2011 - a fresh start...

Well... 2011 is here and arrived with much the usual amount of fanfare and mayhem and as always I swore that this year would be different in so many ways. Predictably it started with a hangover.
Unfortunately, much like last year the first notable event of the year was a very long flight back to Zambia from Australia at vast expense. At least Qantas were good enough to upgrade me to 'premium economy' which was pleasant... The notable differences in premium economy as compared to terrorist class, only a few rows behind, is that they give you a tablecloth (bless) and metal cutlery so that you can more effectively stab the eye out the fat git that's snoring next to you whilst you are still sitting up bleary eyed and trying to watch the latest of the plane sanitised, everything's-gonna-be-alright Hollywood nonsense involving Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher (they never put on saucy movies or movies with extreme violence lest some religious extremist gets his turban in a tangle for seeing a bit of lily white upper thigh)... Oh yeah and the seat is a full two inches wider so it can cope with an average sized human being. How has air travel come to be like this? Where are the glory days of romantic aviators wearing shiny epaulets and island hopping across the Atlantic? GONE they are. Now air travel is one of those experiences where you have to walk sideways down the too narrow aisle and try and squeeze your hand luggage into the overhead locker that is already filled with the possessions of the migrating aforementioned turban wearer whom you then have to step over on the way into your too small seat. Then you wait and watch your fellow passengers going through the same motions, all the while going 'not the big guy, not the big guy, not the big guy'. The big guy inevitably sits in the too small seat next to you which results in you having to sit forward and eat your meal, bowl to mouth like an oriental person, sans chopsticks to make it look cool... You then get to watch lots of tv on a too small television and eat several other too small meals with too small cutlery.
The longest flight of my life was a commute fom work in Tanzania back to Perth. The situation was exactly as above except for the fact that the too large person was a German woman (we'll call her Hilda shall we?) with a too small husband. Unfortunately, given the option of the skinny husband taking the inner seat on the row of four, Hilda elected to sit next to me and she fully flowed through the armrest, in fact it may be fairer to say that she enveloped the armrest that I could have sworn was meant to be between us... Throw into the mix that the Airbus A340 doesn't have air conditioning vents on account of the high roof over the middle seats and you can imagine the result - sweaty Hilda, who turned out to be an oh so sound sleeper with a droopy head that kept on finding its way onto my shoulder. I was terrified... Seriously, airlines need a better system...
So anyway... I made it back to Zambia safe and sound and with a minimal amount of fuss. I'm proud to say that I did not miss any flights (James, my colleague and sometimes travel mate has started the year with a bang and missed a flight on day 4 of the year! James you have learnt from the best!) - missing flights is a particular strength of mine and was a recurring theme in 2010...
So, in closing, the simple aims for 2011 are to travel more and work less and win the newly spawned competition with James to see who can miss the least flights! The stakes are particularly high seeing as the loser will be buying the winner a pint of his choice in a pub of his choice, anywhere in the world... I hear they have good beer in Bishkek!