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Meanwhile… my luggage is still in MAN. At least it’s made it from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 – T1 is to the east of T2, so that’s progress!

I must be the only AFFer who’s not familiar with HKG airport. I’d been so looking forward to visiting at least one of the famed Cathay Pacific Lounges! But it was not to be. We disembarked just under an hour before my scheduled flight CX163 to MEL. I just focussed on getting through Transit...

Now let me flash back to my account of the second half of CX216. I made up my bed after that (with a little help from the cabin crew). I unsuccessfully attempted to sleep for a couple of hours, then gave up for a bit and read through the entire blog opus of someone I’d met on the course. Her...

Thanks for your kind words @VPS The first author (Alexander Masters) I actually disclosed at the beginning of this TR becasue I finished reading his book A Life Discarded on the SYD-BKK flight. The second author was Christie Watson. Her book The Language of Kindness is amazing.

No -- I like your FlightRadar graphic. Please don't delete!

Things got interesting. In the light of what the Captain had said, I selected an album of music by Palestrina. Soon after the captain made his announcement, we began our descent. Looking out the window, I couldn’t see a thing – just a wall of white. Occasionally there was a gap in the clouds...

SPOILERS!

The Captain has just calmly announced that we’re 35 minutes out from HKG and that there’s a typhoon in progress. “A couple of the planes ahead of us have landed, and a couple have diverted to other airports. The good news is that we have plenty of fuel so that we can wait for a time when we’ll...

Stop the presses. I’m renaming this chapter… Chapter 6: A Perfect Storm. At 11am another announcement came through: “Passengers travelling on Cathay Pacific flight CX216 to Hong Kong, please meet at reception”. It turns out that we were bring chucked out of the Lounge. The airline had only...

There has just been an announcement: “Would all passengers flying on CX216 to Hong Kong please see your representative in the Lounge”. I walked over to find a Cathay Pacific representative who was telling passengers that the flight “may be delayed” and we are to stay in the lounge for now. I...

Believe it or not, there isn't one. Mancunians would say -- and they'd probably be right -- that this is yet another example of people in the North of England being treated as second-class citizens by Londoners. I believe that BA uses this 1903 Lounge and the Escape Lounge, which is worse...

Chapter 6: My unfortunate Duty… Cathay Pacific CX216 MAN-HKG and CX163 HKG-MEL Business Class Booked with 115,000 Asia Miles plus A$830 I made up this Chapter heading as a punny description of the fact that (a) it’s unfortunate that I have to leave, (b) it’s unfortunate that I have to leave...

Well, no, it's not bad, and I'm sure we'll laugh about it one day too. The problem was that it wasn't merely a "tyre deflating lark" which simply required the tyres to be inflated. The tyres had been actually destroyed. One of the people I was with had to pay GBP 390 for 4 replacement tyres...

After that, Steve showed me some of the sights and sounds of Manchester as we ambled to my hotel. Though he did seem to need to stop for a drink quite often... Having said that, there's nothing quite like being shown around like a local. It was a real treat! Mr Thomas's Chop House, although we...

More scenes from Rylands Library... A 200-year-old printing press that is still in use today. The old Library building. Ironically, the Mr Cussons who was responsible for the Library "Cleaning" was the same Mr Cussons of Cussons Soap fame! We then stepped into the Reading Room...

Having entered the hallowed John Rylands Library, there were two items that I particularly wanted to see. First, this Gutenburg Bible from the 1450s, soon after the invention of the printing press. This is one of the most significant books to ever be published and I was overjoyed that I had...

Chapter 5: Silence in the Library I named this chapter after one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes from 2008. It is also objectively one of the three greatest Doctor Who stories ever (along with Blink [2007] and Genesis of the Daleks [1975]). I thought of this chapter title weeks ago, when I...

Today has been a bittersweet day for me. It’s the final day of the course and I’m so going to miss this place, this community, these people, this indescribable experience. So I’m trying to soak in as much as I can. This morning we had our final workshops with the presenters. I’m about to have my...

I believe that the reason she's buried here is because of her estranged husband, Ted Hughes. The house where I am staying, and writing this, was formerly owned by Ted Hughes.

You should never underestimate my ability for incompetence!