I spend too much of my life on planes, in the air and hanging around at airports. I also know more than is healthy about airline lounges, cabin upgrades and new routes - not through choice it just lands on my lap.

Recently whilst abroad I asked my travel agent to see about changing flights back from HK to LHR (see airport codes!) and one offer was with Air New Zealand. Now they are a good airline but I thought that they only flew to the UK the other way round over the Pacific then stopover in LAX. But no here was flight to London via HK. Strange I thought. Bit of investigation shows that ANZ have switched their Boeing 747 fleet to flying this route and downgraded the LAX route to Boeing 777s.
Why? Because people don't want the hassle and inconvenience of transting in the US. If you stop over you have to have the Biometric passport, your fingerprint and retina scanned. Not to mention the complete inability of US airports to deal with security arrangements without overdramatising the whole procedure. Stopping over in HK involves about a 15-20 min wait for your bags, a 5 min queue at Immigration - job done. The Kiwis are sensible people and are voting with their feet, nice to see their Airline taking heed.

Personally I'd never transit or visit the US unless I really had to for similar reasons. Even travelling through Heathrow is more a pain in the arse these days - which is saying something in itself.

And I'm not the only one of that opinion. In August, following the introduction of the draconian cabin baggage regulations, transit passengers using LHR dropped between 3%-5%. Reasons cited included the hassle, the extra security, reduction in carry on baggage when compared to other Euro Hubs like Schipol and Frankfurt. Over a year this reduction in passengers would cost UK based airlines 10-100millions of pounds, not to mention the loss of earning to BAA and the wider economy through transit facilities. Seems like we're finally back to a level footing with the rest of Europe on cabin baggage and liquids - though the idea of queuing up to security then taking off your belt, your shoes, pulling out your laptop and then ensuring your carry-on liquids are in a sealed clear plastic bag is hardly appealing. Perhaps I could balance a ball on my nose whilst reciting key passages from the bible, blindfold.

As ever these "security" measures are there to be seen rather than for their effectiveness. They achieve very little apart from inconvenience and as ever in this world the further to the front of the plane you fly the less hassle you encounter and the quicker it is dealt with. If such security is required why drop it now. Not the economic imperitave again, is it. All this at a time when the US airlines in Chapter 11 protection are making profits again - see United Airlines.

Anyway time to go......

SO its official. The UK is a surveillance state. This the conclusion of the UK Information Commisioner, Richard Thomas. It ranges from monitoring of all tele-communications and email by your friendly neighbourhood security agency – no not MI5 or the SIS but NSA, yep they are American not British – to more discrete marketing surveillance in the name of customer profiling ("dataveillance") garnered by loyalty cards, credit card transactions and mobile phone useage. And nice to know that we only have to share one CCTV camera between 14 of us in the glorious United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland putting us proudly at the top of the league for CCTV cameras per person. Add this to GPS transmitters fitted to company vehicles, keystroke monitoring in some organisations , the largest DNA database both by number and per capita and it makes you wonder what “they” don’t know or could n’t find out about us.

So an Englishman’s (and Scot’s, Ulster and Welsh) home is his castle. Its just the most observed and monitored castle in the world. Mr Thomas states

“We really do have a society which is premised both on state secrecy and the state not giving up its supposed right to keep information under control while, at the same time, wanting to know as much as it can about us."

And furthermore

“Today I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us,"

Well that’s nice. I know lets make this all simpler.

How could we bring more detailed information on each and every individual in the country in an easy to access format?

Oooh, I know what about ID cards. We can say they’ll help on the war against terrorism and organized crime – people will love that.

But won’t that need a big computer system?

Yeah well probably. Still we can probably get the people who are working on the NHS Digital Patient Records system to look at it for us.

But didn’t several of those companies already leave the project handing millions back to the Government as they believe the project will be such a disaster it will harm their international reputation, not to mention that it will be unsecure, unreliable and very late.

Yeah, well there is that.

And won’t it cost a lot of money?

Well only £5.6billion according to our figures.

But I thought the LSE calculated a cost of somewhere between £10.6 billion and £19.2 billion.

Ah don’t worry it’ll be self-financing - we’ll get the public to pay for that by making the system voluntary.

How does that work then?

Well if you need a new Passport then we’ll charge you the £100 for the ID card as well. Simple.

But how is that voluntary?

Well you don’t have to have a passport do you? Unless you want to leave the country of course. And why would you want to do that? If you leave we won’t be able to keep an eye on you. For your own safety of course!

Still, nice to know that rebellion still burns brightly in the UK. But the torch is now held by the youth of the country, most likely to torch a wheelie bin or light a spliff no doubt if todays report is to be believed. British teenagers are top the Euro table for underage sex, smoking, drinking, fighting and petty crime aswell as many other such social skills. Plus another report says that these same “kids” look on ASBOs as a “badge of honour” or a “diploma”. So all this despite the all the government’s ill-drafted new laws, massive surveillance presence, increased police numbers and powers etc.

But don’t worry we’re winning the war on terror………………

And there’s the whole angle on flying that I was going to jot down but after that I’m not sure I should in case I mysteriously disappear from the street one day, despite the CCTV cameras’ omnipresence.

Manila, somewhere between Mumbai & Singapore in many ways.

More prentensions to Western "global" city than Mumbai (highways, chainstores, hamburgers and hollywood) but with plenty enough poverty, filth and an edge of voilence that place it closer to Mumbai than Singapore. Maybe its the lack of a safety net. Maybe Singapore gets away with it because it has no hinterland to draw in the poor and hopeful, unlike both Manila & Mumbai. Both those cities are the metropolis that looks both inwards and outwards of the nation. Both of those are the exotic, the pretence or hope of a better life - of money, of success, of a better life, a better life like the movies (bolly/holly)- the city of dreams for their country. Singapore's hinterland is Malaysia, a separate country since independence. It can manage the influx unlike almost every other city in the world (Hong Kong maybe but there it is the Governmant of the hinterland that wants to keep the status quo, without that support the leaks there are would turn into a flood). Maybe because of that flood of humanity, life seems much cheaper in both Mumbai and Manila than Singapore. Death is common, life is cheap.

Anyway, that opening took me along way from where I was going. My point was going to be about football. In this international, global village, interconnected world that I rent a space in from time to time, there is usually one constant. Not McDonalds, not Starbucks, not HSBC (though there is some ubiqity to those brands)but rather the omnipresence of football and in particular the English Premier League and the Champions League. Even in darkest, dingiest hotel rooms in China, I can flick through the TV channels and find a game from one of these on. Usually it doesn't matter what time of day. Sometimes it may be from the Copa America, African or Arabic games but it is always there. Constantly on.

Not in Manila. As I sit here Man U are playing Liverpool. This is possibly the biggest game in Singapore since the last big game, thousands will pack the bars/strrets around Stanley Quay to watch the game live (Liverpool and Man U are the most supported teams in the Island State)and it will attract 10s if not 100's of millions around the world. A similar number of millions of dollars will be wagered, globally on the outcome. From a few cents between mates or parent/child to hundred thousands by organised crime. Even in Cricket mad Mumbai, where I caught a bit of Australia losing to Sri Lanka, football is the second game.

But not here in the Philippines. Flick through the sports channels and the country betrays it history as an American "colony" or client state. Baseball, basketball, All star wrestling, American football.Some major league, some college, some local but all US sports, oh and in a nod to the rest of the world Formula 1. No football, no Man U Vs Liverpool. No drinks promo in the bar. Nothing.

Slight diversion here -

Guess maybe its the colonial thing. The Phillipines were a Spanish Colony until the end of the 19th century, when football was being spread by British workers around her neighbours in Europe (Spain, Italy, Portugal, by her sailors across the Empire and through the strong trading links with South America.The US fought Spain over the Philippines to free the Filipinos from the tyranny of Spanish rule and to replace it with "independence" (independence to be effectively the first "Banana Republic" once the real difficult, principled leaders had been dealt with - another story). So Spain was being introduced to football by British miners, sailors and steelworkers at the same time as trying to hold onto the remnants of a decaying empire. As the Philippines passed from Spanish (non-footballing) hegemony into that of the US, it basically missed out on the constant contact with Europe that would have brought it football. Instead it looked west to the US, to the sports played by the new non-colonial troopss that took over their islands - to Baseball, American Football and Basketball. That's the US legacy along with Jeepnies and the American language, the Spanish just left a few words and Catholicism. Sport and religion. Plenty enough to damn a country with.....

And back on track

Weird. And for once I feel slightly adrift. As if football is the global lingua Franca and no one speaks it here. Brings back the fact that I am just dipping in and out of these cities, and that there is more that separates me from them than binds us together. Losing one of those binds is enough to remind you of that. Alone, thousands of miles from home with dodgy air-con and a well-stocked (and untouched) minibar.

The things you think about.........

Given the amount of hotel rooms in the world, with the similar amount of internet connections and pcs, and the amount of monkies tapping away, why haven't we cured the world's ills or expanded human conciousness even further.

Looks like Shakespeare's copyright remains secure

The Glamour of Travel

That's the Stepford Wife of international cities in the background - Singapore. So clean, so wealthy, so safe its scarily so. Here Government does the best by its citizens whether they like it or not. It a Mogadon induce pink trance of a city. It has traffic but never that much and everyone follows the rules. It has a comprehensive public transport that is clean, cheap and effective (and air conditioned make note Londoners). But it lacks any contrast there's no black to its white, no real flip side visible to the untrained eye. No wonder its such a popular place with ex-pats but it has an asinine, souless feel to me. Cities are dirt and filth contrasting with sharp, clean lines. They are noise and bustle alongside silence and solitude. They are poverty and struggle alongside wealth and privilege.

Which leads nicely into one of the world's true Mega cities - Mumbai. When I mention dirt and poverty alongside wealth and tranquility that's Mumbai. A city of dreams that takes most of those 13 million dreams and slowly, deliberately grinds them into the dirt that surrounds them - whilst taking a very few beyond their own imaginations

Still it is a city. And beautiful it looks from up on the 30th floor. Because here you can admire the beautiful setting, watch the Kites soaring looking for their next meal - as often carrion as not - and look at the fishermen throwing their nets out into one of the world's largest bays. But also because from here you are isolated from the noise of 60000 taxis & innumerable private vehicles in a riot of traffic rather than a traffic system, the all pervading riot of smells assaulting your nose mostly unpleasant, and the overwhelming poverty that is thrust in your face constantly by beggars, street kids, severely disabled humans trading their dignity for the minimum of recompense. The cows in the street, the goats and chickens ekeing out a living on the pavement before their ultimate end, the bright temples and Diwali lights, the small boys playing cricket on the side of an 8 lane highway by the airport. The crumbling concrete of the deco 1930s apartment blocks on the Queens necklace. The gothic Victoriana. The veneer of a anglo-saxon civilisation spread incredibly thin on this asian organism.

Now thats a city

And soon a new isolated luxury cell, overlooking a new city with the same jaundiced eyeblink.