Saturday 28^th July, 2018 Noon

The camcorder saga continues.

Despite the address being correctly formatted as per a delivery successfully made last week by DHL to the same place, GLS decided they were still unable to deliver – but never called the phone number given on the label to speak to the recipient. It beggars belief that Royal Mail are still using them when you look at online complaints. I mean, to deliver something you need an address and if the address is hard to find, a phone number – simple??

I have been on Skype with Alice this morning. Quite understandably she seems both excited and overawed, having flown Emirates A380-800 to Dubai. I envy her the delight of her first international travel, many of my readers will be seasoned flyers and just maybe some will be like me – abhorring it since they took away the one thing that made it bearable, smoking.

She declared Emirates was her favourite airline. The best food, planes etc. I had to laugh, she's flown twice or thrice in economy on Chinese domestic carriers! She dutifully located a smoking booth for me for when we fly back and have five and a half hours to kill there and negated the need for me to buy business lounge tickets for us both. DXB has clearly changed a lot since I was last there more than thirty years ago. Doubtless so have the prices.

She did however cause me to have a panic attack when she declared there were only soft drinks available in-flight! WHAT?? And she was adamant. NO, no, no....you don't become one the world's favourite airlines by not offering booze! And anyone that knows me will know I would never, ever book a flight longer than ten minutes that was “dry”.

But I had to check even though I did so ages ago. Yes, they do serve alcohol but only to over 21s. I corrected her and her reply was “Oh, that's why the man in front of me had different drinks to us!” Don't do things like that to me, I had visions of expensive ticket alterations.

I am though toying with the idea of getting a lounge pass in Moscow. Space Lounge costs £31 and there are free snacks and softies, booze paid for, but it seems to be the only place you can have a puff. I'm not interested in the sleep rooms or showers but a gasp is a must, snuff only goes so far.

Speaking of smoking, yesterday I made the trip across town to get cigars. As so often happens, they didn't have any of mine. I cleaned them out two months ago and no replacements have been obtained. By now I know if that place has none then it's pointless searching elsewhere so I shall implore Mr Jing Jo to scour the web for me. For sure, I can buy alternatives both here and in Europe but at cost – my cheap ones set me back 11p each.

On the bus back it got crowded. I had cheated by taking an extra ride to the train station terminus and so had a fogey seat. I was having a stilted conversation with a ten year old girl stood by me with her mother and one of Mum's friends. The bus braked sharply at one point, the friend lost her grip on the overhead handle and was plummeting to the deck. The legs and my left arm may have gone but the right still works! I stuck it straight out and thus performed my good deed for the day by preventing her from going down. I didn't get a xi xie (thanks) though........