The Circus … MI5 Operations between 1945 and 1972

Before I get onto the topic at hand, let me just describe my day at the airport yesterday. I arrived at Madison airport at midday for a 2pm flight to O’Hare, and from there to LAX. At 1:45 we got on the airplane and sat down, whereupon we were told that there was “weather at O’Hare” and we wouldn’t be allowed to take off until 3:45pm (why the existence of this weather only transpired once we were about to take off was, like most such events when travelling on airlines, not explained). The captain said that we would be allowed to get off, which we all duly did, and formed a queue at the gate, where two assistants started re-booking people. My turn came, and it was obvious that a 3:45pm flight from Madison would get in too late at O’Hare for my connection. Accordingly, after a lot of typing, the chap issued me tickets on a 4:30pm flight to Dallas, and from there an 8:30pm flight to LAX.

4:30pm came and went as I sat at the gate, without any announcement of a delay, and I resolved to return to the desk. The same chap I’d dealt with earlier (he was earning his money that day!) told me that this flight too was delayed, and would now be leaving at 6:30pm, to get in to Dallas at 9:00pm, half an hour too late to make my connection to LAX. What did I want to do? I had no fucking idea what I wanted to do, except get home, but I elected to take a chance, and hope the 8:30pm flight to LAX in Dallas would be delayed sufficiently that I could make it.

I then wandered some more around the airport: there was lots to see there and I was highly entertained. NOT. I decided at 5:40 that I should perhaps get something to eat, as I had not eaten so far that day. The first food joint I went to seemed promising, but I was curtly informed (perhaps “gleefully” is a better adjective) that it was closing. Yes, closing. At 5:45pm. When restaurants outside airports are just opening, this one in the airport, where people are arriving and departing at all hours, was closing. The logic escapes me. So I went and had a small pizza at another place: it was, frankly, rather disgusting, but I ate it gamely, anyway.

At 6:30pm we boarded the flight, and miraculously it took off promptly. At Dallas, we arrived at 9pm, and I hurried off, took the train to another terminal, and ran to the gate where, amazingly, the LAX flight was just closing, and they were calling my name. Even more surprisingly, the spare seat was a window. The downside was that it was next to a very large Australian bloke who continually burped throughout the journey. I think he had had a hot dog just before boarding, but it might have been onion rings … I couldn’t quite place the taste.

So, all’s well that ends well. Except when I got to LAX it became apparent after some waiting around that my bag hadn’t travelled quite as quickly as I had in Dallas, and was not on my flight. By now it was 11pm LA time (1am Madison time), and I my temper was short. I stood in a queue for the baggage tracing service, together with about fifty other disgruntled travellers. Finally, my turn came, and the chap told me that my bag would most likely be just arriving on Carousel 3, from a later flight that had come in from Dallas. He was right … it was. So then I buggered off home, tired but happy.

As travel stories goes, this is not bad: I’ve had, and heard of, a lot worse. But it was really my own fault, which made it harder to bear. My mistake was booking an itinerary that involved O’Hare, breaking cogshifter’s #1 rule of US domestic travel: NEVER GO VIA O’HARE! 80% of the time, if you go via O’Hare, you get delayed, in my experience. The daft thing is, the airlines, and especially American, continue to use this godforsaken airport as a major hub, despite its awful track record, despite the fact that it is well known to suffer from bad weather often and frequently, and so snarl up essentially the whole of the country due to obvious knock-on problems that ripple up and down the east and west coasts. I’ve no problem with O’Hare as a source or destination for travellers, but it should be strongly deprecated as a layover stop.

I will talk about MI5 in a post to come later.

A Strange Thing Happened On The Way to Madison

My electric shaver packed up. It was fully charged when I left Pasadena, but was dead when I came to use it this morning. Perhaps whoever it was who inspected my bags in LAX needed a shave: we shall never know. This means I will have to go commando for the rest of the week.

This morning it was drizzling, but I set off on foot anyway, walking all the way down from the capitol building to the place where the conference is being held. On the way I passed a couple of interesting used bookstores that I resolved to visit later. I bought an umbrella in Walgreens, but it blew inside out as soon as I erected it.

After sitting through some rather tedious talks I had lunch with a colleague, and then decided to beetle off back to the hotel, where I somehow fell to sleep on one of the beds in the room. On awakening my mouth felt like a used coffee filter left to dry in the midday sun and then spritzered with fetid water. So I upped and went off in search of a Starbucks. Finding one nearby, I ordered a double tall orange mocha and sat outside in the sunshine, looking at the Madison folks go by. There were a lot of very nubile blond girls wearing ponytails which bounced up and down as they walked by. A disreputable fellow sat down nearby and asked if I had any money. He seemed pleasant enough but I said no anyway, and so he pulled out a Kool and lit it, inhaling deeply on the menthol vapours. “Tastes like pussy.” he said, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. “Oh, really?” says I. “Yeh … lots of pussy around here.” This information was imparted as if he was a fellow gold prospector evaluating the likelihood of finding a nugget in a local stream. Presently, he left, so I made my way to one of the bookstores I had seen earlier.

It was fantastic, the epitome of what a used bookstore should be like. Small frontage, cavernous inside, with several floors. The little old lady who runs it told me there used to be 250,000 books, but now there were only 150,000. Deep in the bowels of the shop I came across a chap who was leafing through a thick tome. “Do you know anything about criminal justice?”, he asked me. I wish I knew what his follow up question would have been if I’d said yes.

It was near closing time, but the old lady came down and asked us if we wanted longer to look, which was nice. I resolved to come back another day, but picked out a 1966 “AA Members Handbook” from the UK Automobile Association. My Dad used to get these books when he was a member, and they are full of maps and road signs and information on all the towns in the UK. What a find! And it cost me $5 … which is how much a used book should cost, IMHO, not $55 like you have to pay for the crap in the used bookstores we have in Pasadena.

Everyone here is so very pleasant. It’s not the plastic pleasance which is so common in Southern California, but it’s more of a naive pleasance that assumes everyone is as nice as you are.

Tonight I will maybe try an Italian restaurant just outside the hotel. Last night, in the hotel, I did not eat well.

Travels

Breakfast in LAX, sweaty armpits in ORD, sunshine in Indianapolis, bag somewhere else.

Ah, the joys of travel, ameliorated by the cute girl who served me my Black Angus Burger this evening, and made a very convincing case of why she found my English accent so sexy. I’m still falling for this one, so all you nubile American ladies on my LJ list are welcome to try it anytime you like.

In other news I do not have my bag. Did I mention that already?

Film Critique

“The Aviator” – not bad, but too long. The extended coverage of “Hell’s Angels” should have been much shorter. The parts involving the investigation committee chaired by that slimey senator were most entertaining. How could a major fruitcake like Hughes continue to run a huge corporation? Baffling. What is this over-long film disease … that directors believe they have such an amazing story to tell, and such superb technique, that it justifies a >2 hour long film? My arse starts to complain after 90 minutes. Directors should be obliged to listen to people’s arses.

The new chap in charge around here has asked us all to send him a document listing tasks and accomplishments for the last year, and objectives for the next. I used to attack such things with enthusiasm, but no longer, I’m afraid. My jaded and cynical view is that “the management” likes to be able to say that all the staff have been through this exercise, which generates some semblance of good managerial practice. Whereas in fact nobody will take a blind bit of notice of the contents, and certainly not take them into account when considering a pay rise.

J&G flew back to Geneva yesterday. Before they left, we ate in the Encounter restaurant at LAX:

I think this place would do more business if it was more obvious how to get to it. As it is, you are obliged to strike off into the midst of parking structures and frighteningly busy little slip roads, with no signs to guide you.

Back from the Salty Lake and Snow Covered Land

Just back from the land of golden turd coils, or are they beehives? I got a bonus! Woo hoo. This improved my mood somewhat. Also, they increased my commission! Woo double hoo. This improved my mood some more. The inability of Delta Airlines to return me to LAX on time dampened my spirit, and that was exacerbated by the SuperShuttle driver from Hell who decided that he was solving a misère version of the Travelling Salesman Problem i.e. what is the longest path between N cities, where N is the number of people to be dropped off?

Did he get a good tip? He did not.

Famous People

After gassing on about my having met Michael Palin, I was struck by what a sheltered life I’ve been leading, since he and President Pervez Musharref are the only two famous people I’ve actually met. While Iwas in Pakistan, I also met Minister Butt, who is a hot shot over there, and so I suppose I can count him as well, but I’d be surprised if anyone reading this has ever heard of Mr. Butt.

More about Pervez and Pakistan …