Wake up call came just before 10am. I got up dressed, washed my teethe and walked to the pharmacy (or ‘farmacia’ as the Spaniards say) for more meds and cough drops. Got back to the hotel at 11 am and had just missed Ingrid, who’d left me some records as a gift and also had picked up some medicine for me. So now I was armed to the teeth in meds; I felt sorry for this flu, yes, it was certainly waging a losing battle.

Our bus came about 11.30 and twenty minutes later we were checking in at the airport. An American guy, about 30 years of age, came up to me to say he was from NYC and had seen us at the Bowery Ballroom in 2002. I told him I remembered both shows and thanked him for coming. I asked him where he was flying to. He wasn’t quite sure, he knew that he WANTED to go to New York but he couldn’t say for certain if that was, in fact, his destination. I know the feeling.

We had time to kill before boarding and thought about lunch, but, as we were going through the metal detector, Daddyo couldn’t find his mobile phone. Troels swore he saw it go through the machine and protested that the workers should do more. Then Troels got fed up and walked about 40 metres down the corridor and then Rusty looked in his own jacket and found Daddyo’s phone. The gun-toting lackeys felt vindicated, their next order of business was to bring Troels back to (I think) apologize, Troels tried to shake both jack asses hands and both refused. Troel’s face told us he couldn’t care less, he mumbled something about them being ‘a**holes’ and went about his merry way.

From there we all got some sandwiches and drink and waited to board. And then we boarded from the tarmac, in the rain with the cold wind blowing. Plane took off at 2.30 and I took solace in a bit of shut-eye.

Landed at Heathrow about 3.30. Taxid to hotel and it was certainly ‘Miller Time’ by then. Drank at the bar with Manny and Troels until the Swedes came down (Stephen, Stefan, Malin, Anna, Oscar, Eric and Caroline) and we all drank till late. Chapple, Natalie and (Natalie’s sister) Michele showed up, as did Glen and Kose and so more Becks was consumed until everyone was tired and ready for rest. Crashed out at 2am.

Mike Randle