The long night and longer flight.

As per usual I had forgotten to eat for most of the day, so the trip from the apartment to the airport was puncuated by finding a dust covered piece of chewing gum, the sound of my stomach and the infurating yet constant dropping of calls on the journey to the airport (sorry Cindy!)…

But we arrived, checked-in and headed to the lounge – oh, after securing and exit row seat. Imagine my annoyance as after settling into the window exit row (which has a huge unnecessary obstruction in front – the exit door that is) and planning to shift to the aisle, Miss ‘Oh so smiley and helpful but probably wouldn’t be to you Mr. Gold Card Holder Who Never Get’s Good Service Ex-USA on Virgin’ decides to bring to Hagrid size, Little Britain characters up to sit in the other two seats.

After I calm myself down (KK said to ‘listen to my breathing’, imagine hearing Black Beauty after a canter across a beach type breathing was being heard) I realise that this is the beginning of a long journey and there’s no point being picky knickers.

Words simply cannot describe the discomfort I suffered in this Guantanemo inspired stress position – but it was the ONLY position as Andy and Lou next to me were convinced that I did actually want one of their belly’s exposed from their t-shirts and warmly pressing against my side like a damp human leech.

And the food. Holy moly. You’d need divine intervention to stomach it. I have never been served a meal that was entirely grey in my entire life. I’m not sure how Virgin are able to make their meals so unpalatable – there  must be an award they could win for it (I expect with Paul Charles as their head of PR it’s entirely possible they have).
I did sleep for a little while. There was nothing else to do really. Oh, and when I unfolded my tray table it was wet – and smelt like a student’s 4 days damp in the washing machine/dried too quickly on a flaky radiator’s cords.   Nice.

Arrival could not come soon enough – and with a  strong wind behind us (always preferable) we landed bang on time.

To the salvation that is the Virgin Clubhouse! Don’t spare the horses!

Oh my god, the telephone!

What joy, what sweet embrace! As the scratch resistant glass kissed my cheek and I had the briefest of chats today with ‘Dear Friend in Advertising in London who Is The Funniest Man I Know’…

Not only was it a total pleasure to step outside of the artifice of Facebook, or email or whatever, it was nice to hear a human VOICE (remember those?).

I recall Barry Diller, when asked if he was into social networking simply saying ‘I’ve been social networking all my life, I have a telephone’.

So it was with trepidation that I called, I had some news to share, but immediately it was like we were back in Joe Allen’s gabbling the night away over 4 bottles of Crozes Hermitage.

He’s a man I was trying to describe to a colleague today and continued to fail until I spluttered out ‘He’s a touch Stephen Fry… but straight’ – which was immediately recognised as a ‘type’ and made the mental image I was painting much clearer.

Thank God for the Footlights (and the bloody iPhone).

Newman Street, London W1.

This I took for Marc Schiller, owner of the Wooster Collective, a blog about street-art. It was a total surprise to me and I thought it was brilliant. So I sent it to him.

Its gone far enough.

I don’t know. Maybe as one gets older one gets more cantankerous. Or maybe I’m becoming the sort of person I hate. But one thing is for sure, the more I whore myself in the whacky world of media and marketing the more difficult I become to live with.

And the intolerance levels… dear GOD you had better not catch me on a bad day. I suppose you have to accept the things you can’t – or frankly – can’t be bothered to change.

One thing you should change however is a national print advertising campaign if it had a typographical error of such stupidity even a jetlagged, exhausted down-on-his-luck consulting deadbeat like me could spot it.

Shame on you Reebok and you’re stinking trainer fetish laced retail emorium for chavs ‘JD Sports’…

I’m not sure I ever talked about this.

I’m not sure I ever talked about this., originally uploaded by English Man in New York City.