After a very pleasant luncheon, I found my self having to back-out a software update which had proved to be troublesome. With my departure to the airport for the flight home imminent, and in combination with some moderately frantic phone conversations with the development and support team, this was the main source of excitement for the day.

Fortunately, one of the people I was visiting was able to drive me to the airport, and equally fortunately Copenhagen airport is very close to the city.

So I arrived in time for the flight back to Heathrow. Just about. After some minor trauma with security having to unpack my bag and re-scan everything.

The aircraft was a baby Airbus (ah, my itinerary tells me it was an A320, so medium rather than baby – OK, baby plus), and it was fully booked. Once everyone was safely on board we were told that there was a problem with the aircraft (although it was nothing which affected flight safety), and the maintenance crew had to perform a certain procedure which would take about 20 minutes to complete. During this procedure they also had to shut down the main power systems so we would be ‘in the dark’ with just emergency lighting for about 5 minutes. Anyone unhappy with this was invited to wait inside the terminal for the duration of the power outage. I didn’t see anyone leave the aircraft, so I assume everyone was OK.

In the event, the emergency lighting was almost bright enough to read by, so no real hardship. Towards the end of the maintenance procedure it seems that a tool being used broke, and the engineers had to send for another one before they could complete everything.

Eventually we took off for LHR Terminal 5. During the approach to Heathrow we had to circle once before we were able to land. It was a smooth landing and we were soon approaching T5.

Because of the extreme lateness of departure, several passengers were unable to make their connections at Heathrow – at least 4 flights were announced as being missed. However there were 36 passengers on board hoping to connect with the flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.

In order to assist those passengers, the gate was changed from the normal one in the main building (A gates) to a gate on the first satellite building (B gates) where the Johannesburg flight was waiting. A good idea, but for the fact that when we approached the appropriate B gate the parking assistance system had not been activated. So we had to wait for someone to come and turn it on (I think it’s a bit like the reversing parking sensors you get on posh cars, there’s something to tell you how close you’re getting and when you should stop, only going forwards not backwards in this case

Eventually we parked, only to discover that the jetway was inoperable, so we had to wait for a set of steps to be found and deployed so we could actually get off the plane.

When we did get off, I saw 3 members of BA staff waiting with ‘Johannesburg’ signs at the top of the ramp (as had been advised on the plane), so they were definitely making a big effort to get those 36 people to the Jo’burg flight.

I’m pleased to say that although I was later than I’d said I would be back to the Business Parking, I wasn’t charged any extra. I’m guessing I was within some kind of grace period, which was nice

So, a longer than expected journey. Thank goodness I had my noise-reducing headphones, my Kindle and the latest issue of Wired to keep me amused

Kudos to British Airways for keeping everyone well informed and trying their best in difficult circumstances.

The good news is that the new lounge is much nicer than the old one, it has a very modern vibe. The loos are fabulous

The range of food on offer is very good, and there is free WiFi (ask for a card at reception).

Probably the best place to be when your flight is delayed

Speaking to a colleague at work, I’m told that making phone calls on the Eurostar when it’s at full speed is problematic to say the least. It seems that switching from one cell to the next only works if the handset is travelling at 155mpg/250kph or less. So at full chat, you’ll be able to make the call but as soon as your handset tries to switch to the next cell it will drop the call.

Who knew?

In my defence, I have been rather busy

I married the very lovely Ruth on October 21st last year. In the Las Vegas Hilton. And oh my goodness, it was fabulous.

We stayed at the Luxor the first week we were away. Dr Jan’s Tip From The Top – don’t. The Luxor was a really depressing place OK, the pyramid is a fantastic building, and inside it’s an enormous atrium – all the rooms are around the outside. There are many buildings within the pyramid, which look good when you’re down on the floor walking around. However, when you are walking to your room along a long balcony overlooking them, all you can see is the dirty, scuzzy back walls which are not even clean, let alone decorated.

There are no elevators, they have ‘Inclinators’ instead, which slide up and down the inclined walls in the corners of the pyramid. Unfortunately the inclinators look exactly like elevators when you’re in them and I can’t help feeling they missed a trick by not building windows in to the cars and shafts.

We flew down to San Diego for the weekend and stayed at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay, which was completely marvellous in all respects The main thing it did was make me realise how depressed I had become staying at the Luxor.

We flew back to Vegas on Sunday and saw the Jersey Boys show, which we both enjoyed a huge amount. Then we checked in to the Las Vegas Hilton. Due to a cock-up with our booking we had been upgraded for our entire stay to a suite. Except that actually it was two suites in one We were on the 25th floor, right at the end of a corridor. We had a suite on each side of the passageway, but there were double doors which could be closed across the end of the corridor, effectively making the last 10 feet of the corridor our entrance hall

We’d seen my parents before we went to San Diego, but most people started arriving on Monday, which was a really exciting moment for me. Suddenly everything stopped being a never ending list of things to be done and started being a fabulous time with fabulous people.

Tuesday we had arranged a limo trip of the strip for everyone. Given that there were 16 of us altogether, we had 2 limos. So, naturally, there was a Boys limo and a Girls limo The trip was surprisingly good – we stopped off to see the erupting volcano at the Mirage, the “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas” sign as you enter Las Vegas (where we saw Elvis) and then the dancing fountains at the Bellagio. We ended up at the Freemont Street Experience, which was excellent.

Wednesday we got married (Email me if you want links to the photos)

Thursday we were taken on a surprise trip in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. It was absolutely magical and we all had a fabulous time. Even though I’d flown over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter on a previous trip, this one was made special by the people I was with and the fact that we stopped for a champagne picnic near the bottom of the canyon.

Friday we flew to San Francisco for a week’s honeymoon. We stayed at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay, which is nice, just not anywhere near San Francisco

We flew to and from America with Virgin Atlantic on their Premium Economy service. Well worth the extra money, and a fabulous experience.

Since then we decided to move house (to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire), and we’re still in the middle of packing, moving and unpacking more stuff than you can reasonably shake a stick at.

I’ve recently discovered http://www.openstreetmap.org. It’s a collaborative wiki-style map of the entire world. Google maps (and pretty much every other variety available on the web) are very restrictive in terms of what you can do with them. They have to be, because they are, in turn, restricted by their licence agreements with the suppliers of the map data.

OpenStreetMap is a free map which anyone can update. Go and search for your house now. If you create an account, you can then update the map. There are several tools available, both downloadable (the excellent josm for example) and on-line (the potlatch editor). I’ve mainly been using potlatch. It will show you aerial photo images from Yahoo maps ‘underneath’ the map, similar to the Google Maps hybrid view. This means that you can simply ‘trace’ the roads and other features from the Yahoo images, which seems to be acceptable use. If you have a suitable GPS-enabled device you can record ‘trails’ and upload the data. Then you can trace your GPS trails to create roads and other map features.

The road I live in was completely absent from the map, so I’ve added it in, along with some other missing local roads. I used my Nokia N95 phone with the very excellent Nokia Sports Tracker application to generate the GPS trails. Then I was able to email the generated .GPX files directly from the phone to my PC. From there I uploaded the files to OpenStreetMap and used them in the potlatch map editor to create the roads on the map.

Even if you don’t have access to GPS equipment, it’s still very easy and useful to update road names (and possibly numbers) for features you know well and are sure about. The main caveat is “don’t use any existing maps as a source”, otherwise you’ll almost inevitably be infringing copyright.

All in all, a very interesting and worthwhile project in my opinion

I have stayed at the Hilton previously, so this gave me a good opportunity to compare and contrast the two establishments.

First, let me talk about the rooms. The standard rooms at the Intercontinental are far superior to those at the Hilton. If you have a Hilton Gold Card or some other means of upgrading to an Executive room then you are approaching the quality of the Intercontinental standard rooms. I’ve never stayed in an Executive room at the Intercontinental, so I can’t comment on them. I seem to remember that the Marriott rooms were similar but slightly better than those in the Hilton – basically great if you get an upgrade, otherwise good.

Having said that, the public spaces in the Hilton are just much nicer. Because the Hilton is so huge (8 floors with over 100 rooms per floor on the non-executive levels) there is a lot of space available. The building is fundamentally square, with the rooms arranged around the edges and a huge atrium in the centre. So there is lots of room available for the lounge, which is actually on a mezzanine floor above the breakfast restaurant. By contrast, the Intercontinental is somewhat more limited in terms of available square footage. Don’t get me wrong, the Intercontinental is very good. But the Hilton is better.

After my swim I stopped by the lounge for dinner and it was superb. Everything about it was excellent; the service, the food (both choice and quality) and the ambience were all exceptional.

In other hotel related news, just to confuse matters, there is a new Hilton in town, the Hilton Prague Old Town. This is what used to be the Renaissance, just opposite the Marriott hotel. I visited the new Hilton in Prague Old Town briefly, and what I saw was a big improvement on the old Renaissance as was. The main restaurant is the Gordon Ramsay Maze restaurant, so it seemed rude not to have lunch there I had a BLT sandwich, which was rather fine

Prague Hotels have appeared previously on Twin Peaks.

http://bigmartyn.blogspot.com/

By the way, did I mention I lost another 3 and a half pounds last week? Check it out!

View from the posh restaurant at Malpensa airport, originally uploaded by rev_dr_jan.

Tucked away at the top of terminal 1 in Malpensa airport is the rather excellent La Galleria restaurant.

Remarkably, the chef has 2 Michelin Stars!

There was a 50 euro fixed price degustation menu, along with some 35 euro less extravagant menus and a full a-la-carte option.

It was gorgeous and I definitely recommend it if you’re in the area.

Last year we went the other way, along the Regent’s Canal to the Hertford Canal and then up the Lea Navigation and the Stort River to Bishop’s Stortford and then Hertford.

This year we had toyed with the idea of going to Aylesbury, which is a bit further up the Grand Union than Kings Langley (we’re much better at boat driving now though, and we were confident of making it there and back in the 9 days we had available). We were very keen to use the Thames River from Limehouse, at least as far as Brentford where it joins the Grand Union. Martyn had bought a special VHF radio and been on the how-to-radio-properly course and everything. All boats on the tidal section of the Thames (up to Teddington Lock) have to have a VHF radio in case of emergencies.

The plan was to get to Limehouse Basin on Friday night, ready for an 11:00 passage through Limehouse lock on to the Thames on Saturday morning. The timing is critical because you need the tide to be doing the right thing when you go

Friday night was the first night of the Proms, so I wasn’t able to help Martyn get the boat to Limehouse. So, he didn’t get there until the early hours of the morning, having single handedly managed all the locks from Kings Cross and having become grounded for about an hour on the way.

Martyn’s comment was that he couldn’t be dealing with any more locks (which seemed fair) so we should carry on down the Thames and aim for Oxford.

So that’s what we did

14th July – Saturday

For the journey from Limehouse we had some passengers, including Cliff, an experienced Thames cruiser. The river at Limehouse is very wide and was rather choppy, to say the least. However it soon settled down as we approached Tower Bridge and was relatively smooth from there on.

The main hazard on the Thames was other craft – it was damn busy, and most of the boats were substantially larger than our 6 foot wide and 67 foot long narrow boat. You had to keep a lookout behind as well as in front of you because we were also one of the slower vessels.

It was totally fabulous cruising all the way through central London, an extremely interesting experience

We stopped at Teddington lock to buy a license for the Thames from the Environment Agency, and for a pub lunch. We eventually disgorged our passengers at Hampton Court, where the railway station is reasonably close to the river.

We stopped cruising at about 20:30 after 28 miles and 3 locks at Moseley Reservoirs. 31 lock-miles.

15th July – Sunday

We kicked off from Moseley Reservoirs about 11:00 (the International Cruise Start Time) and ended up at Windsor and Eton about 20:00. We stopped for lunch at Chertsey and had some jolly fine roast beef. 16 miles and 7 locks for 23 lock-miles.

16th July – Monday

We started at 11:00 from Windsor and Eton and got to Henley on Thames about 20:30 after hunting for a mooring for ages. We lunched in Maidenhead with a mega-ploughman’s at the Thames Riviera Hotel. Once we started approaching Henley on Thames, all the public mooring spaces had signs to say the cost of mooring was £6 per night. We eventually had to moor opposite a sign saying ‘No mooring’, but it looked like it was stuck on top of the £6 a night sign. Given that the Henley Regatta had just finished we assumed that the ‘no mooring’ sign just hadn’t been taken down yet. We had a visit first thing from a nice chap collecting rent, who explained that if we had been there the night before it would have cost us £50! Fortunately we got away with just £6 20 miles and 8 locks giving us 28 lock-miles.

17th July – Tuesday

We slipped slightly and didn’t leave until 11:10, after some shopping in a handily close Waitrose supermarket. By 20:00 we were at Wallingford after 25.5 miles and 8 locks or 33.5 lock-miles. We lunched on board with some sarnies we had acquired at Waitrose.

18th July – Wednesday

11:10 departure again, but we arrived in Oxford and had parked up just above Osney Lock by 18:00. We were right opposite a pub, which did food and was recommended by the lock-keeper, Ray. We were both a bit knackered, so we had a little snoozette. When we got to the pub just before 20:00 it was to be told that they stopped serving food at 20:00:-( So, we were forced to walk into Oxford town centre, and happened to come across Gino’s restaurant. Which had just the most amazingly good food. Easily the best food of the cruise and heartily recommended. 20.75 miles and 8 locks for 28.75 lock-miles.

19th July – Thursday

We installed the 2 new domestic batteries that we’d been carrying on board since last week. They are like butch car batteries. Unfortunately, the connection terminals were reversed, compared to the old batteries. Which meant that we had to walk to Halfords for a new battery lead. Fortunately, there was a Halfords just down the road.

Once we had sorted all that out, we cruised under a very low bridge (we had to take the chimney down, but it’s easy to do) and up to the junction with the Oxford Canal, where we were able to turn around. “Wind” is the technical term. Martyn only ducked for the bridge on the way back when I warned him We decided to stay at the same moorings we’d started from for the night.

20th July – Friday

Despite the heavy rain, we really had to start our journey back to London. Martyn dressed up in his wet weather gear which comprised of waterproof trousers and his very butch and armoured motorcycle jacket. I was wearing my swimming trunks

Martyn was driving and I was hiding away from the driving rain inside the boat when Martyn ‘walkie talkied’ me to say there was smoke coming out of the engine! He turned the engine off straight away, but we were still travelling at quite a pace. So, we had to do a crash landing into the bank. When I dashed outside, it was to see Martyn lying on his stomach on the bank with his arms outstretched above him grasping on to the centre rope, being dragged along the bank by the boat! Looking at the flattened grass later on, he was probably dragged about 20 yards before coming to a stop.

After securing the boat with 3 lines (fore, centre and aft) and having a calming cup of tea we had a look at the engine. It turns out there is a small fan-belt which drives the secondary water pump which pumps the water round what is effectively a radiator inside the bottom of the hull to cool it. The fan-belt had pretty much disintegrated, and that was causing the smoke.

So, after a fruitless trip to Halfords (“what model of car is it for?”), we eventually found a motor factor on a nearby industrial estate. We got there just after 18:00, and it had shut about half an hour earlier.

Martyn said that the experience of stopping the boat had left him feeling the same way he had after having an accident on his motorbike.

It was sometime during the day that we realised that the river was getting higher, and when we checked with the lock-keeper, there were red boards up indicating that it was unsafe to travel on the river, due to the strong current.

21st July – Saturday

Martyn zoomed off on his bike to get a selection of fan-belts, and we fitted the one closest to the right size.

Due to the incredible amounts of heavy rain over most of Southern England, but particularly the Cotswolds, the River Thames broke its banks at a number of points.

So, given that the boat wasn’t going anywhere in the near future it was decided that I should get the Oxford Tube bus back to London.

I left Martyn and the boat and zoomed back to Hillingdon station, where Ruth picked me up and whisked me off to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

On Sunday, some people from the marina in Kings Cross came to visit Martyn and between them they managed to turn the boat around, so that it was pointing in to the flow.

The river burst its banks, but fortunately the boat stayed within the channel. Thank goodness

Martyn was stranded for over 2 weeks, and is only now back in London.

See for yourself

Follow this link to Canalplan AC and you can “Plan a Journey”. Enter the start point as “Limehouse Basin” and the end as “Osney Lock”. Select the “Calculate Route” option and then make sure that “Tidal Rivers” are set to “Neutral” rather than “Dislike”. Then “Calculate Route” again and scroll down to the bottom and select the “Virtual Cruise” button to follow the route on Google Maps with photos where available. It’s very nearly as good as being there