Oh, okay, 38,000. You're sticklers for accuracy, and that's why I love you all (except for you, yes you, right at the back. Kindly remove yourself from these premises).

It has begun. It is weird that the only time I ever feel English is when I leave the country, but already my accent has began to sound strange, I've been called 'very polite' only an hour into the flight (moving to allow a husband and wife to sit together), and I'm hemmed in by Americans on all sides. A typical RDU flight. However, it is the first flight that I've had a huge bottle of gin stuffed into my bag.

But! Hark! What is this?! For the first time since I've been on this flight (starting in August 2002, so I've been doing this for four years now. A little scary, that), they've changed the menu! Slightly! For instead of chicken with a mush that once resembled pasta, now it's chicken with a green mush that resembles pasta with pesto! I was astounded. I just hope that the spongy, springy pizza hasn't been changed. It sounds horrible, yet somehow it always turns out to be an enjoyable experience.

Manic scenes at Gatwick this morning. The check-in desk was, as usual, almost deserted, but they still haven't adjusted well to the new security requirements, meaning that the queue for Security Control was so large that they had to have officials going around to pull people out of the queue in order for them to make their flight.

It's very disconcerting when the lights go off and then come back five seconds later. There should be less of that.

Anyway, the usual wander around the duty-free shops, seeing if Dixons had tax-free Wiis (they didn't), the sale items at HMV (at which point: Bonnie: they had the Clerks X edition for £5.17 in there — might be worth picking up!), looking in vain at various brands of whisky, and wondering whether other countries concentrate quite so much on alcohol in their duty-free shops (I know America doesn't). Absinthe with warning labels telling you not to even bother attempting to get it past US Customs, next to huge bottles of vodka and rum in a 2 for £20 deal. We don't have a problem really.

And now, for the highlights from this month's SkyMall magazine, Yes, I knew you were waiting for it. First up - the Pet Staircase. Designed to allow your cat to walk up to the top of your sofa before trying to tear it apart, rather than the usual method of having it jump up there. Excellent. A collection audio summaries of business books that you don't have time to read, but need to know about to stay current in the Exciting World o' Business! Only $169! Titles include Break From The Pack, The Giants of Sales, Loyalty Myths,, and The Enthusiastic Employee. Fabulous value, I'm sure you'll agree.

Oh, my they sell adult onesies. That's just a little freaky.

But I think the prize for this month goes to the Computer-Less Printer. This marvel of 21st century technology (indeed, it is when it all happens) connects to a phone line; every night, it dials out to a special toll-free number, downloads any emails in your messagebox, and helpfully prints them out. I'm sure we can come up with at least five different reasons why this is a particularly silly idea. If nothing else, at $169 plus a $10/month charge for the online service, it'll probably be cheaper after a year to have gone on bought a computer in the first place. And you know it would only be a matter of time before you came downstairs to be greeted by offers of millions from Africa or Christian dating services. The blurb also says that it takes 'standard' ink cartridges, so obviously it works with HP, Epson, Lexmark, and hell, you could empty a Parker pen into it and I'm sure it'll continue to print. Or perhaps not.

And now, turbulence.

(some time later)

Travelling for twelve hours now. It should be night. The wonders of air travel. Unfortunately, I am at loss of things to do. My fancy new iPod Shuffle has just looped, I have exhausted the SkyMall magazine, read all about Belgium in the American Way, I have got past a point in New Super Mario Brothers where I had given up a few months ago. Only to get stuck again a few levels later. Getting there. I have read, I have slept (for about twenty minutes; I can never seem to sleep well on aeroplanes), I have filled in my Customs forms. About the only thing I havent done is work on my secret project for 2007. Which I should, but I'm not sure whether Ill get anything useful out of my frazzled head at this point in time. Two hours to do. Well, I guess we should get our 'afternoon snack' soon…

(even further later)

there then followed an evening of…running around RDU looking for Christa, finding her only to be told horror stories about multiple murders in multi-storey cr parks, being warned that unusual methods would be taken to keep me awake, eating sesame chicken again, yay! Watching most of The Dark Crystal while discovering that birds can, funnily enough, peck quite hard. The usual fun with an exercise ball. Fingers caught in a door. That they've been saving New Order up for my return. A flapper hat and a walk in the dark. Then letting me have sweet sweet rest, 22 hours after this tale begins…