Back in Leicester

The flight from KLIA to Heathrow took 12 hours. The journey from Heathrow (including waiting time of 2 1/2 hours for the 230 National Express) to Leicester took 6 hours, and the distance between the two places is only 100 miles!
Arriving at Heathrow is always depressing. Some years ago, a Polish-British colleague of mine told me that arriving at Heathrow is like arriving at a skip. ( A skip is a builder's large metal container for carrying heavy materials like old bricks, wood etc; to be taken away.) Despite the "refurbishment" and Terminal 5, it still remains a big skip. The trolleys are still squeaky and have a mind of their own - they wander all over the place dragging you and your luggage with them on a merry path. The toilets might be fairly clean but some of the doors cannot be locked and some are bereft of loo paper. Speaking of toilet doors, years ago, at Dubai Airport; a huge German woman tried to 'share' the toilet with me. Luckily Dubai's toilet doors had strong firm locks. Women who travel alone need protection not only from men but also from the predatory fairer sex!
Exhausted, hungry and fed up I tried to kill time by reading the papers. It seems that at W.H. Smiths they give away the Times when you buy 2 bottles of mineral water.
As for the mineral water, it's buy one, get one free. Aaah, now I know I'm back in BOGOF land. Welcome to Britain!! As for the papers, I flicked through a couple of pages - mainly the same hypocrisy and parochialism . So I used it to pad the cold metal seats in the National Express waiting room , which they described on the Arrival Notice Board as the 'lounge'. We then got up to go to the bus stand for No 230 to Mansfield via Leicester. It was 7.20pm and though we were both almost on our last legs we could not help but notice that the bus stand which was barely lit looked like the back of a factory on a seedy street. This is Cool Britannia. Land of Hope and Glory! So for Malaysians who enjoy slagging off their country - come to Britain (which includes Wales).

More later. And I miss you folks back in KL and the two in Singapore; and Poppy(aka Kuntum), Comot (aka Coreng), Hitam, Rusty and Socks (aka Kelabu). As for Mahzan and Sabrina, you should stash your money under the mattress like Tok Mok used to do - no hi-tech thingamajig can detect it.