As you will probably recall I was away in Singapore last week at our Nomura Investment Forum Asia 2017. Runs off the tongue that one eh. Great event though and an enjoyable and successful trip with a great bunch of clients despite, from a personal perspective, an inauspicious start. I always look forward to a long haul flight, and the prospect of flying SIA ( on a newly configured Boeing 777-300ER for the aficionados’ amongst you ) for the first time for many a year meant I was even more excited than usual as I headed to Heathrow the other evening.
On arriving at Terminal 2 I made my way to the Business Class lounge, resisting the temptation which it seems so many of my friends succumb to, of posting my location on Facebook. Unfortunately my resolve not to drink any alcohol on this leg of the journey was not quite so commendable. In fact it crumbled the instant I spotted a rather nice bottle of champagne on a bar which also served Tiger on tap. Furthermore the plane was a touch delayed so it was a reasonably well oiled David who skipped eagerly aboard when the time eventually came to depart. I practically laughed out loud when I saw my enormous seat and the surrounding space not to mention a bigger TV screen than the one we have at home. I had another few glasses of champagne and some very passable Rully with dinner followed by a couple of glasses of decent claret, watched Hacksaw Ridge, and then, feeling just a touch woozy, decided I needed some shut-eye.
The moment I had been waiting for truth be told. I pressed the button to turn my arm chair into a flat bed and down it went. The thought crossed my head that there had also been the promise of a mattress and a duvet, but these seemed to be missing. As there was no one about at the critical moment, and even though the bed was not quite as flat as all that, I clambered onto it and nestled my legs and feet as deeply into the bottom of the alcove as they could go. By bending the upper part of my body sharply to the left I was able to get most of my body was prone, if not completely horizontal.
I didn’t sleep at all well and I recall drafting a letter of complaint to SIA in my waking moments, but you’d be proud of me. I stifled my disappointment forcing myself to consider myself lucky just to be on this flight and determined to relax as best I could given the level of my discomfort, a dry old mouth and an increasingly nagging headache. Finally, after four or five hours, I forget how long really, I got up to find a glass of water and a Paracetemol and that is when I noticed that others on the Business Class deck seemed to be stretched out very comfortably. It dawned on me that I might be missing a trick or two and indeed on summoning the assistance of an SIA stewardess I found I was. She reached behind the back rest and pulled a lever which folded the seat down revealing a very well cushioned mattress, the elusive duvet and creating the largest and most comfortable flat bed I have ever had on a plane. Four hours of unbroken sleep followed. What a muppet.
Anyway, as I said it was a good trip and I think clients enjoyed it too. When I got home the following weekend Bob was missing. He and a friend had decided to take their dogs, both lurchers, to a dog show in Newmarket. Bob is a modest enough sort of guy, but he is very proud of his dog and his face was a picture of disappointment when I caught up with them in the Affleck pub ( I get invited along by him and his friends partially out of sympathy, but also because they know I am good for a round ) later that day. There was not a rosette in sight. Oh it was a disaster they moaned. All the prizes were won by French bull dogs or staffies and to make matters worse, Bob’s friend Freddie’s dog had gone up to a man sitting on the grass eating a sausage roll and cocked his leg on the guy’s back. A bit of a scene had ensued.
Oh I know what I wanted to say. I may have struggled with the complexities of a seat in an aeroplane so I am not one to talk, but really that General Election campaign was about as hapless as it comes. We saw it coming though didn’t we. Remember this snippet I relayed the other day:
“We had my parents staying all week which was perfect once everyone got over their somewhat fraught arrival. I had told you just the other day about the additions to our chicken flock. Alas one of them is no more. This was nothing to do with Bob. Theresa May, a grey and very bossy hen, was snaffled by my parent’s black and white springer spaniel Tess who had taken the opportunity to give her legs a stretch after a long car journey. Poignantly, though I note this with a certain sense of satisfaction, the hen’s demise coincided with her namesake’s declining fortunes in the opinion polls.”
I’m off sailing next week so will leave you in peace. Sail Ionian have upgraded us and rang to tell me they were giving us a bigger yacht than we had last year and had booked again. I hope they don’t live to regret their generosity and that I remember we’re three feet longer and one foot wider as I edge my way nervously into our berth in Fiskardo which I managed only by the skin of my teeth last time.
I know you probably think I’m overly modest and should blow my trumpet a bit more often. Well let me tell you. It was late in the evening and we were in a bar in Singapore having a final few cleansing beers standing round a table when one of our party, moving to stub out a cigarette I seem to recall, clipped a pint glass full of beer which literally flew off the table on a trajectory to certain disaster. Except that I saw everything happening in slow motion. Cool as you like I reached casually out, though it must have been in the blink of an eye-lid, and caught the Tiger left handed mid-air spilling virtually not a drop. I was so in the moment it just happened but when I saw the awe-struck look on my companions faces it dawned on me I had done something utterly remarkable. Go me.
PS. Talking about remarkable, remember I told you a few months ago about a Mexican restaurant in Borough Market I had found and promised to take you to one of these days? I spotted this article in Wednesday’s Evening Standard about the market which had opened for its first day of business since the horrible event. How fantastic is this?!
Paltry pre-holiday offering for you. Forgive my distraction. My mind is buzzing having found a spare moment this afternoon to refresh myself on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea. Which side is starboard again?
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