Glorious Gatwick

Mr Branston and his Virgin Atlantic was thus charged with transporting us from drizzly and grizzly Gatwick to the joys of Havana, at least I hope they will be joys, I am writing this from the departure lounge with a Bloody Mary before leaving, but by the time this is published I shall hope to have consumed an elegant sufficiency of Mohito’s and smoked a big cigar in Cuba.

Twice before we have been thwarted in our attempts to get to Castro’s communist
catastrophe, which will surely change forever when Obama lifts the American embargo on the island, which he has said he would before the end of his first term in office. So for the next 10 days I shall be reporting from the home of the cigar and will only be mentioning Currencies Direct  about once a day.

Yesterday at lunch with Mr Clipbeard, a renowned carnivore, he revealed that he was worried that he was partially Bulemic. Partially because although he binge eats he forgets the being sick part. For some reason I am reminded of man mountain Peachy Butterfield. Last night then to Guildford to see sprog 2 to have my pockets raided and my credit card abused in the usual spectacular fashion, hence the sore head and hangover today.

This hangover was not improved by “Slash And Burn” Thornton Allan leaving his Iphone on charge on speaker phone. The hushed serenity of the airport executive  lounge was shattered by the loud ring tone refrain “Excuse me sir, someone is trying to contact you telephonically, shall I tell him to f*ck off?” I cannot be sure what was funnier, his headlong dash to intercept the embarrassing, loud and abusive monologue or the raised eyebrow reaction of several blue rinses in the lounge.

As if to send us off to the sunshine with a reminder of the true horror of living in London, Gatwick produced a horrid morning which I think I have captured in this photo from the lounge.

Gatwick or Havana? it's a tough call

For the next ten days there will be a complete lack of political correctness in many senses. The bit I am looking forward to is the lack of a ban on smoking. It seems that one can smoke a fat cigar almost anywhere, even over dinner which is a very civilised way to live ones life.

Hemingway was very fond of Havana and spent much of his drinking life there. His most famous book was “The Old Man And the Sea” not “Man at C & A” as at least one of our party thought was the title. I read the book, all 99 pages on the plane and its about a man and a fish which does not end well. If this is great literature then surely soon I will be feted by one and all.

The flight was wonderful on one level, there were no children. Where it fell down spectacularly was three hours out, or put it another way, 6 hours to go and they had run out of red wine. Disappointed, I said I would accept white wine, but no, they had run out of all wine. so we were faced with the prospect of 6 hours without a drink, Mr Branston you have got this wrong. We were thus forced into buying a couple of bottles of champagne from the on board shop to keep us all from massive dehydration. I said there were no kids, and that is true, however, there seemed to be some kind of Saga gathering going on, such was the profusion of Zimmer frames and walking sticks. I also objected to the white bread sarnies that came around later, clearly the brown bread had been consumed by the Upper Classes….

Chris France