travelling allrite

As we descended into Kuala Lumpur, a tourist video on Malaysia was played for our benefit. It was awful. Cheesy lyrics, karaoke singing and claims to be everything. The slogan was "Malaysia, Truly Asia." I've got a better one. "Malaysia. It's yummy!" I've also got a slogan for Britain. "Britain: Under repair." It didn't help that we were slow to get out of the hotel. A queue at the ticket machines for the underground was to be expected. The fact that only one of four appeared to be fully operational and another which had issues was not. Not expected either was the woman at the head of the queue who went through the ticket purchase process at a snail's pace. Eventually another machine was repaired, but by then the damage was done. We squeezed on to the tube train with our luggage taking up too much space and made our way to Kings Cross station, from where we walked as quickly as we could to St Pancras. But it was too late. Check in...

London is one of the world's great cities. It's also congested, dingy and apparently almost nobody speaks English here without a non-English accent. Well, at least not near the city's centre. Actually, I did hear two families and both had the fairest hair you could have and then there was the erudite guy seated next to use at the cafe who talked incessently about books. It's a pity that Alex inherited my sleeping habits rather than B's. She claimed a lack of jetlag, having slept virtually the whole night. Alex and I were up early and back to sleep again a few hours lately. So it was that we left the hotel rather late on our only day in London. The new development around the Novotel Paddington is commercial highrise and was rather deserted on a Sunday morning. Quite attractive though, in a modern sort of way, and at least there is a small supermarket and eateries. As we walked to the station we passed long thin canal boats mored alongside the edge. Some looked aban...