America - Getting there

I flew from Gatwick. In the light of enhanced security (this was two weeks after the arrests for potential bombings - this time liquid, severely denting duty free sales, lucky I sold my BAA shares) I arrived three hours before takeoff, I was inside the Departure Lounge within an hour. Amazingly, the Great British Public had taken notice of the restrictions, and arrived with the bare minimum, gobsmacked I had a coffee to give me takeoff jitters.

Once upon a time I went flotilla sailing in Turkey. The nice lady (well an Irish flibbertigibbit) said,
"There's a bit of a problem with your boat, the mechanic's working on it now. Come with me and I'll buy you a beer."
So we sat, in the shade of a thatch umbrella. As time wore on and the sun went down, a host of fairy lights came on under the umbrellas - I'm sorry, all the umbrellas except one, this set the pattern for the week.

Aircraft gained, I sat in my seat, listening glumly to the announcement that we were waiting for the TSA to give us clearance - about ninety minutes, then we missed our slot - about thirty minutes. I had decided to read, and inserted a digit into the button marked with a bulb, I was not illuminated. I vigorously poked the button with various digits in case size was a deciding factor, my gaze roamed around the plane spotting small constellations of lights.
We took off, after some time, I foolishly allowed my eyes to roam again, everyone was glued to the seatback in front of them wherein the video lurked. I turned mine on, and got a rather nice collection of stripes, I tried the one next to mine (it was a quiet flight, something to do with getting blown up I think) - more stripes, different pattern. The LED display on the armrest read E9, I came to the conclusion that this meant "Error 9 -I'm totally f*cked". So I moved to another empty seat nearby and managed to watch one film at a slightly obscure angle, so that it became less of a film noir and more of a film chiaroscuro, with head-bobbing.
As we taxied into Charlotte NC I had the pleasure of watching my connecting flight take off. In the UK this would have been a disaster involving, taxis, trains, other airports, tears and tantrums, in the US you just get on the next plane. So it was that they let me into the country, failed to find my undeclared farinaceous comestibles, and took my luggage to put on the flight due to leave in 30 minutes. I got out my instructions for using the phonecard and prepared to phone my hostess. I dialed and got the message, "You are English and stupid, wait for the Operator, Limey!"
"Oh Bugger! Collect call please?" All that American tv watching was not in vain.
"Name?"
"Eh? Oh - Gater"
"I have a collect call from Jacob>"
"?!" x 2
"NICK!" I screamed.
"Oh hi Nick!"

We were an hour late taking off, we had one go but moved off the runway again to stop the next plane landing from using our arse-end as a novelty braking system. So we then had to wait for the top of the hour stack to move through. Inflight entertainment was Mission Impossible 3, we watched the first fifteen minutes of the silent version three times before the crew gave up. Everyone then produced laptops and got down to some serious work, well, actually, if you took a stroll around the plane you could see that they got on to some serious pinball and solitaire.

I arrived, amazingly, so did my luggage - and Paul. A quick zip through the fog and here I was, greeted at the door by Rocket, who did a quick check of my genitals (two, one on each side of the nose, his nose, he's a dog), and Margie, who didn't, well, not that I noticed.
I ate, I drank, I went to bed.