Changi airport

Am at Singapore Changi Airport, same as ever, enormous and money changing. Found a bottle of Absolut Vodka for Anna, she will be happy I hope, it IS very large...

The first part of the journey went well, no sleep, too much food, but relaxing and with suitable cinema   diversion. The next part is twelve hours which will be more challenging but I do have a window seat and a diazepam which I may well use. A sleep before I arrive in Manchester would be advisable. 

'Paul' meaning a Pumkin Soup, tepid!

Here it is....forgettable!

Got connected with the Internet though the Info desk but not wih iPhone as I have no applicable Sim card yet. Will buy that to use in UK at Manchester Airport.

Übercool Uke player on his iPhone

On board...

The take-off happened before I even realised we were in the air...so smooth I had no idea.

Movies were the go so I chose something different, from Cairo, but after a few minutes I could swallow it no longer. Their film industry is such that very few decent original movies get out. This wasan entirely   predictable sort of sexist romp which was boring in the extreme. So I left it and went for a possible winner, a French movie about a gay guy who kisses a girl. Then I found out that he finally falls in love with her, the big twist which the French think they do so well. Only it was clichéd here and really, although it was visually pleasing, the movie was essentially a B grade Airline movie, as I suppose they all are except the classics. Perhaps I should go back to 'All about Eve' and be done with it.

The French 'gay' movie

The first meal was quite OK and of course I ate all of it - but then it was lunch and breakfast combined so I ationalised  the size of it. The one problem with long distance air travel is eating too much, and not getting any sleep. But as we arrive at six pm at Singapore, and take off six hours later, it will be the next leg where I will need some sleep, arriving at Manchester 8am local time, with a full day ahead of me, taking the train to arrive at Richmond to stay with Anna about four fifteen.

Now for a Movie Classic!

The runway...

Me flying to Manchester...beard just there.

Music documentary on Cambodia

'Let they not be Forgotten' was an excellent history of the importance of music in referencing the tragedy that was Cambodia, where nearly all the artists were murdered by Pol Pot under the rule of the communist Khmer Rouge. But music, and the singers, were so important to the morale of the Cambodians that the murderous regime wanted them killed first. They left, all the same, a rich heritage of fifties and sixties pop music which has to be remembered.

Ros Serey Sothea, with a voice of Angels

Face of a QueenRos Sothea

My last movie was also a doco called 'The Lady',  about the life of my twin, Aung San Suu Kyi, popular heroine of Burma who spent fifteen years in home detention after the murderous military takeover in 1962.

This biopic was told by French directorLuc Besson, and he did a great job, especially with the fantastic look-alike of Suu Kyi with the actress playing her  being beyond amazing. The fight goes on, although Suu Kyi is now released, Burma is still under the reign of the Generals in spite of her being the popularly elected leader.

The world, i.e. America and the United Nations, needs to come to their aid, but it seems they are afraid of the consequences to the Burmese people and we certainly don't want a repetition of the Cambodian killing fields. For the record, Suu Kyi was born on the same day and year as I was, so we are in effect, twins and we both just had our seventieth birthday.

Au revoir Sydney

A bit of drama this morning after another good sleep, bed at nine, woke at five, slumbered till seven.

A cuppa with bro made me think I'll just just use my new App to check the flight status with Singapore Airlines. So great, on to their website, and it says tap in flight number, all OK but my flight is VA as it is in tandem with Virgin, and there is naturally no response to VA as they wanted SQ. So I read the small print where they abrogate themselves from all responsibility in warning you to check at least twenty-four hours before the scheduled flight..so I go to Virginflights and see what is happenening there. 

There is no VA 5110 which is my scheduled flight. Panic sets in just a smidgen, I read further and see a phone number, 1300 in Brisbane at BYO Jet. So I call them and they are not open till 8 am and it is 7.55. I breathe deeply and wait five minutes and finally I get a real person. She says  'Oh, you can't check in on the web as it is a co-sponsored flight you must do it at airport and the flight is in order.' 

I relax somewhat and and still decide to ask bro if we can leave a little earlier as it is peak-hour on the way to the airport.

Arriving at the International Termina 1, I go to the Singapore Airlines check-in and the nice Serbian gives me the AOK and says I can have a window seat for stage two but I have to sit right in the middle for stage one, meaning eight hours locked in between two others, not a great thought to start the trip with. However, I am here, I have my flight, and I pass through customs and security quite fast. 

Security asks to check all my contents....ho hum, I have nothing in there I know. But lo and behold, my herbal toothpaste, nearly all squeezed out, has written on it 110 mg, ten about the allotted amount. So out goes my toothpaste and I am finally into the maze of Duty Free at Sydney Airport, one of the worst in  the world. I cursorily look for the Vodka stand to give Anna a nice bottle on my arrival, on her request. They are enormous and heavy and I renege and will wait till Singapore. Carrying another two kilos of alcohol is not what I need at this point in time.  I decide to email her asking which brand she wants, they go from $20 to $60 and I want to be reasonable,but I know she drinks it for the effect not the taste, mixing it with something or other. I hope she replies to me before Singapore where I will buy it during my six hour wait at at the palace of consumption halfway to UK and Manchester, my destination.

In the meantime I unpack the (very heavy) book request from Meg, Don Watson's lates book called The Bush. I may as well have a look at it although I certainly won't get through it, it doesn't just weigh a ton... it's 500 pages long!  Such is friendship...lol! 

Meg's The Bush

Waiting at Sydney Airport..

Lewis Jettadoes a sort of Haka in honour of Adam Goodes, I do miss my Aussie Rules.

Am in my Air Singapore plane and cannot believe it, my nice Serbian check-in man had put down that I be given an aisle seat if one became available, and yes, spot-on, I get an aisle seat very far back, but what's more, I have NO neighbours, at all! Such a blessing and I am so grateful for being looked after already in this flight. It seems like a booked-out flight, yet next to me are two free seats. The first of my miracles on this trip to the Birmingham ECK Seminar.

All is well for the beginning of this adventure which started nervously but is going ahead at full speed. Next test will be to collect my all my Trainline Tickets at Manchester, Richmond and Brighton. Will be ready for some possible kinks there, but am visualising all will be well. Baraka Bashad!

Bondi Beach

Last night a good sleep made all the difference and I awoke to a nice hot oats porridge prepared by ever attentive brother at Malabar. Yesteday I also visited Gail and Frank around the corner and had a big catch-up before I see Monnie in Hobart in a few weeks times. All is well with Gail, Monnie's eldest, and Rachel is heavily pregnant with her four baby with new partner, a Maori am this time, so the blood mix will be interesting.

At the traditional Lamrock Cafe on Bondi Beach

Sunny and crowded

...everyone is enjoying the sunny winter's day

I have come to Bondi to hear my bro play the ukulele and sing with his mates, something which he does regularly now and he is totally addicted to it. He doesn't realise the high he gets from singing and entertaining others. It has certainly been the best thing to have happened to him since the sad death of his wife seven years ago. 

So I am vaguely looking for his group but not till noon, so have sat down at a gracious invitation from 'Nonna' to have a coffee and raisin toast at her family's corner cafe. This is quintessentially the family   concern, all showing remarkable facial similarities and I would say it is first generation Aussies from Lebanese or Jewish stock. They are doing great business filling quickly all the chairs and serving a great variety of popular breakfasts from pancakes to fried eggs with the lot. The coffee was excellent.

Here the blended family....parents and in-laws, gay daughter with partner and all very happily together in Bondi sun. Bondi is really fulfilling its potential on this warm winter's day with many in the surf enjoying its benefits.

The Big Band at Ravesi's

Back of bro, third from right!

Enjoying Bondi winter sun..

Sydney Coco Cubana

Wellington departure

It's Saturday five am and I am through the customs, security and duty free. Wellington is certainly a simple airport to negotiate. My private taxi, instead of the Shuttle, was a charming Indian who was right on time. I was also, but not after a wee drama of not finding my Master Travel Card, the essential item I need for my overseas currency. I looked everywhere, it should have been with other cards but I couldn't find it anywhere. I was getting a bit stressed, began to HU of course, and looked through old wallets and found the duplicate which I had forgeotten I had.. This would suffice, it was already time for the taxi.

All packed I rushed downstairs and all was well. Then on rechecking my cards at the airport I discover to my relief that the elusive card was always there, but stuck close to another one avoiding sight.Such things happen when you have more than one card. So my packing was all under control. I am trying to take as little luggage as possible although I am doing three countries (including Tassie!) and two hemispheres in five weeks. It will be a good test of my travel acumen.

A nice coffee and croissant at the airport caffé

Attentive service

Great coffee and ham and cheese croissant.the Kiwis are still the best for food.

New Zealand is readyfor a Royal Commission too. Like Australia, the US and Ireland where Royal Commissions have discovered thousands of abused children and hundreds of guilty priests, the Catholic Church in particular is responsible for accepting blame and it is not doing it at all. Four acknowledged paedophile priests in New Zealand are still alive and unchallenged. It is a terrible state of affairs where the victims are so traumatised that they have no trust in either the police or the Catholic Church to revisit their horrific life-changing experiences. They cannot talk about it in court. What can these poor people do? In many cases the victims were paid some pay-out money to keep them silent, that, in itself is a serious crime and the Catholic Church should be held accountable.

I have passed the excellent South Australian report on to K who himself was abused as a child and has had no therapy or recogniton of the associated trauma. Deep down these people never lose the effect of their loss of innocence and many continue with a serious feeling of guilt for participating in what was never their fault. The victim is never guity. I am hoping that K might discover in the article something in common with other abused victims and become able to express his anger or whatever he feels about it. Bottling it up is not the answer.

Last Friday before UK

Arrived at Memphis as always, but today Johnny says my coffee is on him as a bon voyage gift... nice guy that! As Paul is coming too at least I can buy his coffee.. 

All is ready for tomorrow's very early start, I just have to drop the car near Tom's at Newtown and get home to try for some sleep before the Shuttle picks me up at 4.40 am.

Good news for Sonny as his luggage eventually arrived and he presented me with a Ravi Shenkar style CD of Flute Playing, a nice thought and is some beautiful meditative music.

Koroi up early to do his washing and I said goodbye to him too. I will email them all from the airport when I have two hours to fill in tomorrow morning. Malcolm sending me a Link on Child Abuse was very timely, so I will forward that to K. as no doubt he will discover something there. Who knows what the future holds in this house for him, he just needs to work through some stuff deep down.

Big news about cover-up in top political circles in UKKiwi Justice Lowell Goddard in charge and will no doubt be the best person for this incredibly difficult job of unravelling paedophilia at the hightest echelon in the UK, and good luck to her.

The famous Carmen Rupe, re-created for Wellington's 150th celebrations, this actor looks a lot like Camen did! She was a great Wellington Maori transgender personality lost to the Sydney Scene, but passed away last year.

A shot of Memphis a while agonow on the cafe wall.

Muhammad Ali came to Lower Huttand loved it!

Bureaucratic dithering at the heart and soul of so many problems of roadworks, amongst others.

But Kiwi craft beers winning accolades

Just delivered the carand cannot relax so am catching this Russell Brand doco by Michael Winterbottom. It should be relevant to the UK I am about to visit.

It is touted as 'a polemical documentary about the financial crisis'. 

It just might be a lesson for me in modern economics, something which I have never really been at all knowledgeable about or really interested in, but it does affect us all. It veers from London City to NYC and doesn't pull any punches it seems.

Well it certainly showed the crookedness of high finance, the banks, and tax evasion, all together creating a totally unequal society of the rich and the poor, reminding us of the feudal times of many centuries ago. Are we reverting to this ancient and very wrong past?

Stopped for a breather on wayhome along glorious Oriental Parade, tonight even better by half-moon light, with my beard just taking shape.

The lit trees...

....the red fountain spraying proudly in the bay