, what do I expect, I'm in a foreign country so why would he speak English and who wants to hear somebody speaking English when they're abroad, not me. He's wearing shorts and spreading himself out as there's nobody sitting directly opposite him. We are sitting diagonally opposite one another, which suits me fine.

The train is on the move again, passing graffiti-covered concrete structures and old tenement buildings with yellow balconies and white satellite dishes on the rooftops. The grey skies are a little depressing because the weather experts are saying today is the last day of the heatwave we've all been enjoying these past three months or more.

Awaiting take-off to Vienna...

Stranger in a strange land
We're now at Wien Meidling and there is somebody sitting  next to me. The man in the black tee-shirt is sitting directly opposite and next to him is a man with a high forehead and glasses wearing a check pattern shirt. Next to me is his friend, or colleague, or casual acquaintance, I don't know and I'm not going to ask. He has strange, curly red hair, not tomato red, but 'red' in the sense of ginger (ish). They too are both talking in a foreign language and I can't understand a word they're saying; that's because I went to a shit school and wasn't taught a foreign language. Not for me French lessons, I was deemed too thick by the authorities. We won't get into my schooling, but let's just say my school was pretty rough. It didn't have a playground, it had an exercise yard. That's my little joke, I've been making it for years and I still find it funny. More to the point is that there was a few pupils who did go on to spend time in prison, although perhaps I'm just making mistakes for my own shortcomings, who knows?

The train is in a tunnel and I can see the reflection of my fellow passengers when I look out of the window. It's just past 1600hrs and I'm longing for my hotel room at Linz. The man in the black tee-shirt – who, incidentally, dropped his phone with noisy clatter while playing with it – has now picked it up and answered it. The two men are chatting and looking at something amusing (or interesting) on the man with the high forehead's mobile phone. Everybody, basically, is playing with a mobile phone or talking into one. The high foreheaded man has just handed the phone to the man with the strange-coloured 'ginger' hair. They have shared a joke and now the man in the checked shirt with the high forehead has taken back the phone and is staring at its screen. There is silence except for the man in the black tee-shirt, who is having a conversation on his phone, and a crying baby a few seats away. We're in another tunnel – or the same one – I don't know.

Leaving the country...

The two men have gone and we've arrived at Tullnerfeld, but soon a man arrives with what I think is a tuba, a large one in a huge cylindrical case, which he plonks down in the seat next to me, having first asked if it was alright to do so. I said yes, of course, being the friendly, co-operative sort of person I am and then spent the next part of the journey sitting next to this huge, black thing that towered above me and was obviously far too big to place in the racks above the seats. It was a bit cramped, but fortunately he noticed two vacant seats on the other side of the aisle and moved.

I fell asleep – or rather I kept drifting in and out of sleep – as the train progressed towards Linz. The scenery has changed for the better. Industrial landscapes have been replaced by fields and forests and now, as I write this, the next stop is Linz, my destination. The man in the black tee-shirt has gone and I am the only person left on the table seats.

Arriving in Linz
The weather has changed too; the grey clouds have given way to largely blue skies with a few cotton wool clouds and I guess we're about to arrive at Linz. The baby continues to cry and is now being cuddled by its mother.

What a fantastic pastry at Linz station...

I disembarked and immediately the heat of the sun hit me. I was angry for a reason temporarily obscured until I remembered some of the news items I'd been reading on my mobile phone in between looking out of the window and dozing off. One reason for my anger was my home cuntry, the UK, and the fact that it's just a load of rubbish and made so by its shoddy political classes and their cost-cutting activities across all spheres, especially police cuts, which have led to an escalation in crime. The country is really showing its true colours, thanks to Brexit, and it's true colours are basically a bunch of arrogant racists and bigots led by absolute nobs like Boris Johnson and all the rest of them. I was, however, heartened to hear that another complete and utter fool (in my opinion – and we're all entitled to our opinions) has returned from holiday to find his Somerset home covered in offensive graffiti. Jacob Rees-Mogg wants to take the country back to the 1950s, and probably believes in bringing back hanging too – and the birch. A complete t- -t in other words and I think that word – 't- -t' – was used by those who vandalised his house. There is a God, I remember thinking, as my train approached Linz, from where I am now writing. Not everybody agrees with the far right.

The view from room 416, Park Inn, Linz

And let's not forget that other politician who's being called a racist, the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. What an absolute burk of the highest order – him, Boris Johnson and Geert Wilders, all of whom project far right, racist views and, oddly, all sport the same stupid-looking 'master race' haircuts. Why is that? Another politician with a stupid haircut is Michael Fabricant, another Tory, so 'of the right' but whether he's far right like the rest of those mentioned, I don't know. Trump's been having a go at Le Bron James, an American professional basketball player, and the word on the street is that Trump calling him stupid is purely because he's black, he's said the same of a CNN anchor, who is also black, prompting the latter to speak his mind and call out Trump for the racist he might well be.

Boring, yes, but it's room 416 – very pleasant

If I could leave the UK I would. It's a truly awful country – aud it's getting worse. But I can't leave, unfortunately, for all the usual reasons. Right now, however, I'm in Austria where everything is lovely and the trains run on time. I've stopped at Resch & Frisch on Linz railway station for a rare cappuccino and one of the best pastries I've ever tasted. When it comes to pastries, you can't beat the Austrians and the Germans, or any European nation for that matter. And to think there's only 22 miles of the English Channel separating mainland Europe from the UK.

No-alcohol beer as I await a Thai red curry

Walking to the hotel
The reason I stopped for a coffee and a pastry is simple: if I can avoid taking a taxi to my hotel I will, so I need to key the hotel's address into my iphone's SatNav to see if the distance is walkable. Then, armed with whatever knowledge the phone throws out, I'll head off to the Park Inn by Radisson where I'm booked for the next two nights. It's a 19-minute walk, so I'd better get moving.

And this is the name of the place where I ate the Thai Red Curry

I had a rough idea of where I was going having stayed in Linz twice before, but the iphone's SatNav provided me with reassurance. It's about a 20-minute walk to the hotel from where I write this and I must say that I'm already very impressed with the Park Inn by Radisson. For a start, there is a restaurant  on the ground floor, so if I don't fancy wandering around town later on I can avoid playing culinary roulette and simply eat something in the hotel restaurant. The bright and breezy receptionist informed me that breakfast was 18 Euros per day, a little pricey, but I like a decent breakfast in the morning (I tend not to eat breakfast at any other time of the day) and, as you know, I have been known to eat two breakfasts, thanks to waking up early in the hot weather.

The check-in was a breeze and I was directed to Room 416, which is on the fourth floor and perfect in every way. The key card is needed to operate the lift, a good security measure, I thought. It's also needed to power the room and has to be placed in a small socket on the wall by the door. The room has two single beds side-by-side, blue and white walls, a safe, a wall-mounted TV, telephone, desk, free WiFi that doesn't require a password, red and blue coat hangers, some unruly, some not, but no wardrobe. There is the obligatory 'modern art' on the wall in the shape of three small squares of coloured canvas about a foot square, a bright red box-style armchair, a small table on which a bottle of mineral water rested (it's gone now and they're going to charge me 3.50 Euros for drinking it). There's a hairdryer, but my hair has just been treated to a number three crop so there's little need for one. There isn't, however, an ironing board, which I do need fairly urgently. I'll have to ask for one at reception.

Karunanidhi dies and wild fires
I've just put BBC World on. They're talking about the death of a veteran Indian politician going by the name of Karunanidhi, a social campaigner who worked towards an egalitarian society in Tamil Nadu. He fought for the underdogs, but faced a few corruption charges in his time, but let's just say he's not the bad guy. Perhaps a bit of nepotism here and there, but little else. Karunanidhi died aged 94 and the security forces in Chennai are expecting social unrest. I remember being in India when a leading politician passed away and we were told to remain in the hotel.

Now climate change is being discussed. There's coverage of wild fires in Europe and talk of record temperatures as far north as Finland. And there's a huge wildfire in California too. Scientists are warning of a 'hothouse earth', which, apparently, is irreversible. Trump, of course, doesn't believe in climate change – basically out of greed. He doesn't want anything coming between him and his money-making potential. As long as a businessman can profit, fuck the environment.

One thing I haven't mentioned is the view from the hotel window. It's good. Four floors up, I'm overlooking a small square surrounded on all sides by buildings (apartments, this hotel, even a church). When I arrived and peered out of the window there were a few people sunning themselves and, as I look out now, there are still a few people out there, sitting on wooden benches, chilling out. It's all good.

Going out to eat – should have stayed in!
It was so hot I decided to take a shower before dinner. The shower was easy to use and I could have stayed in there for hours, it was that nice. After drying and dressing I went out and made my first mistake of the day, which was not eating an evening meal in the hotel. Normally I moan about my choice of hotels not having restaurants, forcing me out on the streets to seek sanctuary somewhere nearby. This time round I could have stayed in, but chose to wander. I opted for a kind of Chinese and Thai restaurant and ordered a Thai Red Curry with rice, finishing off with fried banana in a kind of batter. Why do people take something healthy and make it unhealthy? Who needs a deep-fried banana? Well, I suppose I did because I ordered it, ate it and then wished I hadn't bothered. The meal was acceptable, but not in any way award-winning material. You live and learn, I guess, or, as a work colleague once said, "Every day is a school day." They were right.

I'm now back in my room. It's been a long day and I'm going to hit the sack.