i just got back from a week in the usa. intact, and feeling slightly vegetable.

The flight homewards was marginally less pleasant than the one out, enlivened mostly by the presence of Paula amongst the Virgin Atlantic cabin staff, an attractive blonde woman from Northampton who immediately appealed to my sense of the absurd as we were setting off to fly.

Being in an exit-row with the sorts of televisions that attach to the arm-rest and must be levered-up into position in order to be seen, mine was stuck. Paula assisted, and waged quite a battle with it, eventually admitting defeat with the words:

“I don’t want to grope you too much…”

…at which point my brain — usually well on top of any opportunity for double-entendre or flirting — promptly fused. The best I could manage was a lame “There’s no answer to that, is there?” which at least raised a smile, and we chatted a bit during the flight.

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over the course of the outwards and return flights, i was pleased that i managed to catch-up on my movie viewing:

• harry potter
• 24 hour party people
• bend it like beckham
• jimmy neutron, boy genius

all of which can be recommended; i especially liked 24HPP; it’s not exactly music from “my era” – act 1 finishes a few years before i entered university, and act 2 starts rolling a year or so after i graduated – but if you’ve ever stood in a student disco where they’ve played love will tear us apart more than three times in an evening to general applause, you’ll appreciate it, not least for having a hint towards a lighter side of ian curtis (singing backing to “louie louie”).

i enjoyed bend it like beckham but wonder how accurate it really is; regards the football culture i believe that it probably is pretty darn accurate, even down to the parental-farce / subtext elements, an assertion that i justify from the evidence of my ex-gf who gave-up ladies football because she kept being hit-upon by the other players.

jimmy neutron is a fun cartoon, with enough elements to keep adults amused – at least, geek adults – but is a little-bit too pc at the same time. adequate brain-candy for distraction, however.

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bart and i went to see men in black 2 on saturday night; it was fun, though the plot was a bit thinner than in the original. it was prefaced by an cgi-cartoon called something like the chubbchubbs are coming!!! which was brill, but i shaln’t spoil the plot, the joke is too good.

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i do rather regret declining the invitation to drive whit’s 3.6 litre porsche carrera s, but felt that it’d be the height of bad manners to risk wrecking a colleague’s sportscar; between the jetlag and being on the opposite side of the road, i felt certain that something would go wrong.

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yesterday i got a lift from graham and collected my new car — a skoda octavia in “elegance” trim, 1.9 turbodiesel; i shall be taking care of it and not hammering it for the first thousand miles or so, but am assured by the dealer that this is all that will be necessary to “run-in” the new engine. the car is very shiny and almost “british racing green” — a colour tradition of my family that dates back to the buick v8 we had for camping, back in 1975.

the skoda is very quiet — astonishingly so, especially at speeds of 70mph. i suspect that i am merely used to hearing higher-pitched revving at that speed (never having had a light diesel before) and seeing as the skoda redlines at 5000rpm, this will take a little getting used-to.

some bits of my brain do regret not going for the higher-spec skoda superb — however if i had done so, i would not have quite such a substantial spare wad of dough with which to start saving for a bmw r1150gs\ next year. the “superb” is skoda’s answer to the vw passat and audi a6, and by all accounts it fills its niche very nicely.