We are flying to Adelaide today. I liked Brisbane and it will be even better when it is finished. Some didn’t think that it matches up to Adelaide or Perth. They say that it is like Swan Vestas compared to the Ugly Duckling box of average contents. What you have to remember is that the average age of our tour party is over sixty so you have to take what is said with less than a pinch of salt or a VB. I’ll let you know about Adelaide. Perth will have to wait for a future tour.
I phoned home to see if the missus was missing me. She wasn’t. What would you do if your ex-deputy head husband went off to Australia? Correct. You’d get the other ex-deputy head to move in. Or is it ‘any deputy will do.’? Well so long as it’s not a sheriff. I trust Terry but I wouldn’t trust that Sheriff of Nottingham, Alan Rickman. I’ve seen the film, and so has the missus. Six times in her case! All above board I’m sure. Well we are on board now. 38C says the plane which the bloke next door tells me is 100F. He showed me his conversion chart which he had in his hand written set of notes. I told you we were all over sixty. There’s me writing down all this shit and there’s him writing down really useful information about what time we were leaving the hotel, emergency numbers and the average number of matches in an Aussie matchbox. The missus’ position which I’m sure you know, ( if not it’s similar to the missionary except you have to dress up as Wyatt Earp, and reply ‘OK’ to the question ‘How was that?’ rather than any reply so long as it is in Latin,) eases my conscience to think about the Gorgeous lady. She was by herself in Hong Kong for six hours. She had to recheck in for some reason and hadn’t realised where the rest of us were, didn’t read the blurb and so didn’t come up to the Executive lounge where the rest of the group were tucking into the freebies. I hadn’t spotted her and even if I had done my motives might have been misinterpreted if I’d invited her up to lounge around for six hours with the rest of us.
I don’t suppose Cyril would have been as bashful. As I said we missed out on our esteemed lost leader at Brisbane Airport. We had to look out for other landmarks. The bloke next to us with the sensible notes was a bit harsher on Cyril than me. I was cross only as I had missed out on the last waltz. He seemed to think the atmosphere was better on their coach that morning. They didn’t have to fold their arms. I heard that Cyril had had some injections and was staying on at Brisbane. I don’t know whether there was any truth in the rumour that he was going to work for the Gabba Ground Authorities to improve their image. It’s an ill wind. Our rep took over the running of the show. He’s great. He keeps you informed, isn’t in your face, runs a tight ship, marshals the troops well, and doesn’t treat you like kids. If he gets the push I’ll recommend him for a deputy head’s job, missus allowing of course. I said that we ought to send Cedric a ‘Get well card’, but I told the bloke with the notepad that I’d include any of the day’s misdemeanours, as this could help with his convalescence.
The pilot keeps saying that we will be off in five minutes. We’ve had three five minute delays, we’ve been seat belted for forty minutes and we are still on the tarmac. I told the bloke with the notepad that the pilot is like Strongy, the bloke in Gravesend market who always had ‘Another last one’. He said that strictly speaking Strongy was correct. Each one became the last one when the previous one was sold. My apologies, Strongy. There was me thinking that you had been telling porkies to increase your sales. I almost told the bloke with the notepad to fold his arms, but I just nodded. I did make a mental note to do my own calculation on that temperature. Right. 38C becomes 100F. I can just about remember from school. You add 32 and then you multiply by 9/5. I think. 38+32 = 70 x 9 /5 =14 x 9 = 126. That can’t be right. This is getting like the ‘Da Vinci Code’. I wish I had a mirror. Back to basics. Memory tells me that 100C = 212F. The boiling point of water. So let’s try timesing by 9/5 and then adding 32. 100/5 is 20, times 9 is 180, add 32. There you are Professor Teabag 212! Eureka. Sorry wrong bloke. So 38 x 9 = 342. 342/5 is 684 divided by ten. 68.4 + 32 is 100.4F. There you are I told you he was wrong!
I moved my watch half an hour on to Adelaide time, though I began to wish I hadn’t done as I couldn’t then work out how late we are. Never mind. I’ll ask the bloke with the notepad later. The Qantas lady handed out some water. The boy said that this was ominous as they wouldn’t be handing out water if we were taking off in five minutes. The captain confirmed this by telling us that we would be taking off in five minutes. I adjusted my stockings as we were well above the clouds. Before you start thinking what you shouldn’t be, they are anti-embolism ones rather than fishnet. That’s why I have been sweating with my jeans on rather than glistening in my shorts. My knees are not a pretty sight at the best of times, but black stockings under shorts is not a suggestion for alternative viewing that I wish to impose on anybody other than the missus. I did notice that the Gorgeous Lady was wearing jeans. She might be wearing stockings, but the reasons for her cover up would be different to mine. Remember I said that the average age of the planeload was well over 60 and she probably didn’t want to be the cause of a drop in the average contents due to over excitement. The clouds are sweeping along now. Like a carpet I mean. The outside temperature is -50 C out there. What that Effing is I don’t know, and it’s no good asking the bloke with the notepad as his chart doesn’t go that low. The clouds become more iceberg like. I suppose it’s that low temperature. OK! OK! -50 x 9/5 =-90’ add 32 which is the same as take away 32 here gives -58F, which is about the same. Whatever. It’s 13C in London, which is 13 x 9/5 + 32 which is 117/5 + 32 which is 55.4F or 55 F as the bloke with the notebook would say. Positively tropical where we are headed just like the fruit juice that the Qantas lady gave me with my breakfast. Despite the clouds looking like icebergs, I dismiss the T word from my mind, though the poor souls who perished on that vessel would have preferred the consistency of our bergs to their one. I’m not going to pursue funnies about getting into deep water as it would be churlish and disrespectful to the souls who were lost. Besides this is not the place to be tempting providence as there’s plenty of equally unpleasant fates lurking up here if your number is up.
Remember that this is November 06, slightly before Global Warming became fashionably political. We all knew that we were in the shit then, and many including moi were concerned, but the politicians hadn’t quite worked at that stage out how to make money out of us out of it. I am one of those people who only does things, gets things when every else has done it or got it. So there are millions of others just like me doing it, getting it. You know what I mean. I get a second car to help the growing family, the night before a countrywide congestion charge is introduced. When I finally decide to sell something on E-Bay, there will be a shithead tax downloaded on me from a height of Governmental proportions. I spend hundreds of pounds on postage and printing to get a book published, but as soon as my first copy gets sold the taxman somehow knows and feels a right to claim. Right I feel better now. What it is really about is bums like me being above my station. How dare I go to Australia. Bognor, Clacton and Arsewipes-on-sea are the places for the likes of you meaning me, and go by bus! And don’t eat cod and chips, as you meaning you have fucking screwed up that part of the environment as well.
As I was saying the agricultural land looks more Panderosa rather than Brookfield over here, though you can’t always tell with those Archers. Have David and Ruth split up yet? Pip or Stone or Seed whatever her name is won’t be happy if they have. The same sort of thing seems to be happening over here. On the Aussie telly there was a programme that was about Aussies buying up land on some of the Pacific Islands. The locals thought they were getting a new resort rather than just private developments. ‘Sorry Mate, your beach is now my front garden.’ Never mind. I expect we will be able to sit the Sky Cricket lot on the decking when they play a future World Cup there. As usual I can’t think of a witty line to add. I ought to ask the funny guy from Birmingham who always had a one liner for every situation. I said to him that he ought to write all his funnies down. He said that he was more about spontaneity, and that with reproduction it wouldn’t be the same. I can remember the missus saying something similar when we were trying for a family. I remember disagreeing with her saying that a shag was a shag. QE2. See what I mean?
While reflecting on global warming, I was wondering whether the aeroplane was an ecosystem within itself. We all enter and eat and drink their food. We piss and dump in their toilet. On the assumption that they don’t dump the piss ‘n dumps out into the atmosphere, the overall balance should be maintained. Farting may be a different matter. Is that methane, me being profane or just hot air? What about sweating? Flaking skin? Breathing out our carbon Dioxide must add to the carbon footprint, or am I walking on thin air? Since coming back, TV programmes have come out with suggestions of how to restore the balance. We don’t all trust scientists as we know they have the capacity to fuck us up big time, but they sorted out the problem for Apollo 13, so sort it out for Earth 1. I’ve made my suggestions for eating more shellfish on a strict sale and non return basis, forcing the CO2 in the atmosphere to replace the dwindling dissolved variety. Not Cash On Delivery type dwindling of course. The telly programme had artificial trees absorbing the CO2. They didn’t look good but with a few birds on them they would soon fit in. If you didn’t agree and still thought they looked hideous and out of place you could always stick them in the Tate Modern.
11.30 am Brisbane time but I can’t work out how long to go because of the delayed take off and me putting the watch forward too early. The big Telly doesn’t tell me either. It’s got some Aussie group on. I don’t know who it is. It’s got a lead singer who looks like Alex Sayer and a ginger bloke, if that’s any help. The gorgeous lady said she hasn’t watched any telly in her hotel room. I told her that she was missing loads of cricket. Not just highlights of the first Test but cricket highlights of the fifties. Richie Benaud and his team must have been on tour somewhere over Christmas. Where would that have been then? South Africa? It couldn’t have been as they were all recorded in black and white sending Christmas greetings to their respective families. Richie was polished and articulate then. Some of the others looked uncomfortable and tripped up over their words. Maybe they had just got off the pedalo! Not Richie. What was Atherton? FEC was it? Future England Captain? Richie must have been known as FAB in those days. Future Australian Broadcaster.
Two rows in front a bloke gets out a giant map. It’s the one with the mate who escorted the horny woman off the paddle boat the other night. Surely he can’t work out where we are? There are only fields and more fields without a telegraph pole in sight. A couple of minute before we descend into Adelaide Airport says the captain. How did he know? ‘We disembark in twenty minutes,’ he added. I put my hands over my balls as well as doing up my seat belt, wishing I had worn tights instead of stockings for greater protection and to gird up my loins. FAB. You decide what that means here. As I’ve also said. Bye bye Bob. At least you won’t have to read any more of this crap. Mind you Bob, you were the sort of bloke who would have had something positive to say as a fellow 48 rat, and no doubt would have offered some helpful advice. See you at the St Lawrence Ground one way or another.
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