Travelling - a game for losers

I remember playing a travel game called Go when I was younger. It made travelling seem so exciting as you collected your destination cards with pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and Sugar Loaf Mountain.

But it really needs to be re-invented for modern travel. So, having perfected the rules, let me introduce you to HardJet, beta tested only this morning in the South of France. My flight details said EasyJet but this must have been a misprint. HardJet is designed to test your stamina, resolve and determination to the limit. It should be avoided by those with heart problems or a nervous disposition.

Today’s game began in Hyeres at 5 am when I rose early to catch a 6:17 am train for Nice, changing at Toulon. I had left nothing to chance. The train ticket was pre-booked and a taxi had been ordered for 5.50 am. “The station is just a kilometre away,” said the hotel receptionist the previous evening.

She is a thoughtful lady and brings me coffee, orange juice and a pan au chocolat (forward two spaces). At 5:50 I am beginning to pace about looking at my watch. “No problem, it’s just five minutes by car,” says the woman in French. Five minutes later she is calling the taxi company. “There isn’t going to be a taxi,” she says with that special shrug accompanied by the jutting lower lip that the French have made all their own for just these occasions. They get plenty of practice (miss a turn).

She gives me directions in French which I misunderstand. I begin sprinting in the wrong direction, my trolley bag in tow (back one space). A signpost saying La Gare points the other way. Reverse sprint, trolley bag in flight. I make the station with five minutes to spare. The counter is closed. There’s a sassy looking yellow machine with its computer screen positively challenging me to its own game of get-the-ticket-if-you-can but in French with all the rules loaded in its favour.

“All you need do is put your credit card in the slot and key in the booking number,” said the PR woman when she booked it. Why did I believe her? The EasyTicketmachine has yet to be invented and if it ever is, it sure as Hell isn’t going to happen in France, the land of complex instructions framed as retribution on the rest-of-the-world for refusing to be French.

The minutes are ticking by, the train is at the platform and the machine is mocking me. “Beat me if you can,” it's saying. I press a few boxes. "Computer says no," says the screen. I grab a random Frenchman by the arm. Up to that moment he thought he was boarding the train, with not a care in the world. But now he is embroiled in the game since he realises I am not about to loosen my grip easily.

We must beat this machine together. Yes he is French (an advantage) but he doesn't understand machine. In fact I think I understand it better but he remains my hostage. Cough up the ticket, or the French guy gets it,” I tell the machine. It won’t take my number but reluctantly recharges my credit card and, as the Frenchman weeps, the guard whistles, and all hope seems lost, it discharges a complicated ticket in pure Sanskrit.

"Batard," it hisses. "Up yours," I scowl. "Pleaeeeese," says the Frenchman. We board, the doors close, the sweat is soaking my shirt. I thank him. He curses me and we go our separate ways. I have to catch a 10.30 am flight to Nice and there is simply no slack in the schedule (PRs don’t do slack). Still, I feel as if I have advanced to Go and my heart rate drops from the purple zone (imminent seizure) to red (critical).

At Toulon, the information board says that my train is running 25 minutes late. Bad news (shake again). But the previous train is running 20 minutes late so I can catch the least late train and actually gain five minutes. “No you can’t, you booked on the other one.” says the lady in the SNCF uniform that I have consulted unwisely. Tip: never consult anyone in a uniform.

I extend my wings like a bird. “I have to catch a flight,” I say. “You must speak to the guard,” she says. The train arrives. I board. Damn, they’re couchettes. The seats are all up at the front says the guard, better be quick. For the second time today I (Usain) bolt the 100 yards to the front carriage, collapsing in a seat with a broken recliner that seems to understand and feel sympathy for my nervous state. “There, there,” it says. “This is France. It’s always like this.” No-one checks the ticket as no-one in the French railway system has mastered Sanskrit. Why did I bother?

Amazingly I arrive in Nice ahead of schedule and shake two sixes to find an amenable taxi driver who tells me it will take just 20 minutes to reach the airport. We chat, he in his pigeon English, me in my pigeon French. By the time we reach the airport we are comfortably cooing away in plain pigeon, agreeing that we both like Italy but neither of us can speak the language.

There's one and a quarter hours before the flight but, because this is HardJet, the signs say we should get here two hours before we fly just in case we are not stressed enough. I join the pre-queue queue, which progresses disarmingly steadily until we reach the real queues. You can take your pick. An English family of three opt for tactical queuing as mum, dad and son occupy three separate queues. If everyone did this the queues would be out of the door. My queue looks satisfyingly short (forward a square), but I'm told after standing there five minutes that it has closed behind the people in front of me (back two).

The next queue is going nowhere and neither, it seems, are the rest. The baggage conveyor has broken down. Sometimes in any game you have to seize the moment. With no baggage to check I execute a slick passing move, slide up to the check-in desk and ask if I can be processed. No problem. The three queue strategy family are horrified. The mother looks as if her rabbit has just died and she can't sell its hutch. I lick my finger and stroke the air (forward six spaces).

Security isn't too bad. There is the usual long walk up and down an empty zig-zagging cordon (while the security staff watch us, belly-laughing behind two-way mirrors). I produce my lap top then the security man says: "What's that in your pocket?"

"Tic Tacs."

"In the tray."

Retrieving my suspicious Tic Tacs from the x-ray machine I feel a surge of triumph.
Little do they know that each triangular white mint contains a lethal exploding cocktail of chemicals. Fortunately I have never been forced to use one in anger.But I like to have them with me just in case.

The game is reaching its climax but there a are still one or two more throws of the dice and, this being HardJet, there are a some crucial tactical manoeuvres before gaining your seat.

There are no numbered seats but there is a pecking order. All the cheats have paid extra for A tickets (best people) and AS tickets (better people with children). The rest have B tickets apart from me who has the letters LCS on his ticket (last chance saloon). I jest. I'm a B with the rest of the subhumans.

Some Bs try to sneak through when the As are called and are sent back, red-faced, to sit on the naughty step.

Most of the Bs are circling and jostling like horses and riders under starters' orders. And they're off. The quest for everyone is to position themselves with that vital empty middle seat. Alliances are made, defences erected, tactics deployed. A common one is to spend an inordinate time scrabbling in your bag before putting it in the overhead locker (fraught with hazards since, in doing so, you are risking the loss of a locker space).

Coming late to the cabin my game plan has changed. I eye up my fellow passengers. Now who's flight could I spoil by taking the middle seat? I dally a while by each row looking in to those pleading eyes, praying for me to pass by (this game must be even more fun if you are fat). You would think I was the Angel of Death about to take their first born.

In fact the flight isn't full and there is plenty of room. That really should be in capitals for emphasis. THERE IS PLENTY OF ROOM. Is this a win? Too soon, too soon. I had forgotten the baggage hold up. You can hear the joy in the voice that tells us the flight is delayed. In HardJet no-one ever wins. They hold all the trump cards. The best you can hope for is to lose a little less painfully. I leave the airport and join the M25, bumper to bumper. Car travel is so much fun. Someone ought to make a game of it.

Tennis at the grass roots - while it lasts

If I was a blade of grass at Wimbledon I would be worried about something a little more radical than a haircut in a year or two. In fact I’d be quaking right down to my shallow root system.

That big sliding roof that blotted out the sun this week after a few droplets of rain must have been as welcome as a nuclear winter to those pampered, tightly packed little sods that comprise the last lawn tennis venue on the grand slam circuit.

The roof is great if it’s keeping off the rain. That is what it was built for at a cost of £80m. I have to repeat that - £80m. That’s £80m for a roof the size of a tennis court. If I had been quoted £100,000 I would have blanched, but £80m. You could get.....well you could get Ronaldo for that. Roof/Ronaldo/roof/Ronaldo.....not an easy one.

Or you could buy a good sized island somewhere warm with sandy beaches and frigate birds. Eighty million quid for a bloody roof? They’re having us on. The more I say it, the less I can see it. I mean, what would have been wrong with a big ridge pole with a tarpaulin slung over and a couple of gutters? Wouldn’t that have done the trick? I wonder how the All England Club did the deal? I suspect it was with a few arms twisted behind backs after the TV networks sent in the heavy mob. There must have been coercion somewhere along the line.

"You buy that roof, OK? And the first time you get the chance, if there’s so much as a gnat’s whoopsy falls out of the sky, you close it and you keep it closed."

I don’t like the roof one bit, but then I’m an old curmudgeon who still has his wooden Slazenger racquet and who has never quite got over the day-glow tennis balls. But this roof is the slippery slope, not to mention a slippery court that is bound to handicap our man more than their’s. It always does.

You just wait; a few more evenings like the last one and the grass will begin to cut up, just as it did at Wembley. Then they will fire the groundsman just like they did at Wembley and, when that fails to improve anything, the players will complain. Finally the unthinkable will happen and the grass will go, replaced by clay, and some will say; “Why didn’t we do this years ago?

Advertising will crowd the court, the military ushers will be replaced by nightclub bouncers and the Royal Box will be stuffed with rappers and DJs sporting a constellation of bling, blinding the servers under the floodlights. The ball boys and girls will be issued with skateboards and scoops and Cliff Richard will be shunted deep in to the stands, safely out of sight of the cameras.

They’ll hire a man in a Womble suit to tour the court and when Andy Murray enters, a kilted piper will play him on to the court as the crowd hum through their noses, flap their elbows and sing the words to the Scotts Porridge Oats advert. Roger Federer meanwhile will glide on to the court like Fred Astaire in a fancy white designer suit. Sorry, I’m running away with myself now. It’s not going to happen.

The Martians are coming.....

Watching the Andy Murray match on TV yesterday, I heard someone from the crowd shout: "Come on Nadal." Someone else shouted "Come on Henman." It perplexed the commentators. What was going on?

Later,the story of Michael Jackson's death broke on the celebrity website TMZ. Other news stations took time to verify his death and produced some balanced reporting. It's important to do so today because all kinds of hoaxes are spread around the web.

Before the night had ended there were reports that actors Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford had also died. Goldblum was supposed to have fallen off a cliff while filming in New Zealand. Funnily enough this was how Tom Hanks was reported to have died in 2006 as the Snopes website revealed.

Why do people start such rumours? I suppose that some find starting a story that is spread by millions intoxicating, instilling a sense of power - a bit like kicking off a Mexican wave.

The hoaxers may think of these stories as harmless but it wouldn't have been a joke if you were a relative of Goldblum or Hanks and you saw their death being reported on the news wires (yes, some stations did put out the rumour without checking).

The power of the viral is worrying. On its own, in a single medium, I don't think it's enough to cause mayhem. But imagine a situation if a dangerous rumour was co-ordinated across the various media.

In 1938, when people relied for their news on radio and newspapers, Orson Welles broadcast a version of H.G Wells' War of the Worlds that relied on realistic radio bulletins of a Martian invasion for dramatic effect. While the scale of the ensuing panic is debated today, if you imagine tuning in to the broadcast at about 2 minutes 30 seconds onwards (no need to imagine, try it here), you can see how some people may have allowed their anxieties to get the better of them, triggering hysteria.

The broadcast caused outrage because it betrayed a sense of trust people had placed in the broadcast media. It demonstrates why the BBC, of all stations, must take scrupulous care with its bulletins. It wields extraordinary power of influence that it cannot afford to abuse.

Mass hysteria is a strange phenomenon which I have experienced just once in my life - after hearing of the death of Princess Diana. I felt a real sense of grief on the day of her funeral, yet I only saw her once and never met her, and afterwards felt embarrassed by my emotions, almost in denial as intellectually they were simply illogical, but I know they were real.

Many years ago I interviewed a Ukrainian man who had been in the German army on the Russian front during World War II. As the war ended, he and his comrades deserted their trenches under protection of a barrage and headed west as fast as they could in order to surrender either to the British or the Americans. Coming out of a wood, someone shouted "the Russians are coming." One man put a gun to his head and shot himself, such was the fear of being taken. But the Russians didn't come. It had been a cry of panic.

What would make us panic today? Reports of a dirty bomb over a city? Co-ordinated bulletins about an impending asteroid collision? The swine flu reports probably caused undue anxiety and yet the threat was real and remains so. Suppose the media could have launched a Tsunami warning ahead of the Boxing Day 2004 disaster that killed 230,000 people? The earthquake occurred several hours before the wave struck most coasts. Would people have heeded warnings?

The more hoaxes we experience, the more cynical we are likely to become. That's fine until a real emergency comes along. In the meantime, if you happen to be in Wimbledon watching Andy Murray's next match and the chap next to you shouts: "Come on Henman," just give him a slap and tell him not to be so silly. It's the only way.

Panda's Big Adventure

Our son, Rob, has just published the third game in his Panda series on his Bad Viking games web site. This one is called Panda's BIG Adventure. Having played it, I think it will appeal to old and young alike. There are one or two amusing scenes.

For this one he has moved away from the sniper format in Panda, Tactical Sniper and in Panda II to one where you have to collect things in different scenes. It doesn't take long to play but it will test your lateral thinking.

If you are above these kinds of games, try them on your kids. They're fun and they'll make them think a bit too.

Cricket test

I'm not sure if we could have asked for more at Lords yesterday: warm sunshine, brilliant atmosphere, great seat, fine wine and a win for England against India in the Twenty20 match.

My only regret was an evens bet with my host on India to win; not because I lost, but because it created divided loyalties at the death.

Some people say that Twenty20 isn't real cricket. Others say it's the future. In one sense it's a little bit more like football as the outcome of a match can turn on one or two incidents and that means that the best team does not always win.

It would be a shame if test cricket was allowed to decline in favour of the one-day and Twenty20 games where cash generated by TV and crowd-pulling contests might begin to overshadow the 5-day game. But if you are looking for the heart and soul, the history and the heritage of cricket, most of the events that have made it such a great game have happened in test matches.

Indian supporters easily outnumbered those for England yesterday which made for a great atmosphere in the ground. I know these are international matches but the playing of the national anthems seemed a bit out of place in this atmosphere. When the Irish lined up for their anthem in the first match, hardly anyone sang. After listening to the Irish thumping out their anthem in Croke Park at rugby matches, it seemed odd to hear it played with barely a voice raised.

I'm reminded at these matches about Norman Tebbit's infamous "cricket test" of national sympathies. Most of the Indian crowd, I would guess, would be British nationals. So shouldn't they have been supporting England? I don't see why this should be an issue. It's natural to stay close to your roots in sport. I live in Surrey today but as a Yorkshireman I know which team I want to win the county championship, and it isn't Surrey.

It takes more than a passport and an oath of loyalty to turn your back on the country of your birth, or even your parents' birth. Well, it does for some. All it took for me was an evens bet on India to win.

No FT, plenty of comment

It was good to see old colleagues at a get-together for ex-Financial Times journalists in London last night. A lot had retired but many have gone on to glittering careers - two to the House of Lords, one in Government, two on BBC news (constantly), two Fleet Street editors and one running the Confederation of British Industry.

The gathering was special for another reason. It's not often that you come across 150 journalists in a bar, buying their own drinks out of their own pockets with not an expenses receipt between them. How times have changed. "At least we were never taking money from the taxpayer," said an old colleague, reflecting on the MPs' expenses scandal.

I had a hot tip from one, confident in his insider-knowledge, that Ed Balls had definitely got the chancellor's job. And it may well have been true, but political events are moving so quickly and that was before we had the news of James Purnell's resignation. Purnell was the man being sounded out for Balls's job at Education. So Alistair Darling stays put for now and so does Balls, his ambition to run the Treasury as yet unrequited.

Balls wasn't there last night but I can never relate to him as a politico anyway. Instead I recall Ed as the centre forward who gave our old FT football team a bit of aggression up front. Ian Hargreaves, former editor of the Independent, was also there. Ian was a gritty midfielder, never afraid to bite a few ankles.

A lot of the chat was reminiscences and gossip - the stuff I miss most from my days on the paper. A few of my old colleagues liked to lunch in a certain style. David Churchill, former leisure industries correspondent, had his favourite tables at Orso's and Joe Allen's restaurants - indeed still does. One lunch time he arrived at Joe Allen's only to find that Joan Collins was sitting at his table. A word in the ear of management and she was summarily shifted elsewhere.

Cooliris and Spotify

Two new web services - well new to me - that I've been enjoying these past few days are Cooliris and Spotify. Cooliris enables you to search web images in a way that presents them in one big browser-friendly mass. You can also use it on your web-based albums. I would imagine it would be useful for professional photographers seeking to check out copyright infringements. Like a lot of these things, you discover their value when you start using them.

Spotify has a large collection of music tracks that can be played straight from your computer. It doesn't have everything out there but I was surprised by just what it did have. The site has none of the royalties issues faced by some music swapping sites. All you need do is hook it up to your amplifier and you never need to play another CD. There is a catch - it runs advertisements periodically. These can be removed for a monthly subscription fee of £9.99. Or there's a day pass for 99p - good for parties. So you may choose to stick with your CDs after all but it's great for checking out music you might want to collect.