Was put into a small hotel for the day (with a 1000% more in the way of amenities and comfort than the previous night) and I watched telly and finally saw some of the ghastly footage that you have been seeing for a week now. Time doesn’t help there and I am now only just beginning to realise the enormity of it all.

Went to the Biz Center and answered more emails from people around the world asking after me – was v touched how many there were. Everywhere we have been, people have been so kind – little old crones in towns asking if we were American and coming over and showing such obvious sympathy – it’s been very touching and comforting.

And so back to the airport – WHICH OF COURSE IN UNDER RECONSTRUCTION – took three different doors to find the way in and then having completed the security checks and the customs checks (when they repossessed 2 of the 3 customs forms I have completed in the last few days) and then got to the check in counter and discovered that as I was Biz Class, I was in the WRONG PLACE – this fact had escaped the eyes of the several officials who have scrutinised my ticket as if it was some deadly secret weapon. So I had to go back through the system (not easily achieved believe me) and then then for chrissakes, up a long flight of collapsing stairs, with no one to help, so their so called ‘premium pax’ arrive in a state of lather and general frustration … grrr. Finally manage to get checked in by a tarty blonde who wud win the “Miss Uzbekistan I Don’t Care a Damn if you Live or Die Award”.

Then Immigration, which I knew cud be a potential problem. I had come into the country on the Group Visa, basically a huge list of all our pp numbers etc etc and was now breaking free and going out as an individual – COUNTRIES DON’T LIKE THIS and the little man was one of those. I had all the right bits of paper and a stamped copy of the group visa to prove I was a good lad, but of course had nothing in my pp, not even a stamp to show how I came in (and I had this cold feeling that l had absolutely no idea where this place had been, as it was all in the middle of the night, on a remote railway line and our passports were not stamped at all) As far as he was concerned, I had parachuted in from outta space. Uzbek Airlines girl with good English is now invoked and explains my case and the guy is shaking his head and saying Niet and I am trying to work out how I will adjust to life living in a currently under reconstruction Tashkent airport – I meantersay, I’ll have to open a P 0 Box and everything as how am I to receive Red Cross Parcels and Christmas Cards ???? He goes off to confer with higher ups and I am left to ponder my fate. Well, there is a God in Taskent, as he was suddenly all smiles and off I went to face Mother Russia … felt just like getting out of prison !!!!

Business Class “Lounge” had several competitors in the ‘let’s smoke as many cigs as we can before we gets on the plane’ competition. Discovered that the bar (everything had to be bought here) was also the duty free shop, so I could buy a whole bottle and then start to consume it right away, so squirreled myself into a corner, with an electrical outlet for these writing purposes and had a good drink. Plane was called to board 45 mins before departure, which was a good thing, as again we went through more security with all yr bits of paper being re-examined, mainly by people who could probably only read the cyrilic alphabet – my thick card bright yellow boarding card had by now lost both its ends and had been stamped by no less than three different authorities, with each of the other two examining the others handiwork, in case I had been adept at stamping it myself. Good thing it was card, as it came in for a lot of abuse. Then off on the bus to the plane – A SURPRISE – not the nice Airbus as advertised in the timetable, but instead the Russian version, a huge monster called an lluyshin 86, which you enter from ground level and find yourself where the hold would be on anyone else – big area for extra hand baggage ahead of you and another flight of stairs to the left and bingo, you come up through the floorboards, just behind the cockpit. Worst thing was that this was an all Economy configuration, so no nice big seats to wallow in for the 4 hours to Moscow. Crew seemed nonplussed by my complaints, as I seemed to be the only foreigner on board and the locals don’t like to make waves or are so used to it that they just shut up, so I incited a bit of my own Russian Revolution and got the guy behind me to bitch too, which he did v nicely (well as far as I can tell, as it was all in Uzbek) – we knew we had a lost cause, but snot fair, is zit ???? Plane was almost full (they had at least protected the first few rows for us who were more equal than others) and I took a walk about in flight to inspect it. The masses, or rather those who were not severely under the vodka, stared at me hard. There was an empty bottle of vodka rolling around at the rear right door. There were no seat numbers overhead but instead they were on the BACK of the relevant seat, with would cause a few thousand hours of delays in the USA

Before take off, I had to instruct the girl on the jumpseat ahead of me that I would require her to fasten her seatbelt – we were on the end of the runway and she was just sitting in a daze. Made things worse when I suggested that she put on the shoulder harness too – it had obviously not been used for some time, as we were rotating off the ground while she fought with it. Jeeeeeeeeez !!!! You just gotta be there to believe it ! There was ferocious looking woman in black who seemed to be in charge – did not smile once, whereas the girls did throw us the occasional bone of a smile. Much make up had been applied by most of them and their nasty light green uniforms were of a tightness that didn’t ortta be allowed. The bar service in Biz has been upgraded so the former choice of Uzbek vodka, Uzbek wine (a liquid in a class of its own, which would make prune juice seem bitter) and Fanta, has now been augmented by a half bottle of Absolut Vodka, which was demolished immediately and some German beer. Such high living indeed. I brought out my bottle of Scotch and asked for some ice and was quite happy thank you. The meal service was HUGE – boy they like their food in Uzbekland – so we did not starve. Dessert was a bit more Gateau Nationale (quasi chocolate variety), some raisins (v local product and good) and toasted pistachios still in their shells. Cudda made a terrible mess on the floor as this is the society that spits everything out and leaves it right where it fell. No movies, no music, no overhead lights, so we had full plane lighting the whole way and to make it even more better, they played Uzbek music too – ah me, SAS on the way back to the States is going to look very boring compared to all this !

So we lands dead on time in MOW and get bused in – bus cannot leave til it has 150% load factor and also everyone wants to get off first at the terminal, knowing that immigration will be slow, they all stand in the door, so it’s a real rugger scrum. No such thing as being polite here. And inside, amazingly enuf, all the booths are open and we are though in a flash. Bags however take 45 mins to appear and we are serenaded by one of our totally pissed out of his eyeballs pax, who was obviously overcome by seeing a bottle of Absolut in flight. No one took any notice of him. My bag is practically the last to arrive and I join the line in the so called Green channel – no such thing as a walk-through here, so you have to be looked at by Madame la Commisar and selected bags put through an x-ray. Sheeda died if she could see us all strolling through controls in Europe.

And there is my new minder, Vladimir waiting for me, who speaks better French than English, so I have to spool up suddenly to la langue francaise.

But that’s enough for now.

Take the rest of the day off – you probably need it.