decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

We’re back home safe in Sydney, all is well.

Love your comment Paul! I have to say… Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 was a shocker! We’ll never depart from that airport ever again, warning… rant coming up!

We only just made our plane, due to depart at 12.30pm and we arrived at the airport at 7am! We processed our tax refunds, checked in our baggage, and then it took hours to get through all the security screening/x-ray areas. The new security measures in place at Heathrow are extreme. Some people got screened/x-rayed 3 times! It’s all random depending on what queue you chose to line-up in. So many people, so many queues!

What most annoyed us is now you’re only allowed to carry one piece of cabin baggage if you depart from Heathrow. No other airport has this limitation.

Joanne and I both had very full back-packs plus I had a record bag, and Joanne had another bag (sack) full of Europe’s finest chocolates. Our multiple bags didn’t agree with the one piece of cabin baggage policy. The solution (as advised by staff)… stick them together in a large plastic bag, and carry it as if it’s a single item until you’re through the security screening/x-ray areas. Stupid huh! How much fun do you think carrying a full back-pack and record bag together in a plastic bag in your arms is, for the hours it took to get through security?!?! Not very much! My arms were killing me!

Once we got through all of that drama we then only had about 10 minutes to look around the food, shops, and duty free area (with the other 1000s of people) until our flight was due to board.

However… the actual gate our plane was departing from had not been advised, and then was only indicated 10 minutes before the flight was actually due to depart! and it instantly showed ‘Flight Closing’! Panic! Oh, and how convenient that the gate we needed to get to was right over the other side of the terminal! We did the mad dash, then hit another queue, as every other passanger for our flight did the same mad dash. Then… another security check at the gate/lounge. But wait that’s not all… Now we’re going to cram you all into a bus to take you to the actual plane, which is… over the other side of the airport! Arghhh!

Once we were borded, we were further delighted at being delayed for 50 minutes before the plane could taxi and take-off. Arghhh!

You can imagine our mood after all that. Dark, very dark. Oh, I forgot to mention, to add to this… we also had had no sleep prior, having gone stright from Fabric (club), via a confusing early morning drive out of central London in the pouring rain, to quickly freshen up/shower up, pack up at Sandra & Mall’s place back in Lee/Greenwich, then had to drive to the airport car hire return, return the hire car, then onto the airport terminal via a shuttle bus, which was delayed by a road accident.

I sound like a whinging pom hum!

Anyway, all good now, we know for next time… avoid Heaththrow! Deep breath… rant over.

Fabric

Beta, if you’re reading, I now know why you dislike Fabric so much. The club is awesome, great spaces, excellent sound and lighting, but the crowd… is horrible. The push/shove on the dance-floor was even worse than what we had had to deal with across Europe at many clubs. Fabric has a very ethnic/mixed crowd too. B.M.B were great, very punishing, with relentless beats, a different sound to their Awakenings set, which had more broken beats, and changes of intensity, they played 4am-6.30am. Heard a little of Ricardo Villalobos on the way out, but the main room was way too packed, so packed I don’t know how people actually dance in there! He didn’t start till 5.30am! At one point we bumped into Jamie from Infusion there, which was a laugh. We heard many of the other people playing around the club for the couple of hours before B.M.B started up, didn’t like much of what we heard… nasty drum’n’bass, funky house, and grime. Dinner and drinks prior with… AC & DWC 🙂 was very nice, a fun night, lovelly to meet and chat to their guests/friends too, shouts to Rony and Maggot! It was really nice to have been invited out and to meet them. Whilst on the way out from dinner and drinks we bumped into Marc Houle and had a nice chat too.