I Hate Flying

Well, I certainly hate flying at night.

I boarded the plane at 22.00, immediately donned my 'nil by mouth' sign (blanket over my head) and was fast asleep before the plane took off.

Having worked a full day, I was in no mood for anything except sleeping all the way to Tel Aviv, and would have done so had my kind neighbour not woken me above Sarajevo in the mistaken belief I was desperate to partake of a mid flight cheese roll. Needless to say I was not, nor was I able to get back to sleep.

I don't know about you, but flying gassed me up something awful, and it wasn't long before my neighbour had cause to regret waking me.

Landed at 5am, waste d half an hour due to my bloody driver not showing up, and am in a taxi on the way to the hotel and should be in time for a quick 7am breakfast before a car collects me at 8 to take me to the office for a round of meetings that are scheduled to continue till 19.30, followed by dinner with our guests. I shall sleep well tonight.

Thank God my return flight is during the day.

It's quite amusing, but whenever an inbound plane lands at Tel Aviv, the majority of the Israelis onboard applaud on touchdown.

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Group Pregancy

Someone told me that Beyonce is pregnant - and it's Destiny's Child.

Off so Israel again till Friday, so a small hiatus in posting is imminent.

Glasto Paper Delivieries Cutbacks

We had the annual Folly House gig yesterday afternoon. The day started off quite promising for a 3pm kick-off, and at 2pm the heavens opened with torrential rain. By 4pm it had stopped, but there were further occasional downpours. Needless to say, the garden turned into a Glasto-quagmire.

You can see the house-build in the background of this shot above. We're going to be resuming work in a couple of weeks when our artisan window maker will be measuring up.

As some of you may know, Hay and I have a local paper round up in the village. We've noticed that whereas the pensioners have kept to their normal papers during the economic crisis, the more affluent villagers have cut back to just weekend papers, or none at all.

Para-Digital-Techno-Olympics

Apropos of all this hot air about Oscar Pistorius' blades; ain't it about time we had separate categories for drug-assisted, technology-assisted or whatever-assisted olympics?

Whatever anyone says about whether Pistorius' blades provide an advantage, basically no-one really knows.

What we should be striving toward is people competing on the basis of like-for-like.

Digital Viagra

Went up to Nottingham for a business meeting yesterday and spotted this.

Perhaps they provide assistance with aerial sex.

Gadaffi Compound Gap Year

Apparently Gadaffi has been awarded the Edinburgh Festival Comedy Award for his broadcasts.

Did you see the images from Gadaffi's beach house? Gucci, Armani, Dior, Chanel - the sartorial choice of dictators....

Gadaffi's Compound - it sounds like a medication, doesn't it? Perhaps he can get a job selling it; after all, there aren't many opportunities for unemployed dictators.

A lot of A level students are not able to get on to the course they desire - poor dears. Oxford and Cambridge are known, however, for only wanting the best minds and not someone with A*s in drama, critical thinking and general studies.

Given the foregoing, many of them are choosing to engage in what is called the 'gap year', or what we experts call a parentally-funded, self-indulgent spending spree, before trying again in 12 months time in the forlorn hope that the numbers of competing applicants will have reduced to zero.

I have another proposal; increase the gap year to two years and call it National Service, like they do in Israel (although in their case it's 3 years for men and 2 for women), and make it mandatory for all school leavers. However, the thought of some of our youth with a gun in their hands chills me to the bone.

They Seek Him Here, They Seek Him There

They can't find Gaddafi or his family.

Hardly surprising really - it's the last week of August with a Bank Holiday on Monday. He's obviously on vacation.

Shovelling Loot by Trained Association in a Clouded Mind

Got it sussed - eventually. It took me a while, but I think I have the ideal solution to the riots now.

If we provide free class A drugs (and possibly free trainers too) to all the rioters and looters, they'll be too drugged up to do any more damage. In fact, they might even be too doped up to reproduce, which would prevent anything similar happening for a few generations by breaking a vicious circle.

Having holidayed in the Isles of Scilly, and being a naval man myself, I have become interested in the maritime history of the archipelago, especially the wrecks. I was reading a story about the shipwreck of British naval hero, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. They just don't make names like that anymore!

"Anymore" - now there's a word to conjure up an argument among English speakers. Is it 'anymore', or 'any more'? You decide.

Percentages

I was listening to Any Questions on Radio 4 when driving back from Penzance on Saturday and was astounded to hear one of the panellists say (and I paraphrase); “It’s not right that someone on £200k a year should pay the same amount of tax as someone on £20k a year.” Another said’ “Those on higher salaries should be made to pay more in tax, because they earn more.”

Obviously these university educated people are unfamiliar with the concept of what we experts call ‘percentages’ and their impact on what one actually pays in terms of tax.

Now for some Scilly restaurant reviews; I shall start with St Agnes - in fact I'll finish with St Agnes too.

High Tide: unpretentious place with some 18 covers that serves food which can only be described as fine dining. It doubles as a café during the day and Mike, the NZ chef, takes over for six nights a week in the summer. Small menu of 3 starters, 3 mains and 3 desserts – all wonderful. Two x 3 course meals with two bottles of wine, coffees and liqueurs came to just over £100 with the tip.

Covean Cottage: a B&B that serves delicious breakfasts and lunches. Once every blue moon the owner holds a themed dining evening for invited guests. As Hay had stayed there previously and we were staying next door, we were invited to what was a Russian dining experience – and delicious it was too. £65 for the two of us (including a large tip) for 3 courses – bring your own wine.

The Turk’s Head: typical Cornish pub (and the only one on the island). A medium sized menu with some real treasures – like the duck leg and the excellent mushroom risotto. Good value for money at anywhere between £40 and £70 for a full meal with booze. The landlady was a bit miffed by my electronic cigarette, for no rational reason other than being an ex-smoker (which ain’t at all rational).

Right - back to work, summer's over for another year.

St Mary - the Verdict

The final island review is that of St Mary - the main island - being the point of arrival and departure.

St Mary is not my cup of tea - a bit like Rawtenstall made into an island. Full of day-tripping, meaty-armed ladies in floral print skirts munching on ice creams and accompanied by long-suffering, hen-pecked husbands. Too commercialised by far and tainted by the mainland - looks like St Ives must have looked 50 years ago.

I'm sure there are some nice parts of St Mary, but if your first experience of the Scillies is St Mary, then I doubt you'll ever come back.

The photo below is of St Agnes in rush-hour.