Apr 4
I had been in the UK since last Monday. This week begins a crazy period of work travel. If anyone has a potion for preventing illness after extended trips, then please share.
I beleive they call it the ‘Let Down Effect,’ which after extended periods of stress or travel or both, elevated hormone levels drop quickly, resulting in a ‘crash’ of the immune system.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ I stayed in 62 hotels last year. 62. I haven’t worked out the number of nights because it might be debilitating. Many of these hotels represented just a bed and a shower on a work trip. Others however were calming sanctuaries of joy and family time.
I’ve rattled 62 down to 5 plus a couple of honourable mentions. Here are My Top Fives Favourite Hotels from 2025 🏩
Please click for moreHow sad it was to hear of Chris Rea’s untimely passing yesterday. His Driving Home For Christmas song is one of my all time favourite’s this time of year, and after years of living away from home it has long captured the Christmas spirit for me.
Rea was a huge Middlesbrough fan, and the Gone Fishing Christmas special with fellow Boro fan Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse has to be worth another watch over the next week.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣. I stayed in 39 hotels last year, over a hundred nights not in my own bed, and there were plenty of AirBnB stays too, but I can’t get excited about them.
I do like a hotel, especially fancy ones, although sadly they weren’t always fancy. Anyway, I have selected a handful and these are my 2024 Top Five Favourite Hotels 🏨
Please click for moreI arrived in London this morning flying overnight from Tampa. A noisy, rattly and bumpy flight meant I got little sleep but I was able to check into my hotel at 9am, which although I felt like crap, there was something to be said for lying in bed all morning with just the TV for company. I never do stuff like that.
Please click for moreI am flying to London tonight for an extended work trip that also takes in Zurich and Munich.
It’s my first time home since Christmas, so I am long overdue, and will spend the rest of the week in the City. No time for a soirée up to Cambridge unfortunately.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ They have been saying travel is back. I don’t think I ever got on a flight last year when there was an empty seat. Prices are high but people want their lives back.
I stayed at 19 hotels in 2022, as I had done in 2021. Last year that number increased to 32 due more than anything to work, meaning settings were function over thrills.
Please click for moreThe sun peeped from behind the grey clouds yesterday in Eastbourne, known as the Sunshine Coast due to an over 100-year record of the town having the most sunshine hours in a month ever recorded.
It almost required sunglasses for the five minutes the sun made an appearance as we walked around the Meads end of the town.
Please click for moreWe are back in the UK for Christmas scurrying around the country to see family which will be great for my holly-jolly-other-half and my feverish daughter as this is their first trip home since before the pandemic.
We flew overnight Thursday landing yesterday at a grey but not cold Heathrow, and last night and for most of today we are up in Knightsbridge way immersing ourselves in the Christmas season.
Please click for moreI have lived overseas for 19 years, but I was never prouder to be British than yesterday. I am a (South) London boy and the world’s best city was resplendent as the country and the world stood still to witness the first state funeral in almost everyone’s lifetime.
It was an emotional yet beautiful spectacle as the world watched every tiny detail so perfected that not even the biggest budget or best film director could recreate. The Queen meticulous to the end as every rehearsed and planned aspect was executed perfectly. Real life theatre showing history being made. It was a wonderful tribute to the most loved sovereign.
Please click for moreThere has been many days or times when I had wished I could be in London, walking its streets taking in the moment. July 7th, 2005, the opening of the Olympic Games in 2012 to name two.
I am no royalist, but today is another one of those days where I am kicking my heels at home with all the TV’s on.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣. Next up on my look back at the year that wasn’t of 2021 is My Top Five Favourite Places. Not quite as limited on exploration as the year before, nevertheless the five were relatively easy to select.
There was nowhere new, but plenty of places revisited, one in particular was long overdue. Here are my 2021 Top Five Favourite Places 🌇
Please click for more🔝5️⃣. Here we are back at the beginning of a fresh year, and therefore my most recent collection of annual Top Five’s.
In 2020 I stayed in just 4 hotels, but in 2021 I stayed in 19, and the counter only started in June. It was good to get back out there, but a warning for those yet to throw money at hotel stays — there are still many hospitality restrictions depending on the hotel and location, and do not expect the same level of service(s) as hotels struggle with staffing and personnel. Also, as you’d expect very little investment has being going into hotels within the past two years, so also presuppose tired and neglected properties at inflated prices as hotel owners attempt to claw back some money.
Please click for moreIt has been some day. I have a glass of champagne in front of me, still processing today’s news that we have finally been released from the nightmare of Roland Duchatelet. I’ve also spent some time toasting those Londoners who showed such incredible instinctive bravery today on London Bridge. Some of the videos and stories coming out of that are inconceivable.
It was a day to sit in pj’s in front of the television, which I did. Although Arsenal insisted on grabbing the football limelight after sacking manager Unai Emery, the excitement oozing through the veins of Addicks was palpable amongst family and friends and online, and I get the impression that I wasn’t the only one popping a cork this evening.
Time then for my annual self indulgence. I’ve always been a list and top of this or worst of that sort of bloke. My daughter is the same. What’s your top five she will say after a day out or when staring at the Christmas tree baubles. Anyway I will try to plough through a few of these this month, so apologies in advance.
I like hotels, you know that, and this week I stayed in two historical buildings that in last year have been tastefully converted.
In Chicago this week I stayed at the old Chicago Athletic Association (CAA). The CAA was established in 1890 just south of the Chicago River on Michigan Avenue. It’s original use was as a private club (for men I am sure) to meet for ‘athletic, business and social activities.’ Chicago based architect Henry Ives Cobb was inspired by Venetian architecture and the huge building was completed in 1893 with a sold out membership of 3,000 members.
The CAA used to host big national and international sporting events such as boxing and swimming. Many famous sports figures like swimmer and Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller used it to stay and train. The CAA remained a private membership social club for the city’s top brass, and I remember when I lived there it had a very hoity reputation. It closed in 2007.
Thank you to Shadow Play for flagging in my comments that Sir Chris Powell is running the London Marathon on Sunday for the charity Prostate Cancer UK. Chris has been a long time ambassador for the charity and it is rare that he is ever seen without the charities pin on his lapel.
I got a little waylaid with these, well actually I forgot. But selfishly I wanted to post them, so close your eyes if you’re not interested in a little narcissism.
I going to post my final three 2017 Top Five’s in quick succcesion starting with Restaurants. Picking five wasn’t easy but I’ve had a crack so these were my Top Five Favourite Restaurants of 2017:
The American’s are responsible for a lot of things – disposable nappies, the light bulb, mac & cheese, the computer (these are in no particular order) and of course Thanksgiving, once described by my old boss as a 4-day Sunday where all you can do is eat, drink and watch sport on TV, with no added pressure of buying anyone presents. God bless America and all that sailed in The Mayflower.
A week back in a combination of East Sussex, Chislehurst and London Town, all now surrogate homes to me, and now I’m back to reality, if Bermuda is actually reality, with an imminent general election which the media is full off. It’s the week after next and if I can bring myself to, I’ll put a few words together on it soon.
I do a lot of travelling but generally as a rule I don’t like being away for as long as a week on my own, and I was ready to get out of dodge yesterday. As is usual I did a lot of running around, and caught up with a lot of people including old mates on Friday for 50th birthday celebrations. That was a long but funny day.
As the Americas Cup in Bermuda finishes and the super yachts make their way out into the Atlantic to find the next nautical shindig, I myself thought I would do a runner for a week and have headed back to the U.K. and home. I arrived back this morning and drove down to my parents in the East Sussex countryside. I’m here for a couple of relaxing days to catch up on some sleep, update myself on the family gossip and drink my Dad’s red wine.
Tales of 34 C temperatures looked a little fabled this morning driving down the M23 in grey rainy skies. I might not have packed appropriately.
“What is your favourite city” my son asked as we both looked out of a Shard window 33 floors up (photo). A bit of loaded question that, although since I was old enough to explore London on a 36 bus from the bottom of Sandhurst Road in Catford I have always given the same answer.
My Kent-country-living son is a lot less travelled than I was when I was 16, but Saturday with no football was the ideal opportunity to open his curious eyes. Admittedly my Dad and I were never fortunate enough to be in the position to blag ourselves into a posh restaurant with no reservation and a pair of trainers and jeans on, and all the same you’d normally have found us in The Valley Club on a Saturday afternoon.
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As expected my body forced me awake early this morning, but it was nice to be back in my own Bermuda bed after a great Christmas at home with our families.
However the imperturbable other half will tell you, my disposition driving anti-clockwise around the M25 from Heathrow to pick my son up on the day we arrived was not particularly festive. Anyway a better journey under the now toll-less Dartford Tunnel to an old mate’s house in St Albans to be met with chili and lot’s of red wine did the trick, and despite a hangover the drive to Oxfordshire on Christmas Eve via Henley had me ready for Santa.
I was on the nice list, which was a pleasant surprise, as was my daughter, which was less of a surprise, and my other half’s family were in great spirits and we had a wonderful couple of days with them before we left early on Boxing Day to drive into London to my brother’s. My parents were already in situ as was my sister in law’s family and we had another very lovely day, rare days of us all being together that should be cherished.
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We fly home to the UK tonight from Atlanta to spend Christmas with our families, which I am really excited about. Tomorrow after we land at Heathrow we have a bit of M25 navigating to do, first of all we have to nip around to Kent to pick my son up and then go back around the other way to friends in St Albans where we are going to spend tomorrow night.
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Out of the frying pan and into the fire as I escape a scorching and sweaty Bermuda for a scorching hot and sweaty London!
I fly to London tonight for a week primarily to see family and take my son into the City for the day and attempt to show him what the old man does for a living, albeit nowadays not in the square mile but in Bermuda.
Careers week for me when I was at school was an hour with a scary lady sat in an office talking to me about apprenticeships and higher education, and writing a letter to every company listed in the Yellow Pages, which I actually did, pretty much anyway.
The topic of careers advice was taken away from local authorities and given to the schools under the coalition government, and I think has been met by much negativity mostly because many schools have neither the skills nor the finance to provide any external services.
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I am making the most of having Thanksgiving Friday off work and fly back to Gatwick overnight for the weekend, literally until Sunday when I will fly back.
Despite the disorientating nature of it, I love these quick weekenders back at home. I cram in as much as possible, travel light and the body doesn’t get time to adjust, at least that is what I tell myself anyway.
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We landed at a reasonably warm Gatwick Airport this morning, and have just said goodbye to my girls who are heading into London’s west end, whilst I shower and get myself ready for the drive to Royston in Hertfordshire for my mate’s wedding this afternoon.
I felt a mixture of relief and chicken when I boarded the BA flight last night and our thoughts are with friends and colleagues who remain on the island. It will be difficult to think of much else
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Bermuda is bracing itself for potentially the most powerful hurricane it has faced in 50 years. So far Gonzalo has all the characteristics of Hurricane Fabian which killed four people and caused $300m of damage to the island in 2003.
Currently fluctuating between a CAT 4 (wind speed up 156 mph) and a CAT 3 (wind speed up to 129 mph) around 590 miles away from here north of the Dominican Republic, Gonzalo is barrelling towards Bermuda and is anticipated to bring 27 hours of tropical storms beginning tomorrow afternoon and 8 hours of hurricane force winds beginning Friday lunchtime. It is currently expected to be a CAT 3 when it arrives, but hurricanes although predictable are also highly erratic in their behaviour.
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I’m flying back to Gatwick tonight with my son, who has been with us for two weeks.
We had our final swim a little bit earlier and I’m feeling nicely sleepy for the flight. My son, as tired as he is, will watch movies from the minute we take off until the moment we land.
I am only back for two nights and have a bit of running around to do. I will base myself at my parents down on the South Downs, but will be in the City Monday night to meet up with some mates for drinks and then Tuesday we will be at The Valley.
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I spent four days in the smoke the week before last.
I rarely get to spend that much time in the City these days, but I have in recent times taken to staying just sarf of the river and this time I decided on a small hotel near Borough Market and I was shocked by how much that area had changed.
Borough Market of course has been there for ever, 1014 apparently, but in recent years it has been polished like a diamond. There was a real aura to it, and the market is bordered by a whole range of cool cafes and restaurants.
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After a busy weekend taking in a little football, a very enjoyable dinner at The Oak celebrating some good news, a couple of curries, one in Birmingham and one with some mates in Hornchurch plus a swift game of bowling in Maidstone, the most important reason for being home, allegedly, was that I needed to renew my passport.
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Back to Bermuda last night after a quickfire visit home. At one point yesterday between junctions 5 and 6 on the M25 I was convinced I might have to extend my stay another day as the congestion was so bad. Only because I left my mate’s house in Chislehurst so early did I make my flight.
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I’m leaving for London Wednesday night for a couple days of work and then some family weekend time wrapped up with a few beers with some mates on Sunday evening in Bexley Village.
Not for the first time I have just calculated that I will be away for 4 nights and will sleep in 4 different beds, 5 in 5 if you include the overnight plane journey. Sadly, although that sounds very titillating, it, er, won’t be.
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7/7 is a day synonymous with London and today in glorious sunshine the nation finally witnessed a British winner of Wimbledon after 77 years of disappointment and mostly forlorn hopelessness.
Great credit to Andy Murray who many had written off as a nearly man, but with Ivan Lendl at his side the Scotsman has taken his game to another level the past 18 months.
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It is five years today that I left Chicago for Bermuda. In the blog post I wrote the day after I arrived I said work was like the first day at school, and I have just been thinking about that, and remembered how long 5 years was when I was actually at school.
Can you remember how long being at school appeared? I stayed on in sixth form for a year, but 5 years is a whole lifetime at secondary school, and it is seems implausible that I have now been in Bermuda that long!
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I’m in the City of London not as refreshed as I would like after an overnight flight from Bermuda into Gatwick, but this afternoon I have some meetings before I join up with some friends tonight for drinks and dinner.
I’m staying the night in the Butlers Wharf area on the south side of the river, and walking through here this morning it brought back some nice memories. I actually first worked not far from here but that was before the days of Hays Galleria and Butlers Wharf, but I have always liked this part of town.
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As expected we spent a good part of the day in Victoria Park. Breakfast was at The Pavilion cafe, which was pretty awesome and set us all up, including a 11-week old puppy and a 3-year old human, for a gigantic walk around the park.
Off to see my brother and his fiancé today. They have just bought a house close to Victoria Park in East London. I love that area of London with it’s quiet residential streets and ornate Victorian houses and the magnetism of the wide open spaces of Vicky Park around the corner.
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I shot into the City last night to catch up with a good mate who has been out of work for a while and who I missed last time I was in town. We put the world to rights, talked plans and resolutions and then as we meandered around some old drinking haunts we picked up some old mates and compatriots from my London working life which I left almost 10 years ago. Hard to believe.
I keep in touch with a lot of old mates, but there is little to beat bar hopping around the City a little unexpected and bumping into old faces.
Two old mates I met are Brighton & Hove Albion season tickets holders and both will be at The Valley for the Back to The Valley celebrations on December 8th. Brighton is a befitting opponent for such a memorable moment in the history of the club, and we talked last night about the two clubs differing paths but also of the association between them. Who else remembers the Football Fans United day in 1997?
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A hop, skip and jump back to London tonight. This trip was originally planned for a couple of weeks with family to get ourselves fully absorbed into the Olympics. Not so.
Copious (more than three) attempts to purchase a range of tickets for a range of sports over a few week period ended up with zilch. No, I lie, I did get some Women’s Preliminary Round (non beach) Volleyball tickets for Earls Court. No disrespect to Earls Court but all of us slogging across London to watch Algeria v Japan just didn’t do it for me, so those tickets went back.
Thus I came incredibly frustrated with the whole Olympic ticket process and called it off as a bad job especially after a couple of very early mornings/late nights tapping away on the computer with millions of others. Don’t get me started on the 250,000 tickets unsold, including athletics, opening and closing ceremonies. LOCOG couldn’t have got the ticketing procedure more wrong.
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The beginning of July represents an interlude in work stresses as our business flow is predominately backed into the first half of the year. There are always things to do of course, but the foot is lifted of the accelerator a bit until the last quarter.
I have also taken the opportunity to book a few trips off island this month. Next week I go to Chicago, predominately to do some continued education stuff for work, but also catch up with my mate, who is getting married at the end of the month in the Windy City.
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Amongst bundles of discarded wrapping paper, turkey leftovers and bags under the eyes during our trip home I also made my first ever visit to Colchester Zoo, re-discovered some old London stomping grounds and had a couple of cracking pub lunches.
Colchester Zoo was much bigger than I imagined. Our friends had suggested a 4-hour visit and as we drove up there in the drizzly rain I truly wondered what an earth we were going to do for 3 of those hours.
But I should have feared not as we comfortably strolled it’s 60 acres during 3 hours and still left some for another day, although there were a fair amount of exhibits that had migrated for the winter. There are apparently over 260 different species and they are laid out in numerous zones where you can get pretty close to the animals.
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One of the many things I miss about London is it’s parks. I spent a whole lot of my childhood playing in two parks near my home. Forster Memorial Park and Mountsfield Park, once home of course to the mighty Charlton Athletic. These last couple of days we have gratefully strolled the green pastures of London Fields, Haggerston Park and Hyde Park.
We were in Hyde Park, like almost everyone else was, browsing the Winter Wonderland, which has grown exponentially since last time I visited three years ago. We sniffed Mulled wine, squeezed onto a tea cup ride and counted more sausage stalls than you could shake a stick at but we also took the little ‘un to Zippo’s Circus.
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Boxing Day morning and we have navigated our way from west to east through the Metropolis to my brother’s place in Shoreditch. My parents are here too and like many other families around the country we will soon tuck into a mountain of cold meats and pickles.
In a home dominated by Addicks, this afternoon’s game will take precedent later as we listen in to the goings on at Yeovil. Come on you reds!
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This post should have been a retrospective on Charlton’s League Cup game, which selfishly I am still pissed off at missing, with the added annoyance of having spent money on a hotel room and match ticket. It’s the third game that has been moved or postponed that I’ve come back for in past year…. ok, selfish rant over.
After the game Saturday my son and I stayed at my brother’s in Hackney, and when I woke on Sunday morning I truly thought he was watching some library clips from the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots. I was in Hornchurch Sunday night but my brother spent most of it stood looking out of his window with his baseball bat as groups of yobs roamed the streets outside. Fortunately the police unsettled them enough to move the low-life’s toward Bethnal Green Road.
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The greatest show on earth is quickly becoming the most shambolic!
I set my alarm for 1am yesterday morning (after a night out here in New York with New York Addick) so I could jump online and attempt to get a few Olympic tickets at the second time of asking. The whole ticketing process is farcical and although I eventually managed to apply for a couple of events I am rapidly thinking that we’ll just bin the whole idea and follow it on the telly.
I’ve been stewing over this for a week and thought I’d finally put down in a post my massive disappointment of being one of the 1,000,000 applicants who didn’t get any Olympics tickets.
We will have to re-think our summer plans for next year after applying for £2,500 of tickets and getting zip. It was particularly frustrating as we purposely stayed away from the marquee events and finals in order to get a small mix of tickets. Hell, my in-step other half even convinced me to apply for the synchronized swimming!
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Day’s like today make me pretty homesick. All the pomp and ceromony, pride and history, flags and smiles. I love it.
Bermuda, as I understand it, is the only British colony without a day off today, even though Premier Paula Cox is at Buck Palace now quaffing bucks fizz. We were up early in our house this morning sat with our 18-month old watching the events unfold with our peanut butter on toast. The roads were quiet on the way into Hamilton this morning, but there does appear a real apathy here towards the future King’s wedding. No flags, no bunting, no smiles, no history. I’ve just put the telly on in the office though. Enjoy your days.
Back in Bermuda after a short hop home for my son’s birthday and mascot exploits.
There was a lot of flying around, which is customary. I had a cracking night with my Hornchurch mates on Friday plus a very hot chicken madras in the Cinnamon Spice. We followed this up on Saturday after the game with another curry, this time in Brick Lane. We vowed not to be enticed into the first place we passed, but sure enough the offer of two rounds of drinks and a lively atmosphere was enough for us to eat at The Famous Curry Bazaar. It was very good and full of local hipsters and pre-clubbers at 8pm. Whatever happened to eating a curry after the pub shut?
The next morning my brother took us just up the street from where he lives to The Premises Cafe on Hackney Road. According to The Observer, one of the 50 coolest places to eat in the world! It’s attached to the renowned recording studios (with an impressive list of artists) and next door to the gigantic rabbit (which at the end of last year caused quite a stir) and our brunch was top-notch. The dinner menu looked good too, and at a tenner a head for two courses bloody good value.
While snow adorns pavements and trees, for which in some cases still have leaves on, in London and the south-east of England, and with snow forecast for my second home in Chicago later today I came to work this morning dressed in shorts.
It is December 1st tomorrow and the weather remains in the 70’s (22c) in Bermuda. Despite it’s latitude and longitude and it’s location over a 1,000 miles north of the Bahamas, the island is entirely frost-free with snow only ever seen on Christmas cards. The reason for this is the Gulf Stream that heats the waters around this middle of the Atlantic dormant volcano, home to 65,000 people.
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Sarasota, Florida
