simongr's Unfinished Work

[simongr]

Journey – ORD-LGA
Flight no. – AA350
Class – First
Seat – 3E

So I am through security and it’s time to find a lounge and a shower. I have been told to avoid the Flagship lounge unless my departure gate is close to the lounge. I quickly work out that this is not the case as the F lounge doesn’t seem to be in close proximity to anywhere. My departure gate is L4 so I try and find a AC close to there.

There are no issues getting access to the lounge and I even provided with a chit for the bar. I book my shower and try to jump online using the well publicised “free” internet access only to discover that it is only free to AC member. Makes you wonder how many people in the lounge are not AC members and thus what marginal cost providing universal free internet would cost AA…

After a mediocre shower (where the head positioning seems to be designed for the vertically challenged) I note that my flight is now delayed to 18:40 from 18:15 so I decide to make a break for the F lounge.

It is an interesting journey to the F lounge – slightly longer and less sign posted than I expected and the door itself is almost hidden but I am warmly welcomed into the actually quite nice lounge. A immediately grab a cold beer – ahh beer the cause of and solution to life’s problems – and negotiate my way through the labyrinthine free internet access (not quite a one click here – but after three turns hubwise, two hops widdershins and a slight tickle around the ankle I am finally on).

After a quick check of the departure time at 18:15 I am told to go to the gate immediately – they would have given me a ride on the cart but that isn’t leaving for 10 minutes. A brisk walk down concourse K leads me to the realisation that gate L4 is a tad further away than I thought so I up the pace a little – one would hate to be late to the party. In reality the journey (including ATM stop – ah I wish for the days when I used to call them cash points) only take 10 mins so I at L4 in plenty of time for the flight – and when I say plenty of time… I really mean it.

Quite literally as I get to the gate I get the blackberry buzz which has the highly timely notification that my flight is further delayed. To rub further salt in the wounds the buggy from the F lounge rolls past – I could have stayed and finished that second beer! The progressively later and late flight now has 43 people on the standby list due to earlier cancellations.

Finally as gate lice seem to be breeding exponentially and pax for later flights from L4 begin to arrive it is a slightly relieved simongr that boards at 19:00 only to become a fairly annoyed simongr that pushes back at 20:10 with wheels up finally at 20:15 – looks like I will be a tad late getting to the hotel!

[aside]

The Parka Incident

Now I know ORD is cold in March (the weather reports in the lounge showed me the temperatures) and so is NYC but I am bemused by the two pax in 1AC seem to be dressed for a polar expedition rather than a domestic US flight. Seriously these are wearing those giant winter coats that you wear going up Everest, with scarves, gloves AND woolly hats!!! Seriously guys – I am sat here in my seat wearing a thin jacket and a Polo shirt – are these people just weak???? Even the FA makes a comment.

I guess it just adds to the rich tapestry of humanity.

[/aside]

The flight itself is unsurprisingly unexciting but is tempered by the fact that the meal is surprisingly edible – some cheesy tortellini dish that I actually think is an improvement over the international F food I just had!

In a further descent into madness I am for some reason a little perturbed that my seat buddy and I do not share a word for the entire flight – I guess on flight four of four I am beginning to get a little cabin fever and there is need for some human interaction.

As we begin our descent into LGA I note that we have made up a skerrick of time and land around 10:30. I sprint through the deserted LGA, get into a fracas with taxi drivers as they fight over who gets to take me to Manhattan (I am good but not worth fighting over) and finally begin to exchange emails with my colleague to find out where we are meeting tonight and at around 11:15PM I am in a cab on my way to SoHo.

I find Bar Verlaine at around 11:30 and wonder if I am setting a record for aircraft to bar The bar is on the corner of Irving and Essex and is actually quite nice. It is however a little amusing to join a drinking session at around 11:30PM that seems to have started at around four hours earlier. At around 2AM we leave Bar Verlaine and head to “Arlene’s Grocery” which is alleged to be a famous institution where many famous popular musical artists have performed.

That closes at around 2:45 and then remembering to put out clocks forward I get back to the hotel at around 4AM – QF009, eat your heart out

I don’t manage to get to sleep until 6AM and then it is off for brunch with an old work colleague at Balthazar- back in SoHo. After lunch I walk back from SoHo to the Doubletree (I was meant to be at the Waldorf – but we shall not mention that again) – via a couple of comic shops of course.

I have dinner with the same colleagues from last night at Barbuto and we are joined by my Oz based boss. The conversation is quite amusing with one of my colleagues as we go through exactly the same set of questions he asked me the night before but has no recall of

Monday is a tortuously long meeting in the office, followed by a along drive to Princeton for our conference that is a sequence of very long meetings and very long bar sessions – closing the bar out every night!

My team stays an extra day in Princeton after the other teams head off but thankfully we finish up around lunchtime and after a panicked search for my passport I am on my way LCA via LHR… Another long day!

 

[serfty]

... The Parka Incident ...

I have seen this; I put it down at the time to the weight/volume of this type clothing and the fact it has zero weight/volume when actually worn ... a property it does not possess when being included in carry-on (or, indeed, checked :shock luggage.

 

[simongr]

Journey – JFK-LHR
Flight no. – AA100
Class – First
Seat – 1A

After my poor seating choice NRT-ORD I decide to switch seats JFK-LHR but find that will require me to sit next to someone in F – something I would rather not experience – I have had enough human interaction over the past few days to last me a flight!

I sleep through most of a fairly quick journey from Princeton to JFK. Pulling up to the new AA terminal at JFK requires going past the old terminal and I note the progressively being dismantled stained glass “wall”. I breeze through check in to LHR – remembering at the last minute that I am actually going to LCA – but the staffer has already checked me in through to LCA

As ever JFK security is a pain with the express lane slower than the regular lane as people insist in arguing (in French) with the TSA about shoe removal – damnit people there is Champagne style sparkling pinot noir chardonnay with my name on it in the F lounge needing to be drunk! Thankfully I find my way to the F lounge a little more easily than last time.

As I have quite a long session in the lounge I navigate my way through the Byzantinely complex free internet access (three turns hubwise, two hops widdershins and a slight tickle around the ankle) and actually do some work :shock:

This F lounge is not a patch on SYD/HKG/NRT but isn’t too bad in reality. The Champagne style sparkling pinot noir chardonnay blend is Napa Mumm – and it amuses me that last night I was drinking real Mumm champagne at about 1AM last night celebrating one of my colleagues birthday’s.

Finally it is time to board and I am quickly into my seat with a plan to sleep as much of this flight as I can and the lack of AVOD on board will assist this.

[aside]

The return to the gate – incident

After having boarded and pushed back a very, very unusual thing happened. The Captain came on over the PA and announced that he was going to do something that he had never done in 20 years of flying we were returning to the gate to collect some late/delayed passengers. I have never heard of this happening before.

The gentlemen in question were two semi-casually men in their twenties with short haircuts and no look of tourist about them – to me this says only one thing: CIA/NSA spooks on their way to Eastern Europe to kidnap Russian mafia bosses who are selling nuclear weapons to the North Koreans – completely obvious if you ask me.

As we push back again the Captain comes back on and plays the “all aboard” whistle noise that you associate with steam trains. Quite cutesy and unusual also.

[/aside]

The staff are the best (and youngest) I have experienced on AA in F – a shame that my interaction with them was so limited. I skip the prawn/shrimp appetiser and the salad and the FAs are very apologetic that they can’t serve me the main course any faster which I think is a nice touch. Sadly the red curry chicken was not worth the wait.

After dinner I struggle to get to sleep but eventually crash around 2AM UK time so I manage around four hours sleep in total.
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And that I have to say really is the definition of unfinished.

 

[simongr]

The end (?) of simongr’s unfinished

Thus ends simongr’s unfinished – if one can call an unfinished work ended that is. There have been some great unfinished works in history, Schubert’s, Kafka’s, Tolkien’s, The Palace of the Soviets but nothing compares to simongr’s great unfinished work – the journey that only got as far as flying out of New York.

No-one knows why the work was unfinished, some theories suggest some great natural disaster like the great flu bug that wiped out the dinosaurs that was brought to earth by aliens who then subsequently colonised the earth and built the great pyramids. Other theories suggest that a large amount of Napa Mumm was drunk in the First lounge at JFK followed by a few glasses of red on board AA100 led to a slight case of non-compus mentus and a few less notes being taken than normal.

All we know is that we left simongr listening to the railway whistle on AA100 after the spooks boarded. One would not like to connect the two events – a lack of notes being taken and smartly dressed short haired gentlemen being spirited aboard. There is no suggestion whatsoever that simongr was spirited away to a secret illegal prison for interrogation but the only facts that we do have are sketchy at the best:

• There was dinner in Cyprus
• Some rugby was watched
• He did meet a very interesting member of the British diplomatic service (again unconnected to any suspected spooks boarding the aircraft in JFK)
• The was slight case of a glass of port being poured in the trousers leading to a change of pants in HKG
• The smoking in the LCA lounge was as annoying as ever

All other details are left to the imagination of the reader – perhaps there was a glorious moment of perfect journeying with peace and serenity pierced only by the offer of Dom Perignon, or perhaps there was just a standard J class flight lhr-lca-lhr-hkg-syd pierced only the by occasional buzzing of the call button summoning more red wine… sadly we shall never know.

Until next time this is Chocka Bloke, checking out.

Oh and the next time is going to be the official Big Personal Trip – get your bed socks and your beverage of choice ready for on that journey dear readers – I think we are in for a wild time.

 

[sr81]

three turns hubwise, two hops widdershins and a slight tickle around the ankle

Disc World reference as well, nice. Quite a pop-culture TR this one.

 

[codash1099]

Disc World reference as well, nice. Quite a pop-culture TR this one.

But undoubtedly a work of great literary merit. It combines information with humour.

Perhaps we need to publish a "Best of" to properly recognise the worth of the reporters.

 

[sr81]

But undoubtedly a work of great literary merit. It combines information with humour.

Do you mean Prachett or simongr? :shock:

 

[simongr]

Do you mean Prachett or simongr? :shock:

Every time you mention his name you have to donate $1 to Alzheimers research

 

[codash1099]

Every time you mention his name you have to donate $1 to Alzheimers research

I keep forgetting.