A Grumpy Old Man's Guide to Christmas

Christmas, that time beloved by all small children, shopkeepers, credit card companies and admirers of Carry On films will soon be upon us. This small offering seeks to provide some insight into that overblown, lumbering and unstoppable machine that is the festive season.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. I love the interesting gifts that prove desperation can turn sensible people into panic-stricken buying machines (and special thanks there to Auntie Jean for those 12 different small pots of “Jams of the World” - a present I shall always treasure).I love the naïve hope that this year I will eat my Christmas lunch with its 7 varieties of overcooked vegetables, starter, pudding, various alcoholic beverages and STILL have room for cold meats, pickles etc as I watch the joyously festive murder/tragedy/catastrophe served up by the scriptwriters of EastEnders. I love the assortment of gaily coloured greetings cards from people met once on holiday many years ago with the brief note telling me that someone I have never met has had a baby and how festive Worksop looks at this time of year. Most of all though, I love the build-up to Christmas..........

Like the first cuckoo heralding Spring, the Advent Calendars melting gently in the September heat provide the first glimpse of that well-oiled machine, designed to rid us of our money, our sanity and any goodwill. You know then that the Christmas timetable is upon us and shortly, nothing in the supermarket is where it should be as all the everyday items have been pushed into small, dark corners to make way for far more important purchases like Mint Thins, cocktail cherries and cheesy footballs. Gift Catalogues as large as telephone directories crash through the letterbox reminding us to panic that there are only 2 months left to bankrupt ourselves, children start to compile the first few volumes of their Present List and we all utter those immortal words…. “This year, I am going to be really organised and get everything out of the way to save the last-minute panic”

Of course, it never happens. By early November, shopping centres see vast multitudes of people, secure in their smugness, wandering from shop to shop looking for that special present. By the end of the day, you see those same people, defeat and tiredness etched across their faces, clutching several rolls of wrapping paper, 2 calendars and a novelty kitchen implement trudging dejectedly back home.

And so it goes on. Week after week, we gradually whittle down the list with the main expenditure being the cost of car parking tickets (courtesy of those extorting bastards known as NCP) and headache tablets. The joy of hearing When a Child is Born in every shop we fight our way around is only slightly increased by the sadistic pleasure derived from thinking of the poor sods that work there and have to listen to it all day. All this is guaranteed to send us into a fit of homicidal rage and even a turkey seems to have a better outlook on life.

As the Day looms ever closer, we get to dread the sound of the front door bell and the 4 children standing there singing the first line of We Wish You a Merry Christmas before the youngest is pushed forward for their just reward.

By now, we have developed a siege mentality and are planning the final food shop. Cupboards are bulging with sweets, savouries, cakes, biscuits, chocolate and every conceivable relish, chutney and pickle so it’s only the fresh food left to get. Now this is where the strange quantum physics of food requirements kicks in. It goes something like this:

Allow 4 times the normal amount of food consumed per person and add sprouts. Multiply this by the inversely proportioned ratio of bodily sounds and functions as we sleep through the afternoon of Christmas day and subtract the amount of sherry consumed by any pensioners present. Failing this, just grab a shopping trolley and fill it with whatever you can find left on the shelves.

At last, you get to that wonderful moment on Christmas Eve when there is no more that can be done. This is that special time when one can sit down and relax, casting an appreciative eye over the decorations dropping from the walls where the Blu-Tack failed yet again and thanking all Gods that Noel Edmonds is no more a traditional part of Christmas Morning. Christmas Eve is also a good time to go and slip a card into an acquaintance’s letterbox if they haven’t sent you one already – guaranteed to send them into a panic of indecision.

Christmas morning finally arrives; that special time when all the New Year sales are first aired on the box and the summer holidays adverts are tempting us to spend even more money that we haven’t got.

……………………….. OK, I give in, it’s a fair cop. I LOVE the thought of Christmas really. Every year I still look forward to it although I do hate the build-up and the commercialisation. I still think of open fires and children’s laughter, strangers wishing each other a cheerful greeting and happiness and peace. Being with friends and loved ones, remembering the sheer joy that Christmas brings to children and that special air of excitement.

Perhaps that is what Christmas is all about: what is in one’s mind and in one’s heart. You can’t buy Christmas – you can only live it.

Now, where did I put those Easter Eggs…………………..?

Bertie's Travelogue Part 2 - Marseilles to Lisbon

Well, I made it to Marseilles after a fairly uneventful trip down through France.It was a strangely real experience after a few hours at the controls, seeing the blue of the Mediterranean was really quite exciting as I was vectored in for a nice simple landing. Did you know Marseilles is the second biggest city in France as well as the oldest, dating back to 600BC? I didn't stay too long, pausing only for a quick bouillabaisse, a pastis and a look around for Popeye Doyle before climbing back on board and heading off to Sion in Switzerland.

Sion is up in the Swiss Alps and was my first experience of the "interesting" effect mountains have on an aircraft. I was thrown around a fair old bit and was having to keep my eye on both heading and altimeter all the time which,at the end of an almost 3 hour flight was a tad tiring. By now though, I was used to doing 6 things at once and the voices of the Air Traffic Controllers no longer provoked screams of "Alright, in a minute...stop being SO bossy" It was really rather lovely flying into Sion Valley and seeing the strip laid out inviting me to land. Sadly, I was way too high and the kamikaze dive was never going to work so I had to ask Traffic Control to send me round again (incidentally, one 'talks' by bringing up a list of options on screen relevant to any given situation).

A neat landing second time round and I made a big decision - I was going to change my aircraft. The Electra was all very well but was underpowered, cumbersome and, most importantly, had few sophisticated instruments. I wanted a bit more speed and, being a 20th century boy, I also wanted some technological conveniences. Popping into the local Planes 'R Us, I exchanged a few Euros and my trusty Electra for a rather fetching Mooney M20M Bravo with Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. I even managed to get the registration G_BERT!


Basically the G1000 is the bees knees of avionics and takes a lot of mundane tasks from the pilot. The software recommends downloading the actual manuals from the Garmin website in order to familiarise oneself! For me, it means yet another very steep learning curve but also the added benefit of auto-pilot so that I can at least read up on it as I fly.

The trip from Sion across to Bilbao was long, uneventful and boring and certainly the longest leg thus far. Fortunately the Mooney cruises at 150 knots, 25% faster than the Electra and that, combined with auto-pilot, made life easier. I haven't found out whether I can programme course changes into the G1000 yet so I am having to go manual for route changes and changes of airspace responsibility. I don't really mind because otherwise, I could just programme it and then forget the whole thing until journey's end. At the moment, I feel part of it and I'm starting to feel an affinity with the aircraft. I am very lucky that my PC spec. enables me to tweak the performace of the software so that I get a smooth, graphically realistic representation of the whole experience,. although even the aforesid tweaking needs a science degree. For those of a quizzical bent, here is a small part of the 'tweakability'.

I eventually arived at Bilbao (on my last drop of fuel) although sadly I have found no interesting facts about the city apart from the intriguingly designed Guggenheim Museum. Frank Gehry's spectacular edifice boasts to have no flat surface on the entire structure and houses works by Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Vasily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee.

l had a lovely early morning start down to Lisbon.


Weather is pretty good so far and, here's a clever bit; the weather is real-time weather which is downloaded/updated for the region I am in every 15 mins! How impressive is that?

Perhaps I am getting blasé about Europe but I can't help but look forward to getting to more exotic places. After Faro, I have a landing at Gibraltar to which I am really looking forward. I remember visiting there a good few years ago and it's a fascinating chunk of concrete, sort of stuck on the end of the Rock. I seem to recall that the main road runs across it so some poor sod might end up with my tyre marks on his roof.I got to Gibraltar by cattle boat from Tangier in real life so it will be nice to do it the comfortable way.

The fact that I am talking of the future shows that Bilbao to Lisbon was another flat, boring, flight. I soon got fed up with lookingaround at the featureless landscape and ended up reading my Flight Simulator X trainig manual - a mere 722 pages!

Incidentally, I was watching a programme late last night on Sky where round the world flights were mentioned. One guy in the 30s had a 32 hour leg in an aircraft where he was so confined, his shoulders literally touched the sides of the plane. They showed him being helped out after and his head was covered in blood where the turbulence kept smacking it against the cockpit roof. In some small way, I felt a little bit closer to that brave but foolhardy soul and, as I contemplated future journeys across the Pacific, I thought about how the last 80 odd years have seen such changes in our world. There seem to be few daredevils anymore, only the deep remains unexplored and challenges of man and machine no longer abound. People related to those venturers and they became the celebrities of their day. Ordinary men and women lived out their fantasies through such exploits as people today also endeavour to emulate those of celebrity status. Personally, I would rather aspire to Lindbergh than Katona any day.

Flown this blog:

Paris - Marseilles 342 nautical miles
Marseilles - Sian 210 nm
Sian - Bilbao 505 nm
Bilbao - Lisbon 412 nm

Bertie's Travelogue Part 1 - Farnborough to Marseilles

Well, as you peruse this, dear reader, I am cruising gently southwards towards Marseilles, having just passed Avignon (and yes, I did sing it!). My flight from Farnborough to Paris was not without incident, however, as part of the simulation involves pre-flight checks involving switching magnetos, heating pitots, darning the parachute and other sundry tasks. Sadly, there is no documentation so there followed several scenes variously involving total inaction, take off followed by an ominous silence as the engines died or a strangely beautiful ballet as I corkscrewed through the air before splatting into the ground.

After some frantic research and armed with a full list of pre-start, startup, taxiing, take-off, climb-out ....yawn .... cruise, descent...zzzzzzz..., approach, landing etc etc checklists, I finally soared off into the wild blue yonder. Pootling off southwards, the nice man at Air Traffic Control passed me onto Shoreham ATC where I was admonished for being at the wrong height as I dropped down to see where I was born. Up I rose and said a fond farewell to Blighty whilst playing "We'll Meet Again" on my Dansette Junior.


I got a bit muddled for a while and ended up over Deauville but finally saw the gleaming dome of the Basilica of Sacré Coeur and, more importantly, the lights of Orly airport. Feeling rather smug at my navigational prowess, I decided to video my landing as part of this blog (another clever part of Flight Simulator X) and post my triumphant touchdown. Needless to say, my landing was roughly similar to a kangaroo on a trampoline which is why I will just show you a nice picture of Paris!


I refilled my trusty Electra and filed my next flight plan before once more taking to the skies en route to Marseille - a city pretty high on my list of must-visit places.

Incidentally, by sheer coincidence, after I mentioned Amelia Earhart in the last blog there was a Sky documentary on the lady that very same day! How spooky was that? Apparently, there was a very strong rumour that she didn't actually disappear whilst circumnavigating the globe through aircraft failure but was captured by the Japanese and accused of conspiring with the US government by using her flight as an excuse to spy on the strength of the Japanese military forces. The contention was that, eventually, she was summarily executed. If you want a read - yer tiz!

Toodle pip!

Around the World in 80 Flights

Recently, I decided the time was ripe for a foray into global circumnavigation. Having checked my air miles and realising that, even if I flew really quickly, 57 miles would be insufficient ,I had to settle for a virtual trip and this has now been planned. Flying a 1937 Lockheed Electra 10E, the intention is to start from Farnborough and, hopefully, end up back there 80 flights later.


Details are as follows:

• The entire journey covers a staggering 43,000 miles across the planet
• Over 60 countries are either visited or flown over during the course of the journey
• The entire trip will take approximately 400 hours to complete
• The journey includes crossing both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
• The northernmost point of the route is Sondre Stromfjord in Greenland, whilst the southernmost point is Darwin in Australia

Naturally, I may well not do it over the next few weeks but it seems like a pretty cool thing to say I have flown around the world in real time. I shall accordingly keep a journal of the trip and post the occasional blog detailing my adventures and also a few salient (or totally irrelevant) facts about the areas over which I have flown. I am mindful of some of my predecessors like Earhart, St Exupery & Glenn Miller, all of whom disappeared during flights, and am therefore appreciative of any glowing tributes before I disappear so that I can read them!

At the moment, I am hurriedly studying the vagaries of Air Traffic Control, flight planning and how to pee out of the window of a twin engined aircraft at speed. I have radios and people keep telling me where to go (nothing new there then) but up until now I have, to be honest, been more of the school of "aim for where you're going and hope for the best". The first leg is a short trip of 243.8 nautical miles to Paris Orly and below is the flight plan - 9 changes of heading and Bonjour Paree! I'm currently struggling with vectors, frequencies and even what call sign to have - Bravo Echo Romeo Tango six nine?
It's really quite weird planning it all as it's now taking on some strange reality and it'll be interesting to see if it actually feels like I'm crossing the Equator, gazing down at the landing strip at Mogadishu or flying over the Earth's smallest nation (Nauru - 8 square miles!). No doubt we shall see.

Thoughts for the Day

I know I've said this before but I really do think that blog writing for me has come to a natural end - either temporarily or permanently.

Ennui seems to have overtaken my life and I can't really be arsed to even get annoyed about too many things as is my rightful role. Meldrewitis (as it is clinically known) seems to have either tucked its head below the parapet or perhaps I am so annoyed at everything, there comes a natural neutralisation of all things rantable. Allow me to give you an example:

Saturday night; totally bored, TV full of capering terpsichorean 'celebrities', people's home movies showing somebody dropping a bucket of paint on their head whilst decorating in a desperate attempt to have us believe that they just happened to always keep video records of redecorating and it's nothing to do with causing £300 worth of damage and hassle to try and win £250! Personally, I would rather pay £250 not to have that idiotic buffoon Harry Hill on my screen. I was bored with sitting in front of a PC. I had spent the day realising that my recent gastro-enteritis was merely an hors d'oeuvre to the real thing and therefore not at my best.

Anyway, I decided to do a jigsaw. I quite like jigsaws as long as they are not the normal landscapes, flowers, soulful-eyed animals or other sundry charity shop rejects. Something that is vibrant, makes one think or has a picture of Felicity Kendal in her prime tend to be on my list of faves. Perhaps something like a Wasgij?


The one I selected was 1000 pieces and I sat down to the task of sorting the edges. This is, of course, totally boring but necessary. I patiently sorted and also religiously turned all the pieces up the right way until I was finished and noticed that the edge pieces pile was a tad small. I grant you, I might miss the odd one or two but when a 1000 piece jigsaw only yields 23 edge pieces then something is definitely amiss. The sheer calumny of such a deed suddenly hit me - some evil swine had deliberately sabotaged MY jigsaw! Charity shop purchases might sometimes have a piece missing, occasioned by a negligent previous owner, but to deliberately take out a large percentage of the edge had the effect of equating clipping a wing mirror whilst driving along to racing a 4x4 through a crowded shopping centre wearing a blindfold.


Now, going back to my opening comments, I would normally shout, swear, borrow a cat to kick etc but not this time. I merely sat there and sighed. Let me say though, whoever you are, you are a cad!

If you are listening to my latest juke box, you might notice I decided to put together a sort of prog rock compilation. Whether it's age, associations or lack of taste, I actually think some of these stand up pretty well so feel free to drift away to the strains of Soft Machine and Juicy Lucy (hands up who remembers their first album cover?)


Sundry other thoughts:

I am not normally one to apportion blame but who else has noticed that the Western economic recession was prefaced by Carol Vorderman exhorting people to hock themselves up to their eyeballs on credit? That woman has a lot to answer for!

Talking of selling out, I will say only four words: Johnny Rotten, Country Life (shakes head in despair).

I've been doing a bit of playing on PhotoShop recently in a bid to actually effect the transition from PaintShop Pro. One thing I really enjoyed was a little tutorial on repairing and colouring old black and white pictures and here are a couple of results.



I have a Wacom graphics tablet which I use and, for anyone who designs/draws/plays with graphics software, I heartily recommend their use (they make a bloody good toy for gadget freaks as well).

October: Summer over, nights drawing in, Advent calendars in the shops, cold, wet, miserable. May I be the first to say.....Bah, humbug!

Have a nice day.