Flights of fancy

Well I must say: thank goodness British Airways didn't go on strike...and I (selfishly) made it back to splendid Singapore. This rant isn't going to be about the politics of strike action (I'll save that for another time), but rather about how impressed I was with BA's service.

I've been living in splendid Singapore for over 6 years now - and by the way I think "splendid Singapore" a much more apt and "out there" epithet that "uniquely Singapore" adopted by the tourism board here - and during this time have been a loyal advocate of Singapore Airlines (or SQ as we affectionately refers to them, using their airline code as shorthand). They are indeed hard to beat; well designed cabins, impeccably trained crew, the slimmest women (and men) you've ever seen in the sky; and a record for efficiency and accuracy that is legendary.

I had some Cathay Pacific OneWorld miles to use up before they expired and managed to secure (with great difficulty) business class flights back home for Christmas with British Airways. It was going to cost me virtually nothing and I thought "why not?!".

The flight to London was a great start with wonderful seats (newly designed) and much more comfortable than the "old" SQ seats and even better laid out than the new SQ "largest seat in business class" mammoth. The cocoon-style pod of BA is a tad hemmed-in to begin with, but once you get over your innate sense of claustrophobic self-preservation, the seat is soft, long and terribly enticing to a good night's sleep. I always feel the SQ wide-berth leather-coated chair-cum-bed with a donkey leg, lie sideways to sleep approach, a bit awkward.

But surely SQ trumped BA on service, I hear you shout...well, actually the service both ways on BA was very very good; welcome drinks were served, food was delivered with precision (mostly) and the crew were polite and engaging. There were glitches, of course there were, but that's a fact of a very complicated service offering with many variables...I was slightly peeved, I must confess, that after telling at least 5 BA staff at different stages of my arrival that I wanted to use the arrivals lounge to shower before my connecting flight to Newcastle and not one of them advised me I could use the departures lounge at Terminal 5, even though I was flying economy, since I'd arrived in business class from HK. So I did waste about 30-40 minutes exiting customs and putting myself through unnecessary security searches to get back through - ah well, customers often know more about the products than the brand ambassadors themselves.

I could have wished for more TV choices (films were OK) not knowing a single comedy option on offer and feeling short-changed on the documentary front, but these are small points in the big scheme of things - and coming back to Singapore, I did watch a fabulous commentary on Beethoven, which imbued me with a serene joy.

So all in all, a delightful experience and one I will most likely repeat - SQ's penny-pinching of late has become a tad annoying and the food quite inedible in all classes - so it's not very often I wave the Union Flag and shout bravo England!, but on this occasion I feel I shall and more importantly, I feel that BA deserves it.

Well done.
And by way, the photo is of Carlisle, Cumbria showing a snowy lane on 22nd December.

Madras or Chennai?

I was recently lucky enough to visit my very good friends Patrick and Beebee in the rather nondescript city of Chennai - formerly Madras.

Is that a contradiction, I hear you cry...yes and no.

As with so many things in life it's an oxymoron of real-life proportions. The city itself was nothing to write home about, but the people....oh the people.

As expected, Patrick showed me the party side of Madras: those guys know how to party, with 80s funk and 90s chic. After surviving the driving to get to a stag night on Saturday evening, the booming didn't stop. We were fortunate to be cocooned at a friend's "studio"-cum-"kitchen" with all the mod cons including sink and conveniently placed bathrooms. The trance music mixed by the groom-to-be was a little jolting, but the conversation was passionate and engaging.

I think a couple of the conservative Channaikers were somewhat taken aback at my openness about being gay; but that will do them good in the long run.

Then we retired to the hen party - a first for me....I've done plenty of hen nights on their own and a couple of stags - including my own - but this was a first combining the two..... and after a bum-feeling contest which I managed to avoid, I thought perhaps it was not a bad idea to combine the two. Mind you, I did miss the actual "feeling" action, but my vodka tonic was refreshing - a man can't have everything, now, can he?!?!

Then, Monday, and some culture....the rocks at Mamallapuram were amazing. Entire temples carved from single pieces of rock; smoothed over centuries of lapping seawater; eventually preserved by constructing a simple barrier sanctioned by the late Indira Ghandi.

So, is it Chennai or Madras? Who the hell cares, it's a city full of life, wonderful creativity and amazing relics.

I personally like the onomatopoeia of Madras but do acknowledge the political obligation of a name-change.



I'll be back.

Thoughts on a Tuesday evening....

Or is it Wednesday morning....?
Suppose it depends where you are, right?

Life throws all kinds of malarkey at you...and it almost never seems fair...but how much of it, is of our own making? This is a question I often I ask myself. What if I did that differently, what if I had done that, what if....oh for goodness' sake; what if?

Someone told me recently it's good to wear ones heart on ones sleeve and I've always done that and this old dog won't change his tricks. And why the hell should we? We are what / who we are and the tricks we've perfected should serve us well. But in defence of the dark art of honesty, I firmly believe when we're truthful, honest, open, admissive, we allow others a view of our soul; we allow others the right to judge; we allow others to be themselves.

Let go; just be...

I am trying that philosophy right now and I think it's a good paradigm to work within.

I'm listening to a CD a good friend recorded and the track by Leona Lewis resonates with: what if it hurts me? what if I break down? ... I wanna hear myself ... don't care about all pain in front of me ... I just wanna be happy.

And that's where we all surely wanna be.

This blog entry is a truly joyous entry; one filled with hope and optimism.

I shall see many many friends over the Festive Season and there will be many more I won't see, but I know there are constants in all this turbulence.

I will probably blog more often (if more succinctly) over the next few weeks...hope you can cope with following it all...and PLEASE DO COMMENT.

Well here endeth the rant...or was it a revelation?!