Travel Day

And we are off again for another fantastic week in the Big Apple or Trump Vegas as it is known. “Do you like New York then?” some corporate Neanderthal twat asked me the other day. No, you see I’m actually having an affair with the woman on the handbag counter in Macy’s. It’s a weird dysfunctional relationship where my wife goes and pays her hush money every time we are there. 


As i lift pen to paper we are currently pulling out of Coventry Station. Coventry the site of many World War 2 bombings should never have been rebuilt. It’s a wart on the arse of Birmingham. It is the epicentre of 1970s architecture constructed in the 60s from concrete and shit. Mostly shit. But we are leaving all this behind. Ahead of us 5 nights in the city that never sleeps. On our list of things to do… erm. 

  • Eat burgers
  • Eat pastries. 
  • Eat burgers.
  • Eat bagels. 
  • Then after breakfast look for somewhere for lunch! 

We won’t be “seeing a show” “going up the Empire State Building” “having a romantic horse drawn carriage trip around Central Park” I’d love to obviously, but honestly they cost money and we aren’t spending money. We are armed to the teeth with quarters, dimes and no less than 400 one cent pieces which we need to get rid of before we incur any further costs. I do loathe extravagance as you know. And that is the reason why we upgraded to business class. It is merely a lesson to those people in society who need to look after their money better. Let’s just use the politically correct term… paupers. 


Obviously, I won’t be enjoying myself. In the time between relaxing with a single malt or taking advantage of my lie flat bed, I’ll be self-flagellating! Just know I’m suffering for you. In many ways I’m a Jesus Christ like figure. But fear not, because whilst I might be crucified by the impact on my bank balance, I will rise again. Quite poetically, at Easter…. In Bermuda. But I’m telling you the plot. 


£305 is all this cost me to upgrade. They said, Steve my son, you’ve earned it. And with calves the size of a young cow, you’re going to need the extra leg room… and endless champagne and curry. Yes my friends, it’s Saturday night! You’ve gotta have a curry haven’t you!? And so as a middle aged British white man, living his life mostly like Jesus Christ himself. Today Matthew, I’m going to be a Hindu Vegetarian! 


“But Steve, you’re not a vegetarian?!” That is technically correct. But, and i don’t want to be ist here… you can’t trust Hindu food not to include fish. We all know fish are the work of the devil. You’d never get Christians eating fish. Well, apart from that incident with the loaves and the fishes. Honestly, if you could turn water into wine why would you bother creating fish finger sandwiches.  I think the teaching of Jesus Christ here is … Christians are stupid.


And so to London. Imagine if you will a sewer where the lumps of jettisoned excrement are actually people. Not as you may think. Lovely adorable cock-a-nees singing knees up mother brown. But actual turds of people flushed here by our failing train network with not a care or a brain cell in the world. At least on a weekday the turds have jobs to go to. A purpose, a need to move. On a weekend we have collections of turds in family groups. They think they are having fun. What they are actually doing is ruining my day. 


Anyway… I’m heading to New York baby. We head for the Lizzie line. Named after our dear old Lizzie herself. And just like her. It’s dead as a dodo. At least I didn’t carry two heavy cases up three flights of stairs to find out and then had to swim against the turd tide to return back to where I came from with the aforementioned heavy cases acting as weapons, culling old people and children as I went. 


Ah well, we will just have to travel on the Piccadilly line.  It is shit and slow, but normally on a Saturday I’d be heading to watch Wolverhampton Wanderers defence.  So many similarities. I spare a thought for Craig Dawson and shed a tear. I’m not sure many footballers use the Piccadilly line to get to Heathrow. But then they aren’t fabulously wealthy like me are they? Sigh. 


We arrive at Heathrow in double slow time. I shun the lifts in favour of the escalators. Luggage is banned on the escalators. Ha! They can’t stop me… I’m taking my luggage on the escalators all the way up to departures and ‘the man’ isn’t going to stop me. It’s some time later at the top of the aforementioned escalators I realise (again) that the escalators only go to arrivals. We get a lift to departures. 

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