Belfast and Giants Causeway

Posted on 13 February 2025 by boryssnorc

I’ve wanted to come to Belfast and in particular go up to Giant’s Causeway since 1995. Only on that trip to the UK, we couldnt’. Myself, BigSal and BluddyMary had hired a car to drive around the UK for 6 weeks – extremely decadent, and only possible due to a corker of a British Airways deal that BigSal had found us; our BNE to LHR flights came with a free side trip to a number of European capitals and 7 days free car hire. Per person! Else, I’m not sure we could have afforded to hire a car for such a long period of time in our early 20s. There were, sadly, two restrictions on the whole travelling by rental car thing… 1) I was the only driver because the other two didn’t have their damn licenses! and, 2) we couldn’t take the rental car into Northern Ireland because of The Troubles. Having no desire to be blown up, bailed up or held up, and also being somewhat law abiding and risk adverse (we would not be insured if we did), we sensibly stayed away. Anyway, it’s been on my list ever since. Only 30 years in the waiting to get here… fucking puffins still on the list – but that is another story!

I found us a day trip from Dublin to see the Causeway and Belfast, (primarily to see the Titanic Museum), and while it promised to be a long day, I was hoping for a good guide so it would prove to be an informative and if we were lucky, entertaining. Happily, we had an amazing guide named, Quiggs. Quiggs was quick-witted, interesting, and stuffed full of interesting cultural and historical tidbits.

On the drive out of Dublin, we learned all about Irish oral story telling and musical traditions, and had a quick lesson in Irish language! Quiggs was raised speaking Irish and is one of only 2% of Irish people who are fluent in Irish… the Irish language is seeing a resurgence in recent years thanks to the promotion and sponsoring of Irish language programs in schools. It’s great to see them fostering their language before it is lost. Quiggs also spoke English (with a university level proficiency) and some French and German – which came in handy as we had people on our tour from France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Turkey, the US and all over. He set the tone early by laying down the law… he was not going to suffer lolllygaggers and threatened to make any late comers sing if they returned to the bus even one minute late and held up the entire group! I loved it! Great idea… more guides should rule their pax’s with the threat of public ridicule, I say.

Quiggs was particularly passionate about sharing his interest in Irish language, he told us all about how Irish speaking Catholics were subjugated and disenfranchised. Literally kids were beat at school for speaking Irish at school, those that were fortunate enough to attend school, that is. The children would be given a card to wear around their neck, and every time they were heard to be speaking in Irish, they would get a knot tied in their cord, which resulting in a numbered beating at the end of their school day.

Beating The English Language Into The Irish, Quite Literally

At one point in the English attempts to quash Irishness, educating Catholics was made illegal entirely and Hedge Schools emerged – as the name suggests, primary aged children were taught informally in the hedgerows.

The plan of course was to destroy Irish identity – it was banned in business, banned in parliament, in legal circles and in courts of laws. To the point where the Irish speaking Catholics were literally unable to defend themselves if accused of a crime. They would be put on trial, in English, and unable to explain or defend their actions in English, it led to a many wrongful convictions and even wrongful deaths. In order to maintain this status quo, Catholics were disenfranchised by minimising their voting power. Good Catholic families would breed prolifically, so outnumbered their Protestant counterparts quite considerably, so in order to suppress their voting power, they legislated that voting was connected to property ownership – one property, one vote. Thus ten adult Catholics living in one home only got one vote. One wealthy Protestant who owned multiple properties managed to get as many votes as properties he owned!

As we neared the border to Northern Ireland, Quiggs told us stories of The Troubles… personal accounts of incidents that happened to his grandfather, his mother and his father – they all had stories of tense face offs with border guards. His mother nearly got herself shot to pieces going across over the border in the wee hours of the night, when she fell asleep behind the wheel due to extreme fatigue and nearly drove into the guard house. She apparently woke herself at the last moment and slammed on the bakes; the guards were all standing, pointing at her with their firearms and yelling at her to get out of the car. It sounds like his poor Mam went into shock, and when the soldiers realised what had happened they took her inside, gave her coffee to wake her up and let her stop shaking before sending her on her way. His father’s run in-was somewhat more of a ‘fuck you’ student protest type interaction, where he was refusing to provide identification when trying to cross the border. All up, it sounded scary, tense and totally understandable that Hertz wouldn’t let us take our car into Northern Ireland in 1995!

We learned how political prisoners were treated by the English, and how they protested from their positions of incarceration – work strikes, ‘dirty strikes (refusal to use the toilets because they frequently got beaten for leaving their cells alone – so they took to pissing on the floors of their cells and smearing their shit all over the place), to hunger strikes. All of which didn’t move the English govt at all. Eventually the IRA decided to start trying to take over by electing members of their people to parliament and even elected people who were imprisoned, who naturally couldn’t take up their roles.

I’m going to have to do some more reading into how the current peace was reached, but in many ways, Quiggs was painting a situation that conveyed that even though the hard border is gone and most people want to co-exist in peace, there is still a lot of tension between the Irish Catholic part of the country and the Protestant northerners. The police stations and court houses still have 12’ tall, 3’ wide thick concrete wall around them, and the memory of frequent bombings at the Europa Hotel (The most bombed hotel in the world apparently… the IRA had a habit of setting off bombs in the hotel, as it’s location made it a prime spot for the world’s journalists to stay when they were covering the tensions, so when they wanted a bit of attention, a small bomb at the hotel would wake them up. Literally.) are still very recent. Quiggs says it wouldn’t take much to set the violence off all over again.

Belfast looks much like Dublin… though slightly fewer visible pubs perhaps? The name Belfast comes from the Irish words for ‘fast river’… which is neither here nor there at this point in this post. But there you have it.

We passed through Belfast and picked up some pax on our way north to the Giant’s Causeway. On the way we stopped at Dunluce Caste – or rather, what remains of it. Dunluce Castle is a ruin of a medieval castle in Northern Ireland and was/is (?) the seat of the Clan MacDonnel. It hangs out on the edge of a basalt outcrop in County Antrim and is only accessible by a bridge that connects it to the mainland. It is surrounded by incredibly steep slopes on either side and this was probably what made it so defensible for the early Christians when the Vikings were coming to invade. It’s been there for a solid 500 years, and was most recently made famous by being used as a film set in Game of Thrones to represent the Pyke Islands or something, which is where Castle Greyjoy is fantastically located.

Quiggs, himself.

So on the way out to the Causeway, Quiggs gave us a very Google-able explanation for the rock formations at Giant’s Causeway, but continued on to say that “That is all bollocks.”. Because, the real formation, as legend has it, was due to Northern Irelandw once being home to a giant named Finn McCool (also called Fionn Mac Cumhaill). At that time, there was another giant – Benandonner, across the Irish Sea in Scotland who was threatening Ireland, such that Finn retaliated by tearing up great chunks of the Antrim coastline and hurling them into the sea. The newly-created pathway – the Giant’s Causeway – paved an accessible route over the sea for Finn to reach Benandonner.

However, this turned out to be a bad idea as Benandonner is a massive giant, much bigger than Finn was! So, upon realising this, in order to save himself, Finn retreated to Ireland and disguised himself as a baby, thanks to an idea from his quick-thinking wife. When Benandonner arrives, he sees Finn disguised as a baby and realises that if a mere baby is that big, the father must be far larger than Benandonner himself!

Following this realisation, Benandonner rushes back to Scotland, tearing away as much of the Causeway as he can in his haste to put as much distance between Ireland and himself as possible. And thus, the myth of the Giant’s Causeway was born.

It was great fun rock-hopping around on the basalt at Giant’s Causeway – can’t say my new knee was super appreciative of it though… that or the cold is getting to it, which would be a bitch if it hangs around long term!

Ms Stephola doing her best interpretation of a siren…

Face in the rock face.

The Giant’s Gateway

Giant’s Causeway is a gorgeous area to explore. It was however, rather cold and while thankfully not raining, very windy and cold. They run a neat little electric bus shuttle up and down to the rocks (quiet and unobtrusive, good job) for the grand cost of £1 per person each way. So we availed ourselves of that service to get back to the quaint little pub near our pick up spot – called, would you believe it, “The Nook”..!

On a cold day like today – all I ever want is a cup of port. Sadly, had to settle for a polite glass of port instead.

One of the pax from our bus did the right thing – ordered himself a whiskey with an ‘e’, and a Guinness chaser.

Next stop on our little tour was to a look out point to see the suspension bridge that links this strange wee island to the mainland. And off in the other direction is a headland that was also used in Game of Thrones as ‘Dragonstone’… nope, I have no recollection of Dragonstone at all.

More brief Game of Thrones stops – this time the “Dark Hedges” which Arya is chased by someone through a foreboding looking forest. This was a disappointing stop – not because there has been a huge reduction in the amount of trees lining this avenue, because there has been; but because of the sheer amount of rubbish people have left laying around this area. Gotta say, if it’s a damn tourist spot you want and we are literally stopping by to admire the Nature (TM), you might want to provide more bins or invest in some people to clean up.

This is a Robin Redbreast – obviously – first one I have ever seen. He was super tame and let me take a handful of close photos of him before I accidentally startled him.

After that it was back to Belfast to drop some people to the city centre, while the rest of us went to the Titanic Museum… and what a cool building that turned out to be! The architect here really understood the brief. It’s as though the famously egotistical Bruce Ismay was in charge of the design of the Musuem “I wanted to convey sheer size, and size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength.”. The building is enormous, and starkly sits out beside the dockyards conveying exactly that – size, scale, general hugeness!

The displays inside were a bit too Disney-fied for my liking… by that I mean, I am getting sick and tired of museums that want to create an ‘experience’ to spoon feed the history to the unwilling. I saw it at Ghent Cathedral with their godawful virtual reality tour of the crypts; same with the over stimulating and confusing audio narrative at the museum for the Battle of the Bulge at Bourgogne which was so over the top, it prohibited visitors from reading ANY of the information plaques, and we see it again here with the over videos and 3D experiences and interactive exhibits. I get it! The internet age has seen people’s attention span shrink to that of a hyperactive goldfish – but there has to be some spaces left in-Hollywood’ed where solemn information can be absorbed in a mature and academic manner… doesn’t there?

Perfect example – this exhibit was about the designs and plans for the ship. But we can’t just have some images of extant plans and an explanation of the design principles in use and their various failings – no, we need to have 40’ projected scrolling floor of plans that distract you from absorbing any actual information about the actual plans. It looks cool – but did I learn anything? Nope.

The Arrol Gantry was specially built to construct the Titanic – as Belfast was a very famous ship building yard – but even here, they didn’t have anything large enough to support a build of this scale.

And then we got funneled onto the Titanic Experience Ride… It took about 8 minutes and I’m not sure what we were supposed to learn from this other than ‘shit be huge, bitches!’. There was no point to this. It talked about people working long hours, in sometimes dark and dangerous conditions in the bowels of the emerging ship. I can only imagine this it to stop iGen kids from getting bored…

They put us in a little car that was hung from these extending arms that lifted and dropped to show you different static projected images. It was soooo Disney, I cann’t describe it any other way.

Once we got past The Ride – there were more informative boards and images that showed how the ship was built, but I noticed, a LOT of people weren’t reading much, they were skipping on past looking for the next fast dopamine hit instead. You train people that they are there – and their attention for steady reading is gone!

Man this thing was huge! But it didn’t have anything on a modern cruise ship – so I am not sure why it still feels so enormous in the imagination.

So – the one thing I did learn was that the ship was actually launched officially nearly a full year before it sunk. I was unaware of this, and initially couldn’t figure out what it had been doing from May 1911 to April 1912 when it sank, until we got a bit further around and discovered that most of that time was the ship being outfitted. They built it on land, then launch it onto the water, and it was only then that the internal fittings – carpentry, furniture, staterooms, recreational facilities etc are all installed.

Literally launched here:

Back on the design of the actual museum – it is a very impressive building! And totally conveys the sense of scale / size / enormity that people associate with the Titanic.

After the section on the build of the ship, there was a few galleries dedicated to the fit out. The White Star Line and their custom crockery remind me of Third Reich crockery – though I don’t know why? Hubris, perhaps?

I have long been amused by cruise ship carpets – they are usually crazy bright bespoke creations that presumably are designed to cover a thousand spilled cocktails… seems this is not a new trend! The carpets on the Titanic were also bespoke designed bright coloured monstrosities.

Wood was used for many parts of Titanic’s internal fitout. Huge quantities of wooden furniture and fittings were made for her public rooms and cabins. Years ago in 2014, Mr K and I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for a week or so and we were told that the timber work and panelling in the lifts and lobby of that hotel were created by the same carpenters and cabinet makers who created all the timber work for the Titanic. It is literally the same wood and was made by the same highly skilled craftsmen.

Very cool – and you can definitely see the similar artistic influence being carried through from that location to that on the ship.

An extant copy of the luncheon menu from the day the Titanic sunk!

This is where the building, creating and fitting out info for the ship finished and we turned to the disaster of the Titanic sinking in the museum experience. You can feel the turn from explaining the scale and grandeur of the ship to the impending peril on this verandah that you traverse – it is designed to look like a promenade deck, complete with shuffle board, and a HUGE three story projection of roiling seas… suddenly things don’t feel so ‘marvel at our engineering’ anymore.

There were multiple story boards in a number of rooms that lead you through the disaster itself – many of which detailed the comms from the Titanic after it hit the iceberg all taken verbatim from the ship’s logs. Then the displays of the human toll: the survivors, and the not so fortunate.

A two story wall listing the names of all the people on the Titanic – very clearly showing how few were saved.

An extant life jacket – exactly like the ones in the film. It was recovered from an unknown Titanic victim. No records exist of who wore this jacket, it was recovered by the crew of the ‘Mackay-Bennet’ one of the ships that responded to give Titanic aid. Only twelve of the ship’s life jackets are known to remain out of a total of 3,500 that were onboard the ship. This makes it an extremely rare artifact. They were manufactured out of linen and cork of all things.

Downstairs is long gallery listing the changes to maritime safety that were introduced after the Titanic sunk. The new laws enforcing that all ships needed to have at least as many lifeboat spaces as the number of people that could board, as well as laws that required safety drills that included passengers, and laws regulating binoculars for lookouts and maximum speeds in ice fields in the North Atlantic… apparently these things were more ‘guidelines’ prior to the Titanic disaster.

It’s hard to fathom the depths of the ocean – I can’t envisage it. I also can’t imagine why some dedicated their lives to hunting for this ship.

An original deck chair from Titanic – recovered from the surface by the same ship, the ‘Mackay-Bennet’. It has a star on the headrest indicating the White Star Line and a brass name tag on the rear – it is one of only six known to have survived.

This is a ‘loving cup’ made of sterling silver presented to Sir Arthur Henry Royston, the captain of the Carpatia – the first ship to respond to Titanic’s calls for aids. It was given to him by Margaret “Molly” Brown. She also gave his entire crew medals made of gold, silver and bronze depending on their rank and chair a fund-raising committee for survivors.

The Unsinkalbe Molly Borwn and Captain Rostron of the Carpathia.

This must be one of the most famous violins in the world. It belonged to one of Titanic’s heroic musicians, Wallace Hartley. It was apparently a gift from his fiancée, Maria Robinson. It was made in Germany, c.1880 and was engraved : “For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria”. The violin has become an ubiqutious symbol of courage of spirit of those very famous musicians who chose to play until the very end of the Titanic disaster. They are the reason we say, “And the band played on…” to describe bravery in the face of adversity.

The next gallery was full of Titanic paraphernalia in popular culture – bit like the ‘References’ section at the bottom of a Wikipedia page! Most of it was a bit naff.

I’m not sure about this – I know the Jack and Rose thing on the movie made the whole picture on the bow thing famous – but this tableau for tourist to have their photo taken in, felt a little tasteless right at the end of the section of the museum that delved most into the disaster and its impacts. Naturally after this, you exit through the gift shop – and while it was filled with what seemed like really nice quality gifts and souvenirs, it somehow felt a bit unseemly to be buy t-shirts or coffee mugs with Titanic written all over them.

I do love the grand scale of the building.

After the museum, we went back to the city centre and collected some of our group before the long drive back to Dublin. It was a very long day – we were out for about 12 hours, but it was very informative and Quiggs was fantastic throughout.

Cirque du Soleil – Corteo!

Posted on 9 February 2025 by boryssnorc

In 1996, I came to Europe to do some work experience in corporate studio photography. I was working with a guy named, Jay Myrdal who had a lot of big clients (Boeing, Rolls Royce, Honda, all sorts) doing large format 8” x 10” creative advertising photography. It was quite the experience, I learned a lot, but I also had a lot of free time in London that winter.

One of the things that I did was go to the Royal Albert Hall to see Allegria with BluddyMary – it was the first Cirque du Soleil show that I ever went to and I fell madly in love with the format. The acrobatics and gymnastics, the athleticism combined with the artistry, whimsical and accomplished music and fabulously creative sets, make up and costumes. Loved it.

I swear I took a very similar picture with an Allegria truck parked outside this building 30 years ago!

Ever since, whenever we are travelling, I usually check to see if there are any of their travelling shows on – either static theatre shows or travelling under the Big Top in towns we are visiting. This is how I have come to see Amaluna in New York, Kurios in Vancouver, Varekai in Beaumont Texas, La Nouba in Orlando, Totem in Sydney, and a bunch of shows in Las Vegas. So, coming to London for a few weeks, I thought I’d have a look and see if anything was on – and yes, we were in luck! Cortéo is showing at the Royal Albert Hall! Kinda cool – back to where my love affair with the Cirque all started.

So Stephola and I had been plotting to do this before the cruise to New Zealand (a trip which is suspiciously missing from here because my site has been busted and I haven’t been able to write…hopefully I will get around to fixing some backlog if it doesn’t get forgotten entirely). We paid £120 each for what I would call rather pricey but very average seats. We had a decent view, but we were up in the Rausing Circle, which is the second very back row of the highest gallery in the Royal Albert Hall… oddly enough, only about two rows back from where I remember seeing it last time! I didn’t mind though, I am just glad to be able to go and see the Cirque, and I was happy Stephola was keen to check it out too.

Visiting the Royal Albert Hall is in itself a bit of a treat if you are not used to seeing all sorts of shows here. The building is beautiful, and lovingly preserved. The hallways, staircases and bars are just lovely.

Cortéo literally means ‘cortège’ in Italian, and the story is based around a clown named Mauro who is reflecting back on his life and circus achievements and friends from his deathbed. I know, sounds a little dark, but it works. The production moves from one energetic and creative vignette to another tied together by Mauro’s bed moving in from scene to scene. It was excellent.

There were two little people in the cast, one of whom was suspended by these enormous balloons, and floated out over the crowd. It was delightful and the engagement with the audience was really effective.

As per usual with a Cirque production, the clowns were sophisticated and hilarious – they were speaking a LOT more than you usually see in a Cirque show, and in multiple languages… you could make out a smattering of French and Italian and quite a lot of English. They were really good and always make for a lovely interlude between acts or provide an excellent distraction while other cast members are setting up for the next performance.

The ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall: it has these amazing mushroom in it, which apparently improve the acoustics. I know nothing about sound engineering, but I know they look very funky when all lit up!

Another fabulous act were the gymnasts on the giant bars – there was 8 or maybe 10 strong guys all swinging on these bars at the same time; all in perfect synchronicity with complex choreography, flipping between bars and across each other. I wonder how many times they have smooshed into another gymnast during practice!

The absolute highlight were the aerialist pair that started on blue ribbons – they were spectacular! Oh my god, just so athletic, yet graceful and artistic. I didn’t take any photos of their act as they were just enthralling and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

All up 10 out of 10 – would go again!

Edit: So… I’m still in the UK, and exactly 9 days after seeing this, I got an email from the Cirque saying that Cortéo is coming to Australia later this year! I have a feeling I will be going again, now!

Help… I’m stuck in Transit Hell.

Posted on 8 February 2025 by boryssnorc

Jesus titty fucking Christ I have just had the worst transit since the Allah-Awful 40hour plus nightmare transit that was getting back from Islamabad to Brisbane in 2007…!

I woke up, it was a lovely morning, I had slept well, the sun was shining and it was looking like a good day. I was looking forward to my flights, and hopefully a comfortable and minimum fuss transit day. I left home at a reasonable at 0800 on Friday morning to leave via the Brisbane International Terminal. I realised the last few international flights I have taken have all gone out via Sydney, so it’s been a while since I checked in at BNE Intl. When I got to the Qantas counters, I saw all the usual premium check-in counters were gone. No premium check-in line, no ‘Platinum people go here’… just a Business and StatusWhores line that lead directly to a bank of SELF CHECK IN MACHINES! The horror!

What (and I cannot stress this enough), the actual fuck is going on here? I am flying for the first time with the P1 fanciness under my belt and I’m expecting a friendly crew member welcoming me and doing all the things while checking on my upgrade requests. Instead there was about 8 machines, six people standing around and two confused looking staff dealing with some guys checking in a bunch of oversized ski equipment bags. I could see no option but to use the self check-in machine, so I did. It printed me a bag tag and some boarding passes, which I then had to put on my luggage myself (I hate those fucking stupid sticker things; if I don’t get them on crooked, I invariably end up with an annoying paper cut), and no bright orange Priority Luggage tag on it, which was sad-making all of itself. We then had to take them over to self-drop bag check-in off area, where predictably, the luggage drop scanner couldn’t read my bag tag. I stood there stupidly for about five minutes trying to flag down one of the three staff who walked past me all saying, ‘Just a moment, I’ll be right with you.’

Eventually, someone came to see why the machine wasn’t working, and said ‘Oh it hasn’t read your boarding passes…’ but it had. Fucking twice – it was only working now because I had been jostling the suitcase around trying to get the scanner to see it while waiting from someone to come sort it.

I go downstairs to get ready to go through security and through border control, only to realise that my lack of greeting also meant I didn’t have a security express pass. I’ve marched up to the express pass lane anyway – because that’s where we go, and the staff member there stopped me and asked me for my pass… I said, probably somewhat curtly, that there is no staff up there anymore and no one gave me one. I showed her my boarding pass and she sent me straight through – I gotta wonder why they are asking for them, if Qantas has stopped issuing them. I go down the queue and the express lane got funnelled into a special assistance queue full of non-frequent travellers who had wheelchair and crutches, and a woman with an arsenal of liquids holding up the queue. So standing around way longer than necessary. My mood was now thoroughly nonplussed and heading to annoyed.

I get to the Business Lounge and was finally greeted by a lovely lady named Maria, she was the first interaction I had with any airline staff. She had the misfortune to ask how my morning was going. I responded by asking her what was going on at the check-in counters… and her “Oh, I know! Everyone is appalled.”, reaction told me everything I needed to know. Too much cost cutting, and new staff dealing with the new check-in counters. I said, ‘We fly a lot, we fly Qantas for a predictable experience, but this has been absolute rubbish. What’s the point in having airline status if you can’t reduce your aggravation points during checkin processes?’ Maria encouraged me to write a letter… but noticeably, she did not give me an email address to send it to.

The Lounge was quiet-ish, but overall, I’m just not feeling the love today. Flying is a shitty experience in general and the more you do it, the less ‘fun’ it becomes. Ticket prices are higher than ever, Qantas has posting record quarter on quarter profits, and yet, the customer experience is declining rapidly… even for people like us at the top of their loyalty program. So what the fuck?

I found myself thinking about the check-in BS the whole time I was sitting there: I got no, ‘welcome’ at all, no priority luggage tag, no express security pass and WOW if this is how their highest level loyalty customers are going to get treated now, they can get fucked. ALL the touch points imaginable and no personalised anything… so why be brand loyal if all the perks are disappearing?

We are eventually boarding and thankfully everything there at least went smoothly. Normally I get a “Welcome back Ms Borys” when I load onto the plane, and I didn’t even get that – weird. Once we were loaded and ready to go, we had 40 mins waiting at the gate before pushing back late due to undefined ‘technical issues’. That ol’ chestnut! Eventually we get out on the tarmac and thankfully weren’t pushed too deep into the take off pattern and were in the air about 45 mins late in total. Unexpected bonus on the plane – it was an Airbus A330 and we had wifi that would hold as long as we were over Australia… though the boys were probably wishing I didn’t have connection as I spent the time lamenting the poor airport experience. Pic for Yale who is flying cattle to Las Vegas next week!

Just after we got past Darwin, as we were heading out over the sea, an announcement came over the PA asking if there were any medical professionals on the flight. Oh dear lord, I’ve been here before and last time it resulted in being rerouted to Bahrain and a 19 hour delay in getting where we were going.

Thankfully whatever doctors came and assessed the situation must have decided it was safe to continue our flight, but advised the Captain to get there as quickly as possible. Pilot put the hammer down and we had a very bumpy flight and we arrived in Singapore a full hour and an bit early after leaving nearly an hour late.

Predisposed to being critical – I had a very ordinary meal on the way here. The dessert choices always suck, so it’s cheese or cheese.

We disembarked in Singapore, and I had a slow walk through the terminal. I know Changi is supposed to be the best airport in the world, but if you can’t get enthused for high end shopping, and don’t feel like exploring a humid butterfly garden or something, what’s the point?
Sorry Mr K, no Tumi surprises for you this trip.

I pretty much ended up heading to the Qantas First Class Lounge to find somewhere comfortable to settle in for what was now going to be a 6 hour layover thanks to the early arrival. The lounge was PACKED. There were loads of people in there on Fiji Air boarding passes and Cathay and lord knows what. This place needs to be twice this size given that there are so many affiliates using the facility.

The lounge was also a bit weird… there were staff members wandering around offering people drinks and menus, but for some reason when found a comfy spot, and settled in, I waited about 10 mins and no one had come to offer me a drink – could have been resting bitch face by this point, but I gave up waiting for a server and went and helped myself to a fridge. Thankfully, there are also nice clean and well appointed showers so at least we can freshen up and feel more human before hitting the connections.

Wasn’t there long before being told that QF1 from SYD was going to be delayed. Oh joy! It was about 1800 local when I was told this, and it was due at 2150, but expected now at 2250. Our originally scheduled departure was supposed to be 2305, so that was never going to happen and we were bound to be a solid 60-90 mins late. I was correct and they told us we would be leaving around 0030.

Edit:
I don’t know wtf is going in with this flight.
Original ETD: 2305 and arriving 0615.
First delayed to ETD: 0030 arriving 0740.
Now it’s saying ETD of 0100 arriving 0640…?
How does that work?

We all dutifully left the lounge and went down to the gate for 0000 as told for a 0030 departure, only to be told we had another 30 min delay due to that famous scapegoat, ‘technical issues’ once more. None of us embarked until around 0110-ish. No greetings and things on boarding – I know they must be a little harried, but I’ve been on way delayed flights before and the staff are usually so friendly. Things were looking good and then nope! Apparently we had an ‘engineering issue’ this time so that delayed us another 30mins. Our 2305 flight was eventually pushing back at 0140, only now we had lost all places in the runway queue so we took the scenic route out to a different runway where we waited another waited another 20 mins for clearance.

After about 35 mins of that wait, we had the Captain coming on apologetically explaining that we had lost radio comms, and had to go back to the gate to fix it. He sounded as exasperated as I felt. At this point it is now 0225 and I’m 1hr 15mins into a cheerful WWII movie, and I am utterly exhausted. Been awake forever. We take the scenic route back to the gate… taxing back and forth around Changi wasn’t how I was hoping to spend the wee hours of this morning at all! I was just sitting there with fingers crossed hoping we weren’t all deplaned and sent to a hotel to wait for new aircraft! Half of the business cabin has their jammies on and are into our second or third glass of champagne. The crew are going to run out of nuts at this rate! Not even the view of the Scoot Pokemon planes are not making this incessant waiting more fun.

We get back to the gat at 0235 – and ‘lo and behold, there is no one there to operate the aerobridge to let the comms engineers on. FFS… my <6 hour layover is now pushing well into a 9 hours layover due to arriving early and now leaving with all these delays. It currently 0445 Saturday AM Brisbane, a full 24 hours since I last slept.

The fun it never ends… This is the plane that won’t take off!
0330 update – comms engineers have fixed the radios and it will be 15 mins until we can try to leave again. Wonder how long we will wait on the tarmac for a place in the runway queues this time. So much for a 2305 departure, huh?

Pushback take two finally occurred around 0340, and after another shorter wait (thank fuck!) on the tarmac, our flight just left after 0410. Now all we want is to go to sleep, but of course the crew have all only been awake for a couple of hours, and they’re about to run their food service because that is what they do – regardless of schedule. A late ‘dinner’ that would have been served at midnight is now being offered at fucking 5am. I wasn’t hungry at all, but thought I’d have the mid-flight sandwich to tide me over as dinner was 8 hours ago, and breakfast was definitely 13 to 14 hours away.

Big mistake, I should have skipped it and kept everyone away from me. 0455 – I’ve been awake for over 24 hours now and a FA smashes a glass on top on the side table. Tiny shards of glass go everywhere; all over me, my electronics, the little blanket, my seat and the floor. She doesn’t apologise or say anything and goes away. I start collecting the larger pieces of glass before trying to find all the little splinters (some of which I found with my fingers) and she eventually comes back with a dustpan and brush to sweep up the mess.

I’m so done with this fucking transit… I ate half my sandwich (which turned out to be served on such stodgy, two-inch thick focaccia that I couldn’t even get my mouth around it), popped a Valium and tried to go to sleep and forget the whole fucking mess. After I woke up some four hours later, the Cabin Manager came over and introduced herself and thanked me for being a loyal customer – all very business as usual until my dead pan face and monosyllabic responses seemed to prompt a, ‘We are so sorry for all the delays.’

At some point people start opening the windows, it looks lovely out there – I’m sure it won’t stay that way seeing we are heading to London. In February.

I didn’t know what to say other than most of my long haul flights last year were with Emirates or Cathay and I’m kinda wishing I was on an Emirates flight right now. She apologised again and left me alone for the rest of the flight.

We somehow magically touched down in London at 0920 – not too bad all things considered, only three hours late. Thank fuck it was a Saturday and I wasn’t working today! I picked a splinter of glass out of my hand as we taxied to the air bridge and I deplaned with that delightful feeling of mal d’ebarquement, coupled with a sleep deprived sensation that people around me were talking underwater.

I walked away from the whole nightmare as fast as my overtired little body would carry me. FARK!

Further edit: Oh Qaint-arse… are you guys gonna regret sending me this!