While one doesn’t actually like worrying, or even having some worry to cast aside from one’s awareness (as satisfactory as command of one’s concerns might be), there are a few things which have made themselves know over the past couple of days.

There is, for instance, the possibility of a strike by both the Network Rail and the Rail Maritime and Transport unions in England come Easter Weekend that could result in the UK’s collective inter-city rail system coming to a screaming halt, although they’re discussing ways to avoid this taking place. There’s been some pondering amongst some about whether this will have an effect on the number of people attending Odyssey 2010 (AKA: “EasterCon”), but I’m using the tube to get to Heathrow at that point on the calendar. ‘All good’, then.

British Airways is having labour trouble right now, wherein striking cabin crews have forced BA to cancel 1,100 flights, but I’m flying both to and from England on Air Canada. Fine there as well.

So… when this week’s episode of the Rick Mercer Report shows the following satirical commercial, fear enters my soul at the prospect of the following taking place in the middle of the afternoon tomorrow.

It’s probable that this ‘bit’ was created by Mr. Mercer as a reaction to being bumped from one domestic flight to another while travelling around Canada for the show. There’s been a few times I’ve heard of them cancelling FLIGHT-A and then putting those people onto FLIGHT-B so as to make a full compliment of passengers, which is fine in theory, but then why bother offering the additional flight in the first place? If there’s not sufficient trade for the offering of both flights, then it’s simply false advertising to say “we fly from Winnipeg to Vancouver 17 times a day!” and then cancel over half of them, isn’t it?

This doesn’t necessarily mean a damned thing about my flight from Vancouver to London, however. There’s a considerable difference between, for instance, flying from Toronto to Boston and flying across the entire Polar Region and North Atlantic. Perhaps there’s some sort of requirement for Air Canada to offer a particular number of domestic flights from one particular area to another in order to get their approval to fly to however many international centres they desire to serve. Anyone out there have any ideas about this? Is there an additional aspect to this based entirely on the fact that the people responsible for schedules are as thick as concrete on a hot day?

I’m planning of arriving as soon-ish as possible at the airport; that way they’ve less chance to do me out of a seat, even though the tickets have been paid for and reserved for weeks. The earlier you’re there, the better the possibility that the flight is not already fully assigned, making you SOL. Perhaps I really ought to have arrived there last Friday…?

One thing I will get to experience is the embarrassment of having someone call upstairs to make sure it’s alright to let me on the plane. This has happened both times I’ve flown, and at each end of the voyage: arrive at check-in, provide ticket details and passport, state no real preference about seating (other than ‘as far away from the drunken louts as possible’), wait patiently as we whip through a list of things no-one should ever say ‘yes’ to, even if true (have you left your luggage unattended for any length of time? were you approached by anyone asking you to transport something for them? did you agree? is there anything explosive in your bags? are you secreting heroin in your anal cavity? are you planning on doing any performance art whilst at your destination featuring inflatable donkeys, nudity, or both?), have the baggage weighed, then wait… and wait… while the poor soul behind the desk tries to figure out whether or not to explain that there’s a bloody huge red box flashing on their screen saying THIS PERSON IS ON A LIST OF PEOPLE WHO, WHEN FLYING, SOMEONE IMPORTANT HAS TO BE TOLD ABOUT IT. Typically the ticketing person has explained that they’ve got to call Security because they randomly are asked to do so (although the point of that process has never been stated), ask if I reserved my flight using my full name (I always do that for anything, not just flights), or simply look at me to check there’s not some odd bulge under my jacket that’s vaguely shaped like a side-arm and then run screaming for the door into their office.

Granted, the English author Michael Marshall Smith gets hauled into one of the interview rooms every time he goes to the USA, so I suppose the telephone call is the least of my concerns. Why I’m flagged is beyond me. I have no criminal record, I’ve never served in the Armed Forces, and have only occasionally called for the overthrow of a government (typically advocating for the use of a UN-approved democratic process).

The main worry right now is counting numbers of socks and boxer shorts, then determining how much everything weighs. My main piece of luggage allows for fifty pounds (50 LBS), which ought to be enough for anyone as tiny as myself. Even allowing for the promotional material being taken, I should be fine.

Something new to this trip is that one small piece of luggage goes with you into the cabin, one piece of luggage is checked and stored in the belly of the æroplane, and the third piece of luggage doesn’t go into the belly as usual but instead goes with you into the cabin. This seems… well, odd. If this is safety-based, one would think that it would be ‘safer’ to have as much of one’s stuff go into the belly where people can’t get at it, and just make sure someone scans the crap out of it before loading anything. If scanning is more stringent for carry-on baggage, then why are you letting me put anything in the cargo hold? On the other hand, perhaps the whole thing is based on balance, and putting more weight in the vertical centre of the tube… makes it… easier to fly… the aircraft…?

Please don’t try that bit of logic at home. I am not an æronautical engineer, nor have I even played one on TV.

Jennifer is driving me out to the airport to see me off properly. Nice. Frankly, I’d rather use the Canada Line, if only to be able to say that I went from the house to my hotel in London – door-to-door – without using an automobile, but that can be accomplished on the return.

Now… to check the dryer for more socks so I can stop worrying about finding somewhere to buy some there…

Merely because one is a penniless, debt-ridden, depressive, ex-actor struggling to get a publishing venture off the ground with little capital to back up one’s efforts doesn’t mean that one cannot have the wherewithal to venture onto the World Stage and attend an historic event in the United Kingdom! No no! Which is exactly why I’m attending World HorrorCon 2010 in Brighton; the 20^th time it’s been held, but the first time a World HorrorCon has been held off the North American continent! The following weekend, I’ll be at EasterCon: Odyssey 2010, the annual Science Fiction event for the UK, which is being held in Hayes, Middlesex… or “Heathrow” as most call it. Both events will see me standing behind a Dealers’ Table promoting my wares: four different, brand-new books from Atomic Fez!

How is all this possible, given the previous mention of my penurious state? It’s quite simple: VISA, and a loving, supportive wife.

Why this is being trumpeted here and not in a post on the Atomic Fez site is because much of this trip’s musings will have little to do with the books themselves, ‘Official Statements’, or the like. Yes, declarations of successful events engaged in at World HorrorCon – such as pitch sessions or panel discussions, for instance – will be found there, for it is appropriate for them to be there. On the other hand, statements such as my father’s question last autumn “why does every breakfast involve baked beans here?” or my own surprise that “not only can I wander anywhere around the hotel carrying a pint, people don’t understand my surprise that it’s allowed even after I explain about BC liquor laws” aren’t really something that has anything to do with the book trade. Some might suggest that alcohol of any sort has a great deal to do with the book trade, but that’s another matter entirely.

The trip involves me being there from the 23^rd of March to the 8^th of April, during which I check into hotels on a total of five different occasions. Granted, occasions number three and five involve the same hotel, but there’s still the ‘registration and settling’ period which takes a period of time to accomplish. Hardly much of a help, then.

There are a few things I’ve planned to accomplish while there, but most of the ‘big goals’ were accomplished last time London was viewed. That said, there are things to be done:

• the other 95% of the British Museum which wasn’t seen due to over-dosing on the Enlightenment Gallery
  • especially important is seeing The Staffordshire Hoard display
• the other 66% of the National Gallery and all of the National Portrait Gallery that were missed last time
• possibly chunks of The Tate Modern as only the Turbine Hall was viewed in the autumn of 2008
• it might be good to see Piccadilly Circus / the Houses of Parliament / Hyde Park / the Lloyd’s Building (at night this time) in order to say one had done so
• if there’s some sort of exciting music gig I might check it out, but the following being held at Royal Albert Hall are unlikely to be seen:
  • The Who, performing Quadrophenia and other ‘classic rock’, mostly due to it being sold out and more expensive than can be comprehensible
  • The Specials, re-formed – unless you listen to Jerry Dammers – and on their 30^th Anniversary tour, because the tickets are £35 and up, plus it just doesn’t seem the right venue to be listening to those up-beat, 2-tone, dance-happy Ska-legends, really, does it…?
• Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club doesn’t have anything exciting scheduled even, which is a shame.
• there are a few pubs which haven’t been seen yet… for their historical merit, obviously.

Mostly, however, the principle thing I want to do during the few ‘off days’ while there is exercise my skills as a flâneur, do things as the mood strikes, and see what happens by chance. This is probably the best attitude to have during any travel, but one of the Major World Cities it’s easy to make lists of THINGS ONE MUST SEE WHETHER YOU HAVE TIME TO APPRECIATE THEM OR NOT. Understandable, yet not something enjoyable in the end, as all one ends up with is a piece of paper with check-marks and little memory of the things they’re marking have been accomplished.

As most of the time will be spent endlessly standing in a large, airless hotel convention room encouraging people to part with their cash in return for books, the few occasions one can do something ‘fun’ oughtn’t to be filled with too much work or ‘expected results within the following time frame’. So it won’t.

It’s certainly hoped that this is the beginning of actually making something of myself as a ‘real adult’. As I’ll be hitting 44-years-of-age the same day of the return flight, that may seem an odd statement, but it’s not. To be this old, yet never having been particularly successful in any of one’s previously chosen professions, and now be seemingly un-able to hold down ‘a real job’ (owing to varying levels of ability on a day-to-day basis), as well as equally relying on one’s partner for supporting oneself… well, it makes one rather sad, even if one wasn’t dealing with chronic and clinically diagnosed depression.

Given the amount of time one has left, plus the amount of money and time spent leading to this particular campaign of accomplishment, there’s a lot riding on this. Good or bad, it’s all up to me.

Having proved last week that we don’t have winter, and our Spring is both incredible, as well as just as incredibly unpredictable as anywhere else in the world, let us reaffirm the stereotype that Canada is nought but wind-swept tundra with today’s photos, preceded by a topical quotation from A.E. Housman [1859 – 1936]:

About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow

–“A Shropshire Lad” [1896]; Nº2, st. iii

I wonder what the people in the Canadian Maritimes are doing right now…? Probably giggling at us, I suspect.

Having proved last month during the Winter Olympics that February around here is as unpredictable as anywhere else in the world (Calgary also had to truck-in snow in 1988), let us put to rest the stereotype that Canada is nought but wind-swept tundra with today’s photos, preceded by a topical quotation from the Bard of Avon:

Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.

–“The Winter’s Tale” [1610 – 1611]; Act IV, sc iii, 118

I wonder what the people in the Canadian Maritimes are doing right now…?

Many of you reading this have suddenly encountered far more information about Vancouver than you’ve previously had available, and have heard all sorts of things that never cropped up here (due to my somewhat ‘unique’ viewpoint and particular passions shaping the contents thereof). The Winter Olympics have opened officially last night, proving once and for all that Canada has more than Mounties and Inuit making up the cultural mosaic.

Yes, we have fiddlers with wild tatto’oing and kids who can fly over fields of grain… but we have no snow, at least not here in Vancouver, which is why the Men’s Alpine Ski Competition has been postponed (they’re shipping snow from 150 miles away to several venues using dump trucks… no, honestly, they literally are doing that very thing).

Anyway, I may feel that building a transit corridor, re-building a highway, and constructing a convention centre collectively costing well over three billion dollars (for those of you in the UK, that’s $3,000 million, not $3 million million; the Canadian dollar hasn’t fallen that badly), yet the government responsible refusing to count the work required for the bid to be accepted as an Olympic Expense – all the while slashing arts, health, education, and community works funding, claiming “there’s no money” when asked for justification – is not only absurd but inhumane. I may resent the current PM, BC Premier, and a host of other politicians using the Olympic Games as photo opportunities for their ‘non-campaign’ for re-election (the party at both levels of power was different when the games were sought and awarded), and the fact that the PM has dissolved parliament at a time when it was politically wise to not be questioned in a public parliamentary forum about his every decision (and he refuses to engage in Q&A through press ‘scrums’). I resent a great deal of this nation’s attention, efforts, and volunteer labour being focused on a bunch of under-paid athletes doing something truly amazing that is held under the auspices of what amounts to a Multi-National Entertainment Corporation which claims to be altruistic about ‘the celebration of the pure sporting achievements’. Given the insane amount of cash that gets shovelled through the IOC from people like IBM, M^CDonalds, VISA, Omega, RBC-Dominion, NBC, Coca-Cola, and the rest, I’ve no idea how the IOC recently acquired an Observers Chair at the United Nations; especially given the UN’s stated policy that they do not engage with, represent the interests of, or liaise between corporations.

Anyway… beyond all that…

The Opening Ceremonies here in town brought tears to my eyes more than once, and it was stunning (pity about only three of the legs for the cauldron working, though).

Meanwhile, outside…

Well, frankly, SmuttySteff covers the whole local protest issue far better than could be even imagined within my capabilities, frankly. For as start, I’d probably be more sweary. Read her take on the matter right here. Honesty do it: you’ll be glad you did.