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.
