London - New York (3463 miles)

The taxi picked me up at some ungodly hour yesterday morning and ferried me to Heathrow terminal three. We passed Sir Alan Sugar’s Rolls Royce on the way and I briefly thought about jabbing my finger at him and mouthing “you’re fired” but decided that was a bit too obvious.

The flight was fairly uneventful (if you discount the stewardess spilling water on my head) and with a decent tail-wind we landed 45 minutes ahead of schedule but I still had time to watch I am Legend and Michael Clayton on Virgin’s fantastic inflight entertainment system as well as finish Douglas Coupland’s Generation X.

I had just over two hours to make it to the 11th Street Bar for the Champions League semi-final match between Chelsea and Liverpool. I passed through immigration without any problem, picked up my bag and jumped into a taxi. Of course, it would have been a huge help if I could remember exactly where on 11th I was going. In the end I decided to be dropped off in the middle of 11th and pick a direction.

I walked East and West without seeing any bars at all and eventually found free wifi access to Google. I forgot how streets can stop and start at various random points in this country. With 30 minutes to go I finally arrived and ordered my first pint. The place was already packed and by the time kick-off came the 125 person maximum capacity notice was barely visible. What an atmosphere!

I had a strange feeling about the game. I was actually fairly confident of Liverpool going through thanks, in part, to me building up some karma on the flight by helping the Buddhist monk order a vegetarian meal and recline his seat. Oh well, I did all I could.