No More Zoom

Some people who know me think that I bring chaos to wherever I travel. It's true I've flown in to areas of conflict, poverty and natural disasters before (China's recent earthquake is a prime example) but this time it's different. This time I'm involved in bringing down a business.

Zoom Airlines, the carrier that I flew with a few weeks back to Montreal has gone bust. It seems to be the latest business to get hit by the credit crunch. Blaming spiralling fuel costs and the downturn in the economy, the business folded yesterday afternoon. Hundreds of passengers on both sides of the Atlantic were left stranded, and thousands more, including friends planning on visiting me (!) are now needing to find alternative travel arrangements.

Zoom, like Oasis Hong Kong (another recent airline failure) were trying to extend the cheap no-frills model which works so successfully for the likes of Ryanair, to long haul travel. When I flew there was strict terms on check-in baggage, limited on board entertainment with a charge for using headphones and no alcohol served with the basic food provision. Having said that the staff were friendly and helpful, the flight took off and landed on schedule and the price in peak time August was about half that of BA or Air France. I'll skip over the annoying toddler that thought that my chair was a great activity play centre which worked if you kicked it repeatedly.

The airline managed to operate for 7 years in a time of great expansion in the skies, but now economic times are harder it is very difficult for smaller operators to compete. Also with the growth in eco-awareness, the tide is turning on travellers attitudes to cheap airline travel. This is sad news as the most memorable flights I've taken have been with the smaller regional airlines, not the mega-global brands. It looks like we're entering a period of consolidation, and the world of travel will be a duller place.

For info on how to get refunds when airlines go bust here's a handy guide.

A run in the park

Maybe it was all the Olympic coverage, or the sunny weather here, but I've taken up running again. I say again, but it's been a long while since I've pulled on the trainers in anger. After working crazy hours in London it's been nice to be outside during the day and get a bit of exercise.

Running around the local park is a great way to observe Montreal people going about their lives. It's a popular park bordering the Latin Quarter and The Plateau areas of the city. It boasts a lovely lake with a fountain, sports pitches, tennis courts, kids play area and even a dog exercise zone. The park attracts a diverse range of people. Punks and Goths sit happily on the grass banks next to Grandparents and toddlers. Doctors from the adjacent Notre Dame Hospital eat lunch while rollerbladers whizz past. Then there are us joggers.

The joggers are easily to separate into two groups. The fitness fanatics and the rest of us. The rest of us are just wanting to feel a little slimmer and healthier as we shuffle around the perimeter of the park. The fitness fanatics can be summed up by "I-pod man". He is an annoyingly trim bloke who could be straight out of Men's Health magazine. To compound my own lack of fitness he always seems to be running through the park the same time as I'm dragging my weary bones around. I seem to be sweating buckets in the sun while he glides past.

The rest of us grab the nearest old band T-Shirt and not too smelly socks when we go jogging. Ipod Man dresses head to foot in sleek black running gear with a special MP3 holder strapped to his arm. The rest of us are content with listening to our own heart beats thumping in our chests. Ipod man is probably listening to Anthony Robbins podcasts.

But Ipod Man and the more down to earth joggers are typical of the large amount of health conscious folk who live in Montreal. It seems there is a conscious effort by a lot of the populace to be outside and active during the summer. There are special paths for cyclists and bladers which are always busy. All the major parks are accessible by public transport to avoid having to drive. Local markets are doing a great trade in fruit and vegetables. It seems that the whole of Montreal is making the most of the summer while it is still with us.

Montreal Snapshots

Here's a few choice moments from the last week in Montreal...

1) A guy on St Catherine Street running up to our cafe table and shouting "Hey it's Madonna's Birthday!" and then leaping away again. Well it was the night before gay pride..

2) A full on punk rocking the "I still believe it's 1976" look with a great pink 6" mohawk on the Metro.

3) CBC Television gamely looking for any good news from Canada's poor showing at the Olympic Games. "Look he got a personal best!" He also finished 7th...

4) The 17year old kid bag packer positively beaming when I produced my own rucsac to fill my groceries. Plastic bags are bad people!

5) The number 11 bus packed with people heading to Mont Royal park on Sunday. A collective agreement that the destination is worth the stifling journey. BTW it was, it's a lovely park with a lake, on a hill overlooking the city.

Bienvenue a Montreal

A cheery hello from Montreal, where I'm based for the rest of the year.

I arrived last weekend and I'm fast learning the dos and do nots of living in the world's third largest French speaking city. It's a fun and slightly daunting prospect but here's what I've gathered so far.

1) GCSE French won't get you that far, but locals will automatically switch to English when you can't work out how to say 23.75 dollars en francais. (ooh the shame!)

2) Sitting in the sunshine on a terrace of a cafe is always a good thing to do.

3) Being French, there's a plentiful supply of good cheese in all supermarkets.

4) It's 1997 so far as Banks and technology is concerned. People still use cheques! and faxes! and there's a new fangled thing you can do on your phone called text...

5) Cross the street when the light is green and hope that SUV stops in time. They don't believe in pedestrian signals or beeps for the deaf here - scary!

More soon, A bientot.

Welcome to the Future - China part 1

**Apologies for the lateness of this blog - I've only just figured out a work around so I can post while in mainland China**

"Welcome to the future" reads a massive billboard from a mobile phone company, on the road which leads from Shanghai's PuDong Airport into the city. Crossing the Lupu Bridge into the centre of the city, I stare at the 100's of skyscrapers lining each side of the Huangpo river, it's hard to disagree.

If Beijing is taking all the attention in 2008 for the once-a-four-year extended School games-athon, Shanghai is just busy getting on with the job of becoming the centre of the world. Every major business and finance organisation is setting up shop here. PuDong which was twenty years ago forgotten marsh land is now a real life version of Mega-City Four. Gleaming towers to capitalism push ever upwards into the sky. The biggest construction sites in the world are operated by an army of workers from China's rural heartland. They are relentlessly building more. Maps which are printed only a few years ago are almost redundant, such is the pace of change.

Walking around The Bund, you get a sense of how fast things are moving. The old, grand colonial buildings which once housed the banking houses are now swish restaurants and bars. A gawdy psychedelic 'tourist tunnel' now runs underneath the river to where the real action is in PuDong. Old versus new separated only by a muddy stretch of river.

The Bund's eight lanes of clogged traffic is a testament to Shanghai's new monied middle classes.They have long since flipped their bicycles for silver Diahatsu's. Fashionable teens parade up and down with mobile phones clamped to their ears, ignoring the mandolin player reciting old Chinese folk tunes. The street food stalls which mobbed the Shanghai of the 1930's have all but disappeared, to be replaced by fast food joints. McDonald's and Burger King are fighting it out with Sushi Now! and cheese cake vendors for custom.

The joys of Heathrow

Well it's five days until project China, and the last few weeks have been a heady whirl of getting everything in order, research and pfaffing about.

One of the main joys of being based in London is that I get to use Heathrow Airport far more than is healthy. Last week American Airlines exec, Don Langford called Heathrow "the worst of all the airports that my company flies to in Europe" and "a bit of a dump". Well Duh! Of course it is! Why give millions of visitors a false impression of London and the UK? Spend an hour trying to reclaim baggage at T5, and your expectations of our country will be so diminshed that even the slightest kindness will be welcome.

Even if T3 is falling apart, and T5 should never have been opened until properly tested, millions of passengers use Heathrow every year. It still is the busiest international airport in the world. The competion amongst airlines to gain landing slots is fierce. Just ask the residents under the flightpath.

Getting into the centre of London is still a pain though. Taxi's cost at least 50 GBP and the tube takes up to 1 hour. Heathrow Express at 15.50 GBP single trip is the most expensive per mile train service in the world.

For the frugal there is another option, Heathrow Connect. Using the same train track as the Heathrow Express, it takes 12 minutes longer as it stops en route to get into Paddington. The benefit is it only costs 6.90 GBP single fare and you are not stuck on a coach on the M4, or a tube signal fault on the Piccadilly line.

Either way I'll be there midday on Sunday queuing up under broken lightbulbs and torn lino. I think that for all it's faults Heathrow is a great place. It's a vibrant mini-city full of humanity, joy and tears. Shabby as it may be it's one of my favourite things about London. Now onwards to Shanghai!

Third time's the charm..

The ongoing China Visa story part 358

So, it's up and out of The Towers by 7am, to be down to the Chinese Embassy by 7:30. I'm all set with a vat of coffee, a George Saunders book and some music to keep me company. Hearteningly there's only about 20 people lined up at Portland Place when I arrive. The sun is shining and my hopes are up. Nothing is going to go wrong today!

Then something goes wrong. One of the guys at the front of the queue beckons me over to read a note posted on the outside of the Embassy door. From today, the People's Republic wants not only a lengthy two page form and a photo of you, but the details of your flight AND confirmation of what hotel you are staying at. My heart sinks. The details are kept on my webmail, and they need printed copies for their files. Going back to The Towers and getting the info would take over an hour, and the queue would lengthen considerably. I need this now!

Reluctantly I race towards Oxford Circus to try and find an internet cafe. I pass BBC Broadcasting House and wonder if there's anyone working early who I know to blag me in. Then I realise the people I know are over at White City. Damn! I spy two internet places nearby but they don't open for another hour or so.

Standing on Oxford Street I compose myself. Where can you get anything, day or night in London...? Answer: Soho! I barrel down Wardour Street to a 24 hour copy shop. The owner unlocks the door and lets me in. I manage to explain my predicament, while surrounded by dormant printers and copiers, waiting to spring into inky life. So will he help me?

"No, we don't offer that service, sir"

What?? You're a 24 hour print service! I NEED to print. Surely this is EXACTLY the service you should be offering! I even proffer a small bribe in his direction to help me out. Still the uptight jobsworth says no. I spy a PC behind his shoulder and wonder, as this is an emergency, if it would be ethical to throw him out of the way and commandeer his keyboard.

Luckily we don't come to blows as he mentions a 'net cafe close by. I turn and disappear out of the door. Success! Five minutes later I'm clutching my precious documents and running back down Oxford Street.

The queue hasn't grown too much in my 30 minute departure. The new scheme seems to have scared people away. The queue time passes and by 10am I've handed in my form. Time to celebrate this first triumph. I stride down to Market Place for a full english breakfast. There's no finer thing to lift the spirits. The folks at this brilliant blog on the great british brekkie have got it right.

After being suitably replenished, I then head back to the embassy. After another thirty minute queue, and handing over 50 GBP plus my sanity, I get the Visa. It's 11:58 am. The place shuts dead on midday.

Let's have a heated debate!

So news of the latest trip to China is causing a little controversy in the nomorejam world.

The question posed by some (quite vocally!) is that it's unethical to visit China, especially when the situation in Tibet is so bad. The Foreign Office have just updated it's advice here.

As a paid up member of Amnesty international, I'm well aware of the current problems in Lhasa. This is what they're currently saying about the Olympic Beijing legacy.

I don't subscribe to the view that visiting a country is the same as supporting the regime that runs it. While I won't be travelling anywhere near Tibet, the issue is worth pause for thought.

China will have an increasingly dominant position in the world throughout the 21st Century. Increasingly it's the world's manufacturing base, and with the American credit collapse, it also is taking a higher position in the finance world. Tourism boycotts will have next to no affect on the country. They really only have an impact when the people of the country ask for them, such as in Burma. That certainly isn't the case here.

Raising an issues' profile in the media, such as last week's Olympic Torch fiasco, will have a far greater affect than a few hundred people deciding not to board flights.

Passing up the opportunity to go and develop a greater understanding of a country is not something I believe in. Especially when the place will have such a significant impact on our lives.

Groundhog day

So back to the Embassy for a second try. A sunny morning, and I'm in a positive mood. Could I do this all before 10am? Were the Gods of Visa on my side..?

Were they hell!

The Queue at 8am was worse than the queue at 11am the previous day. I started talking to other seasoned Visa queuers. I might get to the front of the queue by 11am they said. As I had to start work an hour before that, my heart sank like a stone.

So I joined the queue out of blind optimism anyway, just to see if it would move AT ALL. It did, bang on 9am, but my hopes of a quick turnaround were receding fast. People in front of me had come prepared, with books, music and giant cups of coffee to while away the hours before getting processed by the people's republic.

My disappointment was only leavened by a courier who obviously had left the gig too late and tried begging his way into the middle of the queue. This being England, we were having none of it, and he promptly got sent packing around the corner to the very back.

So with time definitely not on my side, I left the embassy still without my Visa. Now I have the hard earned knowledge that I'll have to be up with the milkmen, and start queuing a lot earlier if I'm going to get that darn paperwork.

Props out to my fellow queuer DJ Storm, I hope the Beijing gig goes well, and the sun shines for you...

Destination China - 32 days and counting

So I'm back posting again after a long while. Hurrah!

I'm also back out in to the big wide world to report on the most interesting, vivid and bizarre places. In the process meeting fun and strange people, and of course attending any cultural festival I can find.

So in just over a month I'm heading off to resume an unfinished part of last year's tour, China. Having run out of time in Hong Kong I had to race back to the UK for two important weddings. As I bored my plane I vowed to return as soon as possible to this vast, strange, controversial and increasingly globally vital country.

With the help of Virgin Atlantic I'm flying off to Shanghai in May. Before you can fly though, you have to visit the Chinese Embassy for a visa. After the events of this weekend, I was not sure what to find as I approached Portland Place in London.


There was certainly a big big crowd as I approached the door to the visa application building. I asked one man standing there what the big crowd was for, half in mind that fire extinguishers might be let off any moment and cries of "Free Tibet!" would ring in to the air. I was to be disappointed, it was THE QUEUE for getting a visa. And it stretched all the way around the block.

As it was 11am and the office closed at 12, there was no chance in getting served. I resigned myself to the inevitable, I wasn't thwarted by protestors, but by the popularity of people wanting to visit the Country. I laughed, then strode off to the magnificent Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street to peruse their brilliant downstairs Asia section.

So we try again tomorrow!

A brief encounter with... 'Brief Encounter'

" I always try and see Brief Encounter on my birthday" says Luke, the protagonist of Geoff Dyers' great book, Paris Trance. David Lean's seminal 1945 film is the only thing that seems to ground the character. It's a constant, in an otherwise mad journey through the summer of the lives and loves of four friends in the French capital.

I understand why he did that. The film always feels to me like it belongs on BBC2 on a wet Saturday afternoon. There's something which is very safe and quintessentially British about the picture. It feels like Britain, or a version of which we are comfortable with at least. For those unaware of it's charms here's a synopsis.

The story is of a married woman (Laura, Celia Johnson) who meets by chance a doctor (Alec, Trevor Howard) at a train station, who comes to her aid when she has some grit in her eye. What follows is a study in friendship, desire, guilt, thwarted passion and finally duty. Many of the scenes are played out on location at Canforth Station, Lancashire.

So after my brief Manchester visit, I took a rather more leisurely walk from Lancaster to Carnforth, to pay homage to a cult classic. My good friend Dr Alex, had some great guides produced by Lancaster council with detailed walks around the historic city. I decided to take the 8.7 mile (14km) walk to Carnforth, via the Lune river, Lancaster canal and the stunning but fatal Morecambe Bay.

It's a fun walk which takes in a lot of wildlife as it heads north from Lancaster. The castle looms in the background. I popped in to the castle for a quick tour the day before to see if my family shield was displayed next to the Queen's.

My guide was at first really positive: "I think I've heard of it!"
I thought "Brilliant, I have standing and nobility in my ancestry!"
After searching the walls, and then the official ledger he came back with "No sorry, I must have been thinking of a prisoner!"
Lancaster Castle, is of course a fully operational prison...

The walk takes you down the river where kingfishers hunt by the weir. The path then across the impressive Lune Aqueduct to join the canal. It meanders past people's backyards and workplaces, before opening up into rolling countryside and bored looking cows standing in fields.

About halfway along the walk is a great lunch stop, The Hesk Bank Hotel. A restorative pint of Black Sheep beer and a ploughman's, sets you up for walking across Morecambe Bay. It is a beautiful spot, but tainted in recent memory by the Chinese cockle picker tragedy.

Onwards on the canal and Carnforth appears. The station is well set up for catering for visitors. The main one being there aren't that many trains to get in your way, as it now languishes being a small branch station. The famous 'refreshment rooms' and platform have been lovingly restored by a team of passionate volunteers. There is also a dedicated room for fans to watch the film on constant DVD re-runs and a gift shop to buy your own copy.

My own impressions were, in keeping with the film all too brief. I just had time to gulp down a milky coffee before being bundled out of the door. "I've got to turn this place around to be a bar for tonight's jazz evening" says the manager by way of explanation. But I still had time to admire the platform clock and the place where the Laura and Alec said there farewells.

It's a subtly complex film which even one of the stars didn't quite understand. Trevor Howard allegedly turned to David Lean during the filming and said "But why doesn't Alec just f*** her??" The beauty in understanding the film and also the place, is knowing the answer to that question.

A brief encounter with... Manchester

Have you ever met up with a friend you haven't seen in a while, and they've had a complete makeover in the meantime? It's a slightly jarring experience. The new look throws you for a while until you adjust to it. The familiar and old clash with the sparky and new. Then you remember why you were friends with this person in the first place, and can start to relax. Well that's now I felt about visiting Manchester this week.

I spent a lot of time in the mid nineties in Manchester, and the place always had a swagger about it. Stuart Maconie in last years best travel book, Pies and Prejudice, goes into an entertaining rant about how it's the British city that fancies itself the most, and I agree. And my experience of the city was before the mother of all makeovers that followed the IRA bombing of the Arndale centre. That terrible event at the fag end of 'the troubles' gave the city it's biggest reason to change itself. I haven't visited the city in years and a trip to Lancaster gave me the obvious excuse to break the journey and spend a few hours getting to know the city again.

Entering the city at Piccadilly station the changes are obvious and instant. Instead of a grubby slope down onto London Road, new station shops open on onto gleaming office blocks with men dangling on ropes inspecting the miles of glass. At the start of Piccadilly the Malmaison hotel chain has it's Manchester branch. The idea of anyone wanting to sleep at this end of the city ten years ago was laughable, now it's 255 pounds a night for a suite.

Heading up Piccadilly you enter the gardens. A grand staging post the city's buses and trams, sorry, Metrolink, the square has been spruced up and new buildings flank two of it's sides. Heroin addicts from Withenshaw used to call this place home, now it's young guys in bright jackets giving away copies of the local paper. It's not just London that gets the joy of recycled press releases and celebrity 'gossip' thrust at them on their way to and from work then..

Dodging the trams I cut through the Arndale centre. It was comforting to find that this bastion to cheap shopping hasn't changed. It now boasts an Aldi. That's all I'm going to say.

Corporation Street has changed completely. A new M&S and Selfridges sit next to each other in a great big glass box. Next door another London department store, Harvey Nicols opens it's doors to the footballers' wives set. In front of all this gleaming consumerism, is the Manchester Wheel. It's like a cut down version of the London Eye.

The further you wander around this area of the city, the more development you see. The old corn exchange is now called 'The Triangle'. The tatty but endearing little stalls have long gone and instead is a Triffids-like pod boasting a Cafe Nero. Further down Deansgate cranes stretch into the air, slowly pirouetting as they transform the skyline.

All this modernity was increasing hard to take in on a short stop over, so I headed to the Northern Quarter. Thankfully this area hasn't (yet) been bulldozed over to make flats for marketing executives, and still retains it's charm. Many good bars have now sprung up here, along side independent clothes and jewellery shops. This is the Manchester that I loved in the 90's so it was a relief to still find that vibe alive and well. Even the temple of studentdom, Affleck's Palace is still trading. Although signs in the maze of shops signify that it's only hanging on my it's fingernails.

Oldham Street still boasts it's fine vinyl and cd shops, with Piccadilly, Vinyl Exchange and Eastern Bloc doing good trade. I spent far too much time in these places as a student, so it was a pleasure to grab a copy of the new We Are Scientists cd, before ambling back to the station.

I sat bewildered on the train as it pulled away from city. So much has changed in a comparative short space of time. What to make of it all? Manchester still has it's swagger about it, just recently it's been able to do so in designer clothes.

A new place to lay my head

Moving is right up there in the stress stakes with births, marriages and deaths. But If you're lucky to have some very good friends to help you lug boxes around it can all go swimmingly.

So I'm now a resident of Shoreditch, which for a few years was the epicentre of all things arty and cool. The best documenter of that was this. The area's creative types were also taken to task by Charlie Brooker's brilliant creation of Nathan Barley. It worked better in print than it did on screen.

Anyway, lots of new bars and restaurant's to explore. This first I went to last night was Fabrizio's on St Cross Street in Clerkenwell. A really welcoming place with good variety of rustic italian cooking. The owner Fabrizio Zafanara came over and chatted with us afterwards. A brilliant place and half empty!

Last weeks news today..

One of the small snippets of information that came out of last week’s Heathrow crash was an interview with one of the passengers of BA038 from Beijing. After complimenting the pilots and cabin crew, he then put the boot in to ground staff while waiting to get checked out by medical staff.

"I asked if tea and coffee could be arranged and this fell on deaf ears"

What?! The plane only missed crashing in Hounslow by a matter of seconds and he’s going on about the tea?? I’d be straight off to the bar to clear out the champagne before hugging everyone in T4 for getting out alive. Perspectives man! You have just become a member of a select band of people to say you walked away from a plane crash. Enjoy it!

Book review: Charlie Connolly, Attention All Shipping

If you suffer like me from interminable bouts of Insomnia (usually when there’s an early start the next morning), the lilting melody of “sailing by” and the shipping forecast that follows it on Radio 4 denotes the fact that it’s almost 1 o’clock in the morning. If you’re still awake at such hour you may have given half a thought to what those obtuse place names that are called out to weary fisherman actually mean. Where exactly is Lundy? What are you supposed to do with a Dogger Bank?.

Charlie Connolly has thought these same thoughts and more. He’s actually done a whole trip around the shipping areas of the uk, to find out what’s the deal with this broadcasting institution.

Starting out from his home in Greenwich, Charlie trawls his way clockwise around the country and also popping over to such glamorous locales as North Utsire, (a bleak windswept isle), the independent and paranoid state of Sealand “we’ve had attacks on our sovereignty!” claims the prince. Which is more surprising, as the state is an old WW2 barrage 10 miles off the coast of Southend.

Through the course of his travels, the highlights are the small stories of how the sea has influenced the lives of those living at it’s edge or who’s living depended on it. Lovely tales abound of outstanding bravery from lifeboat men, eccentric lighthouse keepers and piracy on the high seas.