Woke up at 5. Very little sleep during night. Trying all night to log on to the British Airways web site. We departed from Australia on a public holiday and we leave Britain on a public holiday. BA's website doesn't work on public holidays and their phone number is disconnected. It was the same the day we left. We have to have an aisle seat for Jenny to get to toilet when she is sick. Could we get onto the website to book our seats. No we could not. Tried lots of times.
Of course you can pay $120 each to book early. They make great claims on their website when you buy the tickets that you can organise your seats by internet 24 hours in advance of the flight. You can not. BA are hopeless. Its disgraceful for an international airline to be so incompetent. In the words of Brian Epstein - we will not travel with BA again. Blood Pressure 138/69 Pulse 71 We had nothing planned for what we would do until the flight. We had to be out by 10AM but Tosan allowed us to leave our bags in his hallway therefore saving us the expense and time of taking them to Heathrow and putting them in storage for the day. 24 Pounds in saving. We took the Metropolitan line only to Wembley Park where the train stopped unexpectedly -signal failure. We all had to get off the Metropolitan Line and get on the Jubilee Line. The Metropolitan Line is suspended until further notice. This was a bit of a worry because it meant we could not get back to get our bags and even if we did we could not get the train at Preston Road. But we took a chance and continued on to Bermondsay. Bermondsay was where I first tried to get accommodation but they didnt want someone for 5 weeks. And Bermondsay is about as old as you can get in London. And in 1969 it was very much the deprived East End. As usual it is no longer deprived. Its pretty straight looking. I thought it would have some ethnic character. But it was all closed. Not a shop open. No one in the streets. Who lives there now - not possible to tell. They were taking the holiday seriously. We walked in the direction of London and pretty soon The Shard came into view. Eventually we stumbled on Tower Bridge. It was surprising and spectacular. We had lunch in a Pub within sight of Tower Bridge on Tower Bridge Road. I had Fish and Chips. Jenny had Mexican Salad. A Pint of Ale came in the package but I could only drink half. The waiter gave me a sample before I picked the beer. In a way the areas of London are still pretty defined. The pub is not far from Bermondsey but the clientele was all white middle class. Some Italian tourists. Same with the Pub at London Bridge. Get a bus at London Bridge Bus Station and there is a very wide ethnic mix. Go into a pub over the road and its all white middle class. We walked along the Thames bank towards London Bridge. Many tourists in the area. We had a good look at the New Lord Mayors building. It looks like an Orange cut into slices and not reconstructed properly so each slice underneath is smaller than the one on top. It also looks like its heavier one side and leans toward that side. For a new building I concede it does have some architectural merit. London is awash with new buildings and buildings being constructed. We counted 25 cranes one day before we gave up. There are too many new buildings scattered everywhere all over London. They should have allocated specific areas where new building is allowed. Restrict new buildings to one area and allow areas to retain their past history and flavour. As they have in Paris. London Bridge should have better identification. It certainly lacks romance compared to what it was like 400 years ago. We walked through the city to Moorgate station. Because I was a little concerned we might have trouble getting our bags I decided to play safe and go to the airport as soon as possible. As it was the tube was again operating normally. The signal fault had been repaired. We took the tube to Heathrow via a roundabout way. We took the Metropolitan to Rayners Lane. We then took the Piccadilly to Acton Town. We then took the Piccadilly to Heathrow Terminal 5. If you look at your tube map you will see we took a tour of North West London. When I left London 45 years ago there was only one Heathrow terminal. It was an open largish building full of Indians waiting for relatives to turn up. This was literally in the last few days of unrestricted immigration for all British Subjects. Because it was in the last few days everyone was trying to get to Heathrow. Especially Indians from Africa. And plenty of Indians were at Heathrow hoping they could meet some relatives. Now there are 5 large Terminals. An internal train links them all. They have plans now to put in a 6th terminal. I know London will somehow be able to handle all the people this will produce. Last year there were 600,000 immigrants into the UK and 400,000 settled in London. Its still the best city in the world. And I think this proves it. Heathrow Terminal 5 does not have very good facilities as far as eating and drinking goes. Plus its more expensive than it should be. Plenty of luxury shops advertising duty free. But we waited 4 hours until it was time to get on the plane. When I say its unfairly expensive I concede that airports are very good investments. They are monopolies after all. And I am amazed at how many rich people there are in the world who seem to have no problems with high prices. I listened to Churchill's History of the English Speaking People on the plane. The whole 5 hours. Jenny was not ill. We had a window seat from Singapore. Not much to see as it was dark all the way. Saw what I presume was Alice Springs at night. Streets like spider webs. Or a modern painting. Had to wait 3 hours at Sydney airport for our Melbourne connection. Don,t know why we could not have got on the 3 planes that left for Melbourne while we were waiting. Alex met us and we drove to Tarnook. The place is green which is good to see but our dear Magpie has decamped. I hope she has found a new home.
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