At Venice airport...

31 May: I arrived miles too early and began to wonder whether getting the free transfer from my hotel to Marco Polo airport in Venice had been a good idea. I could have taken the train from Udine to Venice and made my way to the airport from there. Still, mustn't grumble, although, to be fair, I have been moaning quietly to myself as I arrived too early and couldn't get rid of my suitcase. In other words, I've been dragging it around with me. 

Out of the clouds heading for Venice

Nothing has really gone wrong (so far). While I had to establish when my airport transfer would arrive at my hotel (the Allegria in Udine) – and was given two conflicting scenarios (one picking me up from the hotel at 1100hrs, the other at 1020hrs at a specified pick-up point outside of the hotel – everything, considering, has been smooth. There was a small amount of confusion before myself and around four or five people from Turkey, one of whom was staying in my hotel, were in the car and on the way to the airport. I say 'car', it was more like a minibus, but after around 70 or so minutes (probably a little longer) of driving along the autostrada under cloudy skies we reached Marco Polo airport from where I write this note.

I am slowly but surely developing the persona of a pissed off and mildly stroppy business traveller, something that I must stop. I can't figure out why I'm that way, I've just become 'that guy' when the slightest thing goes wrong or when I'm the one who has been silly by overlooking a pretty obvious sign that disputes the reality I thought to be true. After discovering, for example, that I couldn't check my bag in until 1425hrs (this was at around 1230hrs) I moseyed off in search of food and when I found it ordered a pizza, a small custard tartlet (very tasty) and a cup of English Breakfast tea. Then, I found a table and sat down to eat my food. But no, I was asked to sit elsewhere. "This is the restaurant," a man said, snootily, and I was directed to some more communal-looking seating to eat what amounted to a takeaway meal. This, of course, was annoying as I could have ordered a sit-down lunch in the restaurant but I didn't see the aforementioned (and quite obvious) sign requesting people to 'queue here' for a seat. 

The main square in Trieste faces out to sea...

Mildly miffed I sat and ate my food in what was basically a more 'downmarket' seating area, which was fine, and when finished I bought myself a fridge magnet from the shop opposite and then wandered towards the bag drop area at the other end of the terminal building, finding when I got there that there was still over 30 minutes to wait. I joked with the woman on duty, the one who informed me and others earlier that the current check-in was for passengers to Paris Orly only and that I'd have to wait until 1425hrs before I could 'drop' my bags off. There's now under 10 minutes to go until I can check in so I might have to leave this post for a second while I get rid of my suitcase and, of course, hope and pray they don't lose it.

Tasty treats before a plant tour in Trieste

I'm heading back to London after a trip to a place called Udine in Northern Italy. I flew out on Monday 27 May (a bank holiday) and have been here all week. It's been a very hectic but enjoyable week with little time to do anything other that what appeared on the event's itinerary. A gala dinner, a classical music concert, a rigorous day time programme of presentations and plenty of sweet things to eat in between, like biscuits, pastries and so on, all designed to make a nonsense of the so-called 'Mediterranean diet' and the notion that, if you're an Italian or eat loads of olives, you'll lead a long and healthy life. I can imagine people now as they prematurely arrive in Heaven and are given a form to fill out, claiming in the 'extra information' box, "they never said anything about biscuits and filled croissants and fancy desserts" being part of the aforementioned 'Mediterranean diet' as they consider their chances in the "I shouldn't really be here" queue.

Amazing biscuits and pastries in Trieste

The check-in was simple and straightforward, just like it had been on the journey out from London Gatwick a few days earlier and within seconds my bag was on the conveyor and on its way to the plane and I was left to go through security, which was also very easy and took minutes to get from the start to the finish. Then it was time for the Society of the Spectacle. I always keep my eyes fixed straight ahead until I reach the male perfumery section where I always give the sales assistant the false impression that I'm going to spend almost £100 on some fragrance or other, only to disappoint them at the last minute with "I think I'll leave it this time". At least I smell good for the flight home, I thought.

One course of a wonderful lunch at a Trieste restaurant

The journey out from Gatwick to Venice on 27 May was a little more fraught and totally my fault because I had led myself to believe that I'd be flying out around 1600hrs and, therefore, didn't have to be at the airport until around 1400hrs. I could take things easy in other words. How wrong! I only needed to look at my travel details and I would have known that I was flying at around noon and that the gate would be closing at 1150hrs. When I did realise the dire situation I had put myself in – time was getting on – I chucked the remaining few things in my suitcase and decided not to bother washing, there was simply no time and I could do it all at the other end. I booked a cab – "come as soon as you can"– and within 20 minutes I was en route to the airport, sitting in the back of a white Prius in silence, hoping and praying that I'd make it on time. When I reached the airport the flight had been delayed and there was plenty of time so I sailed through security and found my way to a Starbucks where I "enjoyed" an English breakfast tea and an almond croissant. I put the word "enjoyed" in inverted commas because I was stressed and needed to calm down, which I did, and then made my way to the gate and on to the plane. I had a window seat (19a) on the way out and on the return journey (6f) and the flight going out was relatively okay, although, as avid readers of this blog will already know, I've always been a little apprehensive of flying if there's a lot of cloud about or the weather is in anyway unsettled.

Waiting at Marco Polo airport for my flight to Gatwick

The pilot on the outward flight, Rachel, said the flight would be relatively smooth 'once we were through the cloud' and she was right. It was a smooth flight and I jumped off the plane with a strong sense of relief, along the lines of one flight done, one more to go.

As I was attending a massive event, when I cleared security I headed straight for an information desk and was told to wait until they found a driver who would ferry me to my hotel, which they did, and soon I was on my way to Udine (about an hour's drive on the autostrada). I checked in to my hotel, the Allegria, and then headed for the shower and after that a shave. I was ready to take a stroll with my fellow journalists to a local restaurant for dinner and our host Paolo. The Italians know how to cook, put it that way.

After waking up the following morning, it was a roller coaster schedule from then on. I was up every morning at 0600hrs, eating a fairly sub-standard breakfast at 0700hrs and then waiting for a bus to take me and my fellow journalists to a place called Buttrio where the conference would take place. There was a gala dinner inside Udine Castle (although it wasn't IN the castle as it was when I attended another event a couple of years ago, but instead in a huge but tasteful temporary structure just outside of the castle itself. It was fine but tiring as it's fairly hard to keep up conversation with strangers when all I really wanted to do was relax alone after a long day, possibly eat alone and then hit the sack. I probably got to bed around 1230hrs. It was a short walk from the castle to the Allegria.

A tasty treat at the Trieste restaurant

The conference was full-on for two days and was followed by a plant trip to Trieste, which was 'up the road' from Udine – probably around an hour's drive. In fact, where the plant trips were concerned, some brave souls had signed up for tours in far flung places like Beijing and Louisiana and Egypt and other locations which increased the intensity of the schedule and made me feel tired just thinking about it. Not that I had booked myself on any of the plant tours and the one I did take (to Trieste) was organised for me. And what a trip it was! Well, the plant trip was so-so but the food on either side of it was something else: first a wide selection of pastries and mini desserts, which I greedily scoffed as if there was no tomorrow, and then, after the tour, a short walk to a restaurant in Trieste down by the water's edge where we were given an excellent four-course meal.

The great thing about the Italians is they love their food and they won't let anything get in the way of it. We sat there watching a storm roll in and listened to the thunder, which was preceded by flashes of distant forked lightening and in between the poor weather and the relentless rain we all ate well: there was plenty of sea food and I lived to tell the tale – and by that I mean no upset stomach, no sitting on the throne all night, nothing at all, but then this was a very good restaurant.

A coach eventually took us back to Udine and it turned into a late night. Dinner with a colleague was planned for 1900hrs and while my initial plan had been to go all the way to Udine, change and then return to Buttrio by cab, I eventually decided to get off in Buttrio due to mounting traffic and then went out for a pleasant meal.

And now I'm back where I started. It's the day after that dinner with my colleague in Buttrio. I took the minibus to Marco Polo airport and all the rest you know, other than I'm sitting here in the airport listening to a French man talk about something or other. Unfortunately, I don't speak French so I can't understand a word he's saying, not that it matters, it's probably something inane.

Outside there are blue skies and scattered cloud and its roughly an hour before I take off, that's assuming the flight leaves on time (it's around 10 minutes late as I write this). In all honesty, I just want to get home. It's been a good but long week and I've met some interesting people. 

I think they've announced my gate, Gate 56, so I'd better get moving, but now that I'm through passport control and at the gate, a few words about the hotel, the Allegra. It was small but it was fine. The room was clean and perfectly adequate although I couldn't see out of my window, or rather I couldn't see without a lot of hassle trying to prise open the shuttered windows, and I couldn't be bothered. Besides, the trip was so rushed I didn't really get much time to look out of windows or read or do anything (like blogging) that I do on most trips. While I don't mind other people fixing my trip for me, I know that if they do, I end up with the itinerary from hell, but this was fine. Busy but good. Both flights, for example, were perfectly fine in terms of departure times, but the conference schedule meant extreme weariness in the mornings especially if there had been a late night, ie the gala dinner on Tuesday and the classical music concert on the Wednesday night. This morning I had a brief lie in and a later breakfast and then I packed my suitcase and was ready to leave the hotel, but we've spoken about that part of the day already.

I wasn't keen on the breakfast as there were elements of the experience that required the help of somebody else. Tea, for example, had to be ordered, but invariably there was nobody there to order it from. A hot water urn would have helped and it would have been good if milk had been available too, but again we only got milk if we asked for it and we could only ask for it if there was somebody there to ask. Every morning I enjoyed a filled croissant and a bowl of chopped fruit plus an English Breakfast tea.

The flight home was good, very smooth all the way, and we arrived at Gatwick earlier than scheduled. Passport control and baggage reclaim were also very smooth and soon I was on the other side wondering whether to get a taxi or a train home. I opted for the latter because it was cheaper and, let's be honest, quicker too. I alighted at East Croydon and jumped into a black cab (£20) and now I'm at home, the fridge magnet I purchased in Venice is on the fridge door and I'm considering some pasta for dinner. My wife and daughter are returning from Paris tonight and I'll be picking them up from the station around 2230hrs. Time to sign off and make some food.

Columbus, Ohio: Heading home...

The Brekkie Shack in Columbus, Ohio, close to the Aloft hotel, has a good vibe to it. It's bright and breezy and there's loads of decent 'brekkie' options including the House Made Granola Bowl of yogurt topped with in-season fruit and chia-sunflower seed granola, not forgetting a honey drizzle. That and a mug of green tea and I was set up for the day. I have to say that I've been eating decent food out here, not too much of the burger and fries, which is the default cuisine in the USA. There was plenty of temptation to eat badly, like an amazing-looking carrot cake and other 'cakey' stuff that was crying out to be eaten, but I resisted and left the the place feeling good about myself and, therefore, life in general. 

The plan was to head for the so-called German Village, a district of Columbus, and a book shop called the Book Loft. Here was a book shop that consisted of different rooms full of different types of books and if you're in to books it's the place to be. I didn't buy anything because I've got enough books on the go already. James O'Brien's How they Broke Britain and Thurston Moore's Sonic Life are the books in question. I didn't want to add another one to the mix.

Katzinger's Delicatessen, German Village, Columbus

After lunch in Katzinger's Delicatessen it was time to head back to the hotel and start packing for tomorrow's long journey home: two flights, one from Columbus to New York's JFK airport and then the transatlantic hop to London, although that word 'hop' is probably an understatement. 

Later, with grey skies and the rain hammering down, I stood under cover outside the Aloft Columbus hotel. There was a man on a down-at-heel-looking push bike with a rear wheel puncture. He couldn't fix it because he didn't have a repair kit and was standing there soaking wet wearing a blue cagoule preparing himself for the moment when he'd somehow make a dash for it. I looked at the rain and wondered how the hell I would get to the Starbucks across the parking lot without getting soaked. And then I remembered the base ball caps in my room. I'd been at an event where some of the stands offered freebies in the shape of tee-shirts and baseball caps. I had around four of them upstairs in my room so I turned on my heels and found the cleaner in my room. "It's your room, you can stay here if you like," she said as she changed the sheets on the bed. And yes I could have stayed and made small talk but I preferred to let her get on with her job. I told her she could have one of the baseball caps and then headed downstairs to tackle the rain. The walk to the Starbucks was less than five minutes across an exposed parking lot and when I reached my destination I wasn't that wet. I ordered an English breakfast tea and tried to read O'Brien's masterpiece. I was about to finish the Jeremy Corbyn chapter and then move on to the one about Dominic Cummings, but simply couldn't face it. I know the story, I've lived it: the Brexit lies, the bigotry, the racism, the British thinking they're something special when they're far from it; so after a short while I simply sat there drinking my tea and looking out of the window. Eventually the rain stopped and I was able to walk back across the lot to the hotel without fear of a soaking.

Our last dinner in Columbus was at the Cap Diner. There were no seats in the restaurant but there was room in a kind of temporary area, or additional space, which had a canvas roof and heaters to keep away the cold, although they didn't do a brilliant job. The rain hammered down on the roof as we awaited our food. I changed seats so I was a little closer to the source of heat but it wasn't brilliant and when the food arrived I was disappointed to note that I had been given two chicken breasts rather than the one I had expected. This, was, of course, America where the portions are huge, and because I'd been eating lightly most of the week I could barely finish the meal. I managed the chicken breasts but I left the vegetables. Catherine opted for two starters, which were more manageable than my one main course. On the next table a woman received her dessert: a huge chocolate cake at least a foot high.How anybody could eat THAT much chocolate cake I don't know, but she took it in her stride and laughed as she scoffed it. Cardiac Care Unit, here we come, I thought as I watched her pigging it with inner disgust. We passed on dessert and headed back to our respective hotel rooms, me in room 626 and Catherine in 526 directly below me on the fifth floor.

House made Granola Bowl, Brekkie Shack

It was early but it was time to hit the sack, do some last minute packing and then leave the Aloft and head to the airport. But first a 'game' of pool. The inverted commas are because neither of us were any good and, therefore, the game wasn't at all real, we were just trying to pot the balls regardless of the rules and it was more fun than playing for real.

I set my alarm for 0700 and then lay in bed until I fell asleep. I awoke numerous times before the alarm went off and I jumped out of bed and set about packing. For me it was always going to be a case of 'last minute packing' as I figured putting stuff back in the case would be easy. There's something awful about checking out. I've never liked it and I can't understand why, but the very thought of packing stuff away, trying to cram everything into a suitcase, has never appealed. I managed to get everything in and after a shower I headed down to the lobby where I met Catherine and we both walked across the lot to the aforementioned Starbucks for our last breakfast where we had been eating the same thing all week: granola with yoghurt and some kind of jam, not forgetting an English breakfast tea for me and an iced coffee for Catherine.

Our time in Columbus had run out and we jumped into an Uber and headed for the airport. There was time for tea at a Starbucks when we got there and then we boarded the flight to New York/JFK. The flight was full and I hate full flights. I sat next to an Egyptian Professor of English Literature. She was travelling to New York where she has a 20-hour stop-over and is planning to get a hotel room. From Doha she flies on to Cairo to be with family and friends and then she comes back to a new job. Currently, she's at OSU (Ohio State University). It was a short flight and there was a little turbulence at the end, but soon we found ourselves in JFK looking for somewhere to have lunch before the transatlantic night flight to London Heathrow. Our choice of restaurant was O'Neal's and it wasn't that brilliant. I ordered a chicken burger with fries and a no-alcohol beer and Catherine had a vegetarian dish of some sort and a Coke, it might have been a vegetable-based burger.

There was no menu, just a QR code on the table. The idea was that we ordered on our phones. I'm thinking about buying a Nokia 3310 so that they have to provide me with a paper menu or I'll take my custom elsewhere. I can't stand it. Tech complicates everything. I can't go swimming these days without logging in to an app, so I don't bother going. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a technophobe, it just annoys me when people put blind faith in technology. Even placing a boarding pass in the 'wallet' on my iphone is crap, especially when the phone runs out of power and I have to ask for a paper boarding pass. This happened recently in Helsinki.

I wandered around the airport and found a food court area just to sit down and write a few things in my notepad. Catherine was elsewhere doing her own thing and we met up later at the gate and sat there chatting for around an hour before it was time to board the plane. I was in seat 18C, which offered a lot of much-needed legroom, but there were two people sitting to my left and in front of them was a couple, meaning that in terms of legroom I had the best deal.

It turned out the flight was around six hours, which was brilliant and I passed the time reading Sonic Life by Thurston Moore, which is an excellent book. I never watched television or listened to music and as the flight was so short I focused almost entirely on pondering what I had just read. There was no turbulence.

We landed around 0640 having been scheduled to touch down around 0740. There was a slight delay after the plane had come to a halt as they didn't appear to have any buses. I quipped with a fellow passenger that the first negative voice we heard had to be English and of course I was right.

The plan was to get an Uber home, but I wasn't sure how it all worked and then considered waiting around for a 'normal' taxi or jumping on the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then travelling on the Underground to Victoria. But no, not after a transatlantic flight, so I hoofed it back to the third floor of Heathrow's car park and then waiting for an Uber. There was problems on the M25, something to do with a bridge, and this meant going through London: Hammersmith, over the Thames on the Wandsworth bridge, through South London and home. I was feeling fine and sat around chatting for a short while, but then decided it would be good to get some sleep so I hit the sack and woke up around 1600hrs. We took a drive early evening to Oxted for an Italian meal and then I sat up until 0100hrs watching Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime. 

I slept well, woke up, had breakfast and then around mid-morning headed off to Knole for a breath of much-needed fresh air after a bowl of pea and mint soup and a chocolate chip cookie, not forgetting a pot of tea.

It's almost 1800hrs on Sunday evening and the sun is shining, the trees appear to be in full bloom, my lemon balm plant is out and so is everything else.. Summer arrived while I was away. I left a cold and rainy United Kingdom and returned to a sunny, warm country. I'm feeling pretty tired so I'll stop writing now.

Starbucks across from the Aloft Hotel, Columbus Ohio.

Aloft, Columbus, Ohio – wonderful hotel!

I reached the Aloft Columbus late but was so relieved to be there after the three flights it had taken me to find myself at the front desk. I'd queued for a taxi outside Columbus airport and was whisked along the highway in a six-cylinder Lincoln. The driver said very little, but he was pleased when I complimented him on a great car. There was, it has to be said, plenty of power under the bonnet.

The Aloft is only a short drive from the airport, which is good, and the hotel is a short drive from the city's convention centre so it's pretty well connected.

Room 626, Aloft, Columbus University District, USA

I was directed to room 626 on the sixth floor and found my way there, once on the sixth floor, along a dimly-lit corridor. I love a dimly-lit hotel corridor as it makes me feel as if I'm in the X Files.

Room 626 was large and square and thank God it wasn't one of those hotel rooms that require the occupant to insert their room card into an aperture to power-up the room, although I suppose they prevent hotel guests from losing their key cards. To my right a large bathroom, more of a wet room with only a shower, no bath. This is good news because I never use a bath these days, it's always a shower, even at home (where we have both). Beyond the bath to my right is the huge space of the rest of the room. A large, black flat-screen television on the far wall facing a large double bed, a seating area to the right of the television offering bench seating and a Formica or Melamine oval table with a boomerang pattern and under the television a fridge (with nothing in it) and the usual tea and coffee making facilities on top.

The Aloft is obsessed with technology and it's quite annoying until you get used to it. There's nothing worse than tech for the sake of it. The lift (or elevator) is more complicated than a standard lift and then, in the room, I found a small Marshall amp. Or at least that's what it looked like. It was, in fact, one of those smart speakers that allow you to stream music on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever you use. At home I have a rather smart (and expensive) Bose system. I liked the Marshall amp and for some time thought it was a radio that simply didn't work. When I got round to asking somebody on the front desk they told me what it was but added that I'd need to download an app to get it working. No. I'm sorry, I'm not going to do that. Far too much faff and when it was suggested that the hotel 'engineer' could run through things with me I thought no, I can't be bothered, I'll do without. The last time I remember listening to music in a hotel room (on a CD system) was some time back in the early noughties, in the Malmaison in Manchester in the UK and it was all a little too emotional and 100% driven by alcohol. So I left it alone, other than to turn it on and off occasionally just to hear the hard rock bass and lead guitar riff that accompanies turning it on and off; that amused me no end for a while until I told myself to shape up and stop being so stupid. On the other side of the bed is a little round emitter of white noise (or that's what I've been told it is); it's the sort of thing you might need to get to sleep if you suffer from ADHD, which fortunately I don't. Oh, I almost forgot! There's the customary large and very noisy air con system which, at night, makes you think you've been transported to a beach somewhere and the tide's coming in fast. It took me until my last night to work out how to switch it off. There's wood-effect laminate flooring, no wardrobe to hang any clothes but they're quirky enough to provide some black metal girders and a few coat hangers and there's a safe, which I'm leaving well alone after the last time I used one. There's a hair dryer and, I think, an iron (I'm not exactly sure) but there's no ironing board so using it could prove disastrous. Again, I'll leave well alone.

I like the Aloft. The room feels like home and I yearn for it when I'm not in it. 

The spectacular view from room 626, Aloft, Columbus, USA

There are a few problems, but not many. The first one is the shower and sink. In a nutshell, the jet of water coming out of the former is not strong enough to give an invigorating shower and the dribble coming out of the tap over the sink is similarly lacking in power. It's annoying that the bath towels are not in the bathroom as I tend to bowl in there, have a shower and then realise I've got to tip toe across the laminate floor with wet feet dripping water everywhere as I cross the room to get a towel. Perhaps one of these days I'll remember to take a towel in with me (there's one in there now awaiting my last shower before I check out).

Another problem is there's no breakfast room or restaurant downstairs. One of the great things about staying in a hotel is the breakfast and having to go out for it is a little annoying, but not really that much of a hassle as nearby there's a good Starbucks where it's possible to eat a healthy breakfast and not have to gorge on pastries and scrambled egg and sausages and mushrooms and all the usual stuff you get in a self-service hotel breakfast operation.

The hotel is 'quirky' but I often feel they try too hard on that front, as, indeed, do 'boutique' hotels in general with their madly designed furniture and fittings that simply refuse to follow the hotel designers' motto of 'function before form'. Not that Aloft has any madly designed furniture, it just has a quirky vibe. There's an oversized game of Connect Four in the lobby area along with a pool table and a chess set and '2024' in silver inflatable letters giving across the message that this hotel is fun and should be enjoyed... which, to be fair to the hotel, is exactly right. I love it, it has to be said because the friendliness of the staff, the cleanliness, the upbeat design and the comfortable rooms make it a cut above the average American hotel. It has something special about it and I know for a fact that I'm going to miss it and that I'll wonder for days, when I'm back in the UK, who is in 'my room' looking out over Columbus as I did.

Chicago O'Hare: Things go badly wrong...

Boston airport is rubbish. Really rubbish. There's no coffee shop where you can sit down and enjoy an English breakfast tea and something to eat. Everything is takeaway on the coffee shop front and customers are expected to take their order away and sit somewhere else, in a communal area. I hate that. I had a decidedly average lunch in a place called Lucca where there was no dessert offering or hot beverage menu. Imagine that! You can't order a green tea or a coffee or whatever because there's nothing on the menu. Don't get me wrong: I didn't want a dessert. I'm trying to stop them completely, erase them from my life so I suppose there not being a dessert selection is good. But in all honesty I could have done with sitting there for a bit longer after eating my decidedly average chicken burger and fries. But yeah, as a result, Boston airport is being branded as rubbish by yours truly. And yes, I hate it. That said, I hate everything right now and I'm taking it out on Boston airport and, actually, Boston itself. I thought it was supposed to be some kind of place you have to visit. New England and all that. Boston, Maine. I started thinking about Stephen King for heaven's sake. He lives in the state of Maine, doesn't he? I'm sure he does, but anyway, this ain't about Stephen King, it's about me and my predicament, which we'll come to shortly. For now, let's keep knocking Boston airport (air side). What about the WiFi? What about it? It's shite! So shite that I have resorted to writing my bile in a notepad and I'll have to copy it in to the lap top later on.

This is just a minuscule part of the queue, believe me...

My hotel was shite too AND it had bed bugs! Yes, I saw one when I jumped out of bed, which means there must be more of them. I was staying in room 308 of the Embassy Suites right by the airport. Alright, it was a case of 'any port in a storm' but hey, bed bugs! Who needs them? And to think I slept with the bastard.

Sixth floor, Aloft Hotel, Columbus

I shouldn't be in Boston. I should be in Columbus, Ohio, but it wasn't to be, thanks to Chicago O'Hare's immigration system or people or whatever. The flight over from London was fine (see previous post) but when we got off the plane and headed for the bit where they used to ask if you were a member of the communist party we found a huge queue. And I don't just mean a huge queue, I mean a fucking huge queue, longer than I have ever seen in my life. It was huge, it was monstrous, it was enormous. If you think you know what a big queue is all about, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that the queue I was forced to join was the biggest ever, no challengers. It was so big that I was standing in it for more than three hours. THREE HOURS! In the process I missed my connecting flight to Columbus and, as a result, a whole new world of shit opened up to me.

The first problem was finding another flight to Columbus – there wasn't any. Or rather there was, but it involved flying to Charlotte and then flying again to Columbus and I wasn't keen on doing that. All I wanted to do was find a hotel for the night and then start again in the morning, but against my better judgement (and remember, my judgement ain't that good after flying eight hours across the Atlantic and every minute wishing it would all end and I could be where I was supposed to be, ie in Columbus).

The boredom of Boston airport and, indeed, all airports...

We were directed to the American Airlines information desk 'opposite K8' and soon realised that flights to Columbus are pretty damn rare and that the Charlotte option was all that was open to us (not that I was prepared to believe that, there had to be another way was my thinking).

Lucca – nothing to write home about...

There were problems. A storm was brewing and, as I sat there on the plane looking out at the thunder, lightning and rain I realised that I didn't want to put myself through an ordeal of extreme turbulence, not after an eight-hour flight from London. I was tired and now I was fed up too and I knew that I simply couldn't face the flight to Charlotte. I had to find another way and so I left the flight which would, I discovered, be sitting on the tarmac for over two hours. Meanwhile, however, I was queuing opposite K8, something I really didn't want to do again, at the American Airlines desk trying to find an alternative to the Charlotte flight I'd just kissed goodbye, not that it was going anywhere. There was an alternative that involved changing airline to United and flying to Boston and then finding a hotel in the city. I really didn't want to do it, I was in a mess and I just wanted to sleep until I felt better, but I couldn't. The United flight departed at 2145hrs with me on it, and I can't remember what time it got in but it was late and then, as I waited at reclaim for my bags, the machine ground to a halt and it was clear that my bags were still at Chicago O'Hare. Thanks to the baggage reclaim guy (although he was wrong) I was told my bags were most likely at Columbus, but I knew that bags didn't fly without their owners, they're a bit like dogs (who sometimes get lost). I hoped and prayed that they would be in Columbus but something told me they weren't going to be there.

I waited at B6 for a long time...

So I needed a hotel for the night and it turned out that many people were in the same position because of the storm. A man from Costa Rica was waiting for an Embassy Suites shuttle bus so I joined him and jumped on, checked in to room 308 and finally got to sleep around 0245hrs. I managed around two hours' sleep and then woke up in a frazzled state of mind. There was no way that I could simply nod off so I got up, showered and eventually went downstairs for breakfast. That was when I discovered a bug in the bed. Whether it was a so-called bed bug, I don't know, but it was definitely a bug of some sort, which really put me off, I can tell you. I told the girl on the front desk and the driver of the shuttle to the airport. I wonder if they'll do anything about it?

Around 1000hrs I took the train from Airport to State, got out and wandered around. Every shop sold tacky souvenirs: fridge magnets, shirts with 'Boston' emblazoned on the front and other cheap ephemera everybody could do without. I couldn't resist a fridge magnet... and a teeshirt with 'Boston' written on it.

I didn't see much of Boston to be fair, but the bits I did see were not very impressive, it all looked a bit like Peterborough on a dull day. I walked along State Street and then wandered through a couple of covered markets, one selling different types of food, the other selling souvenir tat of all shapes and sizes.

Bored and fed up I walked back to State railway station, took a train to Airport and then strolled through a park to the hotel where I messed around on my lap top before heading to the airport far too early and then found myself bored shitless. I was there for a long, long time waiting for a flight to Columbus. Initially I figured that with my flight at 1710hrs I'd be in Columbus around 2000hrs, but while the time counted down and down until I was expecting the flight to simply arrive at the gate and we all board, it kept getting put back. Suddenly, from saying, say, 23 minutes until boarding it was saying 41 minutes to boarding and on and on it went. I feared it would be cancelled. There was little to do but wander around looking at different gates and seeing if there was anything worth stopping for, ie food and drink outlets. The whole thing had left me tired and angry. My colleague, who stayed on the flight to Charlotte never got to Columbus so, if this was a race (albeit a weird one) we were almost neck and neck, although she had the advantage on me and eventually arrived a few hours ahead, but I wasn't far behind. Her flight, as I might have said, sat on the tarmac for a couple hours before heading to Columbus where her bags awaited her; my flight left later, probably around 2000hrs, I can't remember exactly. The pilot said something that annoyed me. I mean, how can I sit back and relax and enjoy the flight after he said "we're expecting a little weather halfway through the flight and will put the fasten seat belts notice up." Great! That's me on tenterhooks.

On the way to Columbus

The first part of the flight was a white-out. There was thick cloud until we reached 30,000 feet, our cruising altitude, and the rest of the flight was easy, even with the odd bit of turbulence. I don't mind turbulence if I can see what's going on outside the window – that's why I hate night flights.

When the plane landed I went straight to baggage reclaim and told the girl there that my bags were in Chicago O'Hare – or so I'd been told. She confirmed that they were indeed at O'Hare and that she'd get them sent to my hotel – Aloft in the university district of Columbus. They were sent on to me and arrived Monday evening, leaving me just one day to wear the jeans and all the other clothes I'd put on Saturday morning. I looked alright to be fair so there was nothing lost despite the situation. In other words, all was fine and I slowly recovered from the ordeal. I got around seven hours sleep and the hotel was fantastic (of which more later). 

Notes from Flight AA47 from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare, USA...

4 May 2024: Compared with yesterday's inclement weather, today was a breath of fresh air and most welcomed. There were clear, smokey blue skies when I woke up and the good weather continued. I awoke around 0222hrs mainly because I was fretting about the long flight ahead of me, but the good weather made me feel a little better about the trip, not that I wouldn't have rejoiced had an announcement came through about the event I was attending being cancelled. Not that I really wanted it to be; it's good meeting with the Americans once a year and this will be my 10th event, or 10 in a row, so to speak, so I'm kind of a veteran of the circuit. Who wants to be a veteran?

There are always hassles when travelling and this trip proved no exception except to say that it all turned out okay (or did it? More later on that one!).  

I started my journey in a taxi, but when the driver intimated that there might be a problem with the M25, I asked him to take me to the railway station where I jumped on the 0810 train to Victoria and then took the tube to Paddington where I picked up the Heathrow Express. I decided to purchase a single ticket as I might get the Elizabeth Line when I get back to the UK next Saturday at the early hour of 0740hrs. I'll be flying back from New York, having already flown from Columbus to New York that same day.

En route to Chicago and enjoying every minute!

The check-in at Heathrow (Terminal 3) was relatively easy, although I had tried checking in on my iphone whilst on the Heathrow Express, but no joy. It didn't matter, it was all fairly smooth and soon I met up with my colleague for breakfast. While I'm not keen on Wagamama, the fact that breakfast was an option changed things slightly. I ordered a Japanese omelette and a bright green 'power' drink for added positivity. Unknowingly, I'd need that positivity later in the day although in all honesty I think it deserted me.

Soon it was time to head for Gate 31. In fact, we almost missed the flight as the gate was announced as 'closing' so we hoofed it, but when we reached it there was a full complement of passengers still sitting around waiting to board. A false alarm if ever there was one.

I had a great seat, 12A, and I soon discovered that 12B and 12C would remain vacant and that I would have the whole row to play with, not that I played with anything other than my notepad and pen [writing this very post]. Either way it was a result, the whole row to myself and loads of extra leg room. While I started to settle, I couldn't drum up any enthusiasm for the journey. However, put it this way: having seat 12a and an empty row makes things a lot better than they might otherwise have been. I've booked a similar seat for my return journey from New York, so let's hope there's nobody else in the row. Right now, however, I just wish I could be in Chicago or, better still, my ultimate destination: Columbus, Ohio.

Monty's Bakehouse pastry – the best!

The food on the plane was fine. Nothing to write home about admittedly, but acceptable. The choice, as always, was pasta or chicken and, as always, I chose the latter. It was served with rice and spinach and while there was other stuff – like a rock hard bread roll, cheese and a chocolate cake dessert – I refused everything else bar two crackers and a small bag of pretzels that had arrived ahead of the aforementioned meal.

The plane (with me in it!) has departed from Heathrow, gone over South Wales and gently passed over the southern tip of Ireland and is now mid-Atlantic running a true air speed of 553 mph as it approaches something called the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone, whatever that might be; we're flying at 37,000 feet and there are all these odd places, like Gloria Ridge, Eirik Ridge and others that I'm guessing are markers of some sort, but I neither know nor care.

I don't like flying at the best of times. Or rather I don't mind it, but if I could take the train I would. Whenever I go to Europe I try to let the train take the strain, but you can't train it across the Atlantic... not yet at any rate! Imagine a bridge!

One thing I do like to have is a choice and when such a thing eludes me, I get a little irritated. So, I'm sitting here, the lunch service finishes and they decide to dim everyone's windows and giving everything a dark blue tint. Personally I prefer the plastic shutters or blinds or whatever they're called because they give the passenger the choice of whether to look out of the window or not. I called a member of the cabin crew and she fixed it for me.

So now I sit here with five hours and 37 minutes to go and I'm already bored shitless. I will probably read some of James O'Brien's How they Broke Britain, but not yet as I feel very restless and anxious. There's five hours and 23 minutes to go.

I'm trying my best not to eat badly. It helps that during the week I've been visiting a place called Busy Beans (in Redhill) and having light salads for lunch and trying also not to eat more than a couple of slices of bread each day.

There's four hours and 50 minutes until we reach Chicago O'Hare and I'm the only one with my window "open", so to speak. Everybody else has that aforementioned deep blue tint which has plunged the cabin into darkness, it's as if it's the middle of the night and people are sleeping and doing stuff in the dark making my little corner the only ray of light. I certainly don't want to pretend it's night time when it isn't, but I feel under pressure as if they're all whispering under their breath, asking me, pressuring me to 'turn that light out' but I'm not going to; I don't want to watch their crappy movies or listen to the airline's awful choice of music. I was hoping I'd at least be able to listen to that great guitar riff from Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, but there's nothing but crap stuff and likewise the movies.

I mean, who the fuck is Robert Finley? Who is Tony Joe White when he's at home? Who is Pony Bradshaw? Andrea Von Kampen? Anybody? Natalie Hemby? Matt Berninger? You get my drift, I'm sure you do. There was hardly anything worthy under 'Classic Hits', nothing I knew at any rate. Celebrate Women's Voices? No! Who the hell is Camille Yarbrough? Only Isaac Hayes stood out, but there was no sign of his Theme from Shaft. And let's not make out it was easy to hear any of this stuff: the sound of the plane's engines put paid to that and I didn't particularly want to mess around poking earphones in my ears.

I am considering watching an animated movie without sound. But which one? There's a lot of dross. In fact, what a piss poor collection of 'entertainment'.

Outside the cloud has gone away and I can see the Atlantic Ocean below me and it looks flat calm from up here at 38,000 feet. The plane is heading for St. Johns, Newfoundland, at 555 mph and we've left behind the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone with just over four hours flying left to do.

Watching an animated movie with the sound down is fantastic and reminds me of 'old times'. I can just glance up at it now and then while I'm writing and occasionally staring out of the window. It's great.

But then I was caught unawares by one of the cabin crew. "Vanilla ice cream, sir?" At least with American Airlines you get called 'sir'. With British Airways you're only called sir if you're in business class, revealing, of course, the British obsession with class and privilege. The female cabin crew member held out a small and inviting tub of the stuff and I foolishly weakened. It was rock hard so I'm leaving it alone for a while. Actually, it wasn't very nice, there was no taste at all, but then perhaps that's vanilla ice cream for you.

The animated movie I was watching, incidentally, is called The Inventor and its good just to glance at it occasionally without really knowing what's going on.

As if by magic, the cloud is back, it's like a huge sheet of ice stretching into the distance and there's no let-up. We could be in the Arctic, but I know I'm not, we're almost over Newfoundland and the city of St. Johns.

"And they wandered in to the city of St. Johns without a dime."

What a great song! Steely Dan, the Royal Scam, a great song and an amazing album, but not on the sound system of the flight.

There's three hours and 53 minutes to go and the rest of the aircraft is still in darkness. I have the only source of light and I love it, just me.

I've been clock-watching for a fair bit now and I'm thinking that when the big hand of my watch completes another circuit there will be just under three hours to go. We're still flying at 38,000 feet, the cloud outside still looks like a sheet of solid ice and there's a man behind me who keeps coughing. Just my luck if he has Covid, but let's hope not. Sniffing, coughing, clearing his throat, he's a big, fat fucker and I hate having him sitting behind me spreading his awful germs everywhere.

The Inventor is a strange movie (or it is if you watch it with the sound down). When I get home I'll see if it's on Netflix or Prime and watch it with sound on. What I can say is this: it's well done, nicely put together. I just can't get over the cloud below me and I can't imagine the plane cutting through it. There's three hours and 42 minutes to go and that equates to 1,905 miles more to travel.

I'm hoping that the back of my chair will act as a shield and keep the bloke behind me's germs in his court and not mine, hitting the back of my seat and then hitting him in the face, a continuous loop.

The cloud has dispersed again and in places I can see the Atlantic Ocean. I hate clock-watching but that's what I'm doing. There's three hours and 30 minutes left to go.

And now there's two hours and 12 minutes until we reach O'Hare and it's possible, here and there, to see land below, the odd lake, even roads are visible. The Inventor ended and now I'm watching Deadland, but this time with sound. It looks good and I'll definitely be looking out for it when I get home, but it isn't that good, nothing ever is.

I'm wondering if there will be any more food, perhaps not. Outside the clouds still look solid and snow-like again and we've just passed over Portland, Maine – according to the flight map. It's lunch time in Chicago, which is kind of weird as it was sort of lunch time when I left London.

I could do without a connecting flight to Columbus, but that's the journey. Fortunately, it's a short flight, under an hour I would imagine once we're in the air. 

One hour and 46 minutes to go on this flight. I'd like to think some more food is on the way, just to break up the monotony, a cup of tea, a biscuit, anything, but it's gone all quiet on the Western Front, so to speak.

With just under an hour to go, Lake Michigan hoves into view on the left hand side of the aircraft. Is that port or starboard, I can't remember. I think it's the port side. If my memory serves me correctly, we head south (or turn left) at some point and then begin our descent into Chicago O'Hare over the lake. We have yet to lose altitude with 59 minutes to go and the cloud a little more dispersed than it has been.

It's been a quiet flight. I haven't heard any kids screaming or babies crying. In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen any families, unless they're all at the rear of the plane, but I don't think so.

The lights are coming on and the people seem to be reviving themselves, their movies finished, their books read and I swear I can smell coffee, not that I'll be having any, perhaps another tea instead. Lake Michigan is visible again from my window and I'm pretty sure we'll be banking left at any minute. The coughing and spluttering man has returned to his seat – where the hell did he go? – and the cabin crew have just whizzed by with a trolley, meaning they are planning to serve something, probably a hot drink. The sun is shining and it's just dawned on me that, give or take, I've been writing for around seven hours.

Perhaps that wasn't Lake Michigan as we haven't veered left yet so perhaps we might not veer left after all. I can't remember.

Wow! Monty's Bakehouse red pepper, tomato and paprika pastry – or calzone as the cabin crew called it. Amazing! And I could certainly eat another one, that's for sure. There's 48 minutes to go and we're still at 38,000 feet so perhaps I was wrong about Lake Michigan. In fact, I WAS wrong, it was Lake Erie.

The plane is making its descent into O'Hare as I write this. We are between Flint and Grand Rapids, both places you see mentioned on destination boards if you walk past the gates in an American air terminal. We're flying at 32,000 feet and counting. Those white clouds – or rather that blanket of white cloud – that looks a little more like clouds now, but it's possible (just) to see land below it.

I'm always amazed at how the cabin crew just get on with it, while I get more and more anxious about the whole thing. I can see a patchwork quilt of fields below me and soon they'll be asking me to stow away my table top or whatever it's called.

It's time to swallow as the pressure starts to affect my ears, we're now at 30,000 feet.

I forgot all about the security, ie immigration and customs. A video explaining the whole process is now being screened – and now I can see Lake Michigan, it's huge, it has beaches!

I never listen to the information videos on a plane, I simply follow the signs when I get there. It's funny how, now we are over the lake, we've left the clouds behind. They look like a huge white hedge which, come to think of it, will be waiting for us on the other side – we're surrounded – although I reckon we'll slip underneath them by the time we get there. There's around 20 minutes until we land.

"Flight attendants, please prepare for landing."

I'm now balancing my notebook on my lap and waiting for when we land. We're at 8,999 feet now and counting. I'm guessing the plane is lining itself up with the runway. In the distance I can see a bank of clouds waiting for us, but perhaps we'll be low enough to miss them. 7,002 feet and 324 mph. We bank right and then straighten up. Now we're banking right again. It's very hazy out there. I can see a boat of some kind, cargo barge, and we're still banking right, but have now straightened up again. I can see the city, skyscrapers clustered together close to the lake, the sun shining as we approach dry land. The lake sparkles in the sunshine, there's a marina, houses, car parks, a motorway, cars travelling hither and thither, the plane shaking a little as a suburban church pops up. More baseball pitches, more houses, more wooded areas and soon I'd imagine, there will be airport buildings. We fly over a runway and we land, the engines go into reverse thrust mode and we are down at 2.45pm local time (0845pm in the UK). Time to head for immigration and baggage reclaim.