Bored at Liverpool Airport
Blogging from Liverpool Airport - at a pound per ten minutes - because I'm bored. I wrote this out longhand, first - I'm not that crazy.
A train trip and shuttle bus ride have not allowed me much of an opinion on Liverpool. I saw a muddy river (the Mersey?) and some kids who talk like John Lennon. The Beatles are big here, the airport is the John Lennon airport and its motto is 'above us only skies', which was probably a better choice than 'all the way the paper bag was on my knees' from Back in the USSR.
I got freaked out at the train station by a talking bathroom. It wouldn't shut up! It told me its name and manufacturer, the location of the toilet, the location of the handbasin, and at that point I got out of there before it started narrating my micturation.
I've been meaning to document the signs of terrorism hysteria I've seen, which in NY and London was 'not much', apart from the occasional paranoid announcement or poster about unattended packages. Just now, upstairs in the dining lounge, I was stopped by a couple of bored security guards. 'Excuse me, sir, have you checked in?' 'It's not open yet,', I said. I'm just the idiot who made sure all his flights were evening flights - to allow plenty of time to get to the airport - while forgetting that check-out times meant I'd be wrestling with my backpack for hours on end.
'As good a reason as any,' they chuckled, and let me through. There's still some official propaganda about, but the people in the trenches don't care. The immigration woman at Heathrow just wanted to chat about Mumbai (which will be interesting, in this area. It's more recent, there. And Indians tend to an interesting combination of beaurocracy and chaos.)
Which is not to say I'd want to piss off the London police force. I've really enjoyed reading The Guardian each day while I've been here - from now, I will have to learn of new developments in the Ian Tomlinson story via the internet. (No time for links! Try guardian.co.uk).
This aimless ramble is what happens when I blog from boredom...
A train trip and shuttle bus ride have not allowed me much of an opinion on Liverpool. I saw a muddy river (the Mersey?) and some kids who talk like John Lennon. The Beatles are big here, the airport is the John Lennon airport and its motto is 'above us only skies', which was probably a better choice than 'all the way the paper bag was on my knees' from Back in the USSR.
I got freaked out at the train station by a talking bathroom. It wouldn't shut up! It told me its name and manufacturer, the location of the toilet, the location of the handbasin, and at that point I got out of there before it started narrating my micturation.
I've been meaning to document the signs of terrorism hysteria I've seen, which in NY and London was 'not much', apart from the occasional paranoid announcement or poster about unattended packages. Just now, upstairs in the dining lounge, I was stopped by a couple of bored security guards. 'Excuse me, sir, have you checked in?' 'It's not open yet,', I said. I'm just the idiot who made sure all his flights were evening flights - to allow plenty of time to get to the airport - while forgetting that check-out times meant I'd be wrestling with my backpack for hours on end.
'As good a reason as any,' they chuckled, and let me through. There's still some official propaganda about, but the people in the trenches don't care. The immigration woman at Heathrow just wanted to chat about Mumbai (which will be interesting, in this area. It's more recent, there. And Indians tend to an interesting combination of beaurocracy and chaos.)
Which is not to say I'd want to piss off the London police force. I've really enjoyed reading The Guardian each day while I've been here - from now, I will have to learn of new developments in the Ian Tomlinson story via the internet. (No time for links! Try guardian.co.uk).
This aimless ramble is what happens when I blog from boredom...
posted by Nicholas at
8:13 AM
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