So to celebrate a couple of weeks in La La Land I’m just going to post a few of the images that will stay with me from the recent trip. Big thanks for all those who’ve been liking this stuff and giving me undeserved encouragement. It’s a little like encouraging that bloke in the pub to “Tell us more about your holidays then Sid”. I’ll just go on and on, and my dislike of flying will rapidly surface like Jaws on a hungry day.

Security was tight at the Airport, and the Americans seem to be perfecting the art of making a queue. Nowhere near as bad as the torture when we were incoming, but the usual sour faces with the standard sense of humour bypass. What an unhappy collection of people working there. I DID NOT make the mistake of making any sort of joke and would recommend anyone else to do likewise.

Let’s get the flying stuff off my chest first. Air New Zealand employed the All Blacks to do their safety feature at the start of the trip. They should have stuck to throwing an odd shaped ball around, it was truly terrible and hopefully when they grow older it will come back to haunt them as one of their most embarrassing moments, almost as bad as losing to England in the World Cup.

Then there’s the food. Or what they called food. I suspect that the food got on the plane in Aukland and had a few air miles on it before it got to those lucky enough to board at Tom Bradby Airport in LA. It was truly awful. My wife’s special veggie meal was the greyest looking heap I’ve seen since I was at boarding school in the early 60s. My chicken dish was a high flying disaster area. Yuck. To add insult to injury there was a slice of Monterey Jack cheese. I’m sure there is some Monterey Jack cheese that tastes like cheese, but this yellow wedge of plastic looked like an offset from a child’s plastic seaside sand bucket. Industrial waste. Perhaps I could take the taste of all this away with a plastic cup of Sauvignon, after all the New Zealanders are good at wine these days. Perhaps it’s because wine and plastic don’t mix that this very nearly had me wanting to have my teeth removed. I’m sure you get the picture.

The piece de resistance was what was called an omelette for breakfast. I just knew I should not have asked for it. Curiosity got the better of me. An omelette should be made from eggs that have landed in the hand from the back landing wheels of a chicken. This was tough enough to put under the front wheels of a jumbo jet to prevent movement. Perhaps they do it on purpose, after all there are limited toilet facilities on a plane and anything that prevents movement might help them manage, if you get my drift.

It does not seem to matter who you fly with they all seem incapable of serving anything remotely acceptable. I suggest they get Pret a Manger to look at how they do this sort of thing.

Now let’s go to the sunny stuff. Mainly pictures here and no more ranting.

Big thanks to all those who dropped into my trip to LA. Back in the UK and big thanks to all those people who made our trip to the States so memorable.