Tag Archives: london

Thailand 2006 – Day Fifteen

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Saturday – Homeward Bound

Martin knocks on the bedroom door just after 9am. I grumble, cough, and get up. I need to be on the plane in a little over four hours – time to pack.

After several sweeps of the apartment, I’m convinced that I’ve got everything I need, and so it’s down in the elevator and across the road we go, suitcase and all, to Starbucks for a wake-up coffee. I sip and people-watch, it’ll be strange to be back amongst so many white faces again instead of the asians amongst whom I’ve been an ethnic minority myself for the past fortnight.

I drink up, and we find a handy taxi outside. I thank Martin again for his and Tik’s generous hospitality, we’ve all had a great time. Martin tells the taxi driver which airport and terminal, in perfect Thai, and I sit back and gaze out of the window for the long trip to Don Muang International.

Once at the airport I check my bags in straight away, pay the 500 Baht airport tax for permission to leave the country(!), and queue. I pick up some Werther’s Original at duty-free for my stepmother, some tiger balm for Sian, and 200 B&H for me. Then down to Gate 5, and I sit in the smoking room to ingest thirteen hours’ worth of nicotine.

Wheezing, I emerge into the waiting area and spot the couple I sat next to on the flight over here. I catch up with them for a quick chat, they’ve had a great time and will definitely return next year. The bloke’s only complaint is that he lost his mobile, and could do with calling his son to arrange getting picked up at Heathrow. He’s tried the payphones but no luck. I’ve still got some spare credit on my Thai cellphone that’ll expire before I return again, so I let him use my phone. We chat about Bangkok – they didn’t get to Suan Lum, but enjoyed the palace, the floating market, the river taxis. They got approached by a few scammers, but remembered the warnings that I (and their hotel) had given them, so emerged unscathed (and unladen with worthless gemstones)!

Half an hour late, we finally board the plane for the twelve and a half hour flight to Heathrow, with only movies and airline food to keep me sane. Pride and Prejudice is enjoyable, The Legend of Zorro is pants, Duma is more endearingly cute than I can really stomach (but I watch it anyway, captive audience that I am), and Just Like Heaven is sickly-sweet nonsense – I’m willing the heroine to suffer a gruesome death all the way through. Tragically, she does not.

Finally, and just as I manage to get to sleep, we land. Passport control and baggage reclaim are mercifully quick, and I meet my driver at arrivals before sucking on a cigarette in the car park. The motorways are almost empty – quite a contrast to Bangkok traffic, and I’m back home within about an hour.

I dump the bags, hug Sian, and we hit the pub. And then sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

On London

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“I don’t want you going anywhere near London”, my mother said as I booked my trip to Ireland. “Don’t fly from Heathrow”.

“Doesn’t that mean the terrorists have won?”, I wondered to myself. Still, the flight from Luton is easier to get to, and although Luton was itself where the July 7 bombers travelled to London from, it’s certainly unlikely to be a prime target. In fact, much like Birmingham, I’d argue that it might actually do the place good to be explosively rennovated.

But people’s attitudes since the attacks in which 56 people died, including the four apparent suicide attackers, have been mixed. The We’re not Afraid site has given Londoners and others an outlet with which to show their defiance. Less brave Londoners have set up their own site in response: I Am F*cking Terrified. Plenty of gratuitous swearing, and unfortunately not-very-funny pictures, but they also make some very good points:

8. Fear is something you can grit your teeth against, but it doesn’t stop you being afraid. If you’re terrified, you’re terrified. Simple as that.

9. Terrorists cause terror. That’s why they’re called terrorists. If they didn’t cause terror, they’d be called something else – like ‘annoyingists’. Saying that you’re afraid doesn’t mean that the terrorists have “won”. #

Let’s face it, the ideology that drives these people is not fuelled by how scared someone who lives near London might be about going down for a day trip. Brits claiming not to be particularly bothered about what is, let’s face it, a pretty shambolic “terror” campaign will not convince the extremists to pack up and go home.

At the moment, we’re the bad guys, and it’s not because we’re afraid. It’s because of the mess our governments have made in the Middle East over the past century. And unfortunately, it’s going to take more than bravado to put that right.

Oh no, not again

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Police in Birmingham in the Midlands are evacuating the city centre.

Earlier they issued a warning they had received intelligence suggesting a threat to the area.

“Our response needs to be proportionate in the action we’re taking and in informing the public,” a spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said.

Police are now closing down the Birmingham Broad street entertainment zone and asking people to go home. A statement will be released shortly.

Hopefully a false alarm, but more will undoubtably appear at BBC News.

[Edit: a controlled explosion has taken place on a bus, looks like a false alarm. I wouldn’t even dare to suggest that performing a controlled explosion on Birmingham itself now that it’s nice and empty would be advantageous to all…]

London

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Terrorist attacks have hit London. Three explosions on the underground and one bus has been ripped apart by an explosion.

Tony Blair made a statement at noon confirming that London had been attacked by terrorists, for anyone who hadn’t worked that much out yet, and promptly left the G8 summit in Edinburgh for London in a Chinook helicopter.

All of my friends in London are accounted for, and thankfully it now seems that they can finally say the same about their own friends, after hours upon hours of worry.

“More than 50″, however, are now confirmed dead, with upwards of 700 injured.

Words fail. On the one hand I’m so grateful that the number of casualties pales in comparison to the previous attacks on New York, Bali, Jakarta and Madrid, but still several hundred people’s lives have been altered forever.

No political frothing here, it’s neither the place nor time. My thoughts are of course with the families and friends of the victims, and I hope that at least the worst has passed.

More information:

LiveJournal community

Guardian timeline

BBC full coverage

Wikipedia article

Flickr group

The Londoner

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haircuts

In a bar in Islington, North London:

Her: “So where in London do you live?”
Me: “I don’t live in London.”
Her: (Blank stare)

I did have an excellent weekend in our capital city, but would like to point out that even if it’s described on the menu as “Steak Sandwich, served in a toasted Portugese roll with light salad and french fries” instead of just “Burger and chips”, it still shouldn’t cost £8.50.

Oh, and any city where an £8 haircut is cheap enough to shout about is frankly insane. I remember paying £1.70 for mine when I was at college. Oh no, I’m turning into an old man, and rambling about how cheap things were when I was a lad. Erk.

Still, I suppose London wages would compensate for London prices to some extent. Perhaps I’m doing it the wrong way around – I should earn my salary in London, and then spend my weekends in the impoverished North, home of chips and gravy, and beer that costs less than £2 a pint…

I’ve been writing about my recent cultural habits, but haven’t finished yet. I’ve been doing lots of reading, taken in a few films, have been glued to the new series of Dr Who, and will discuss all of these and more here soon.

I also updated About Me, in case anyone doesn’t know who I am.