I decided to stay up late last night because I wanted to make sure that I was tired for my flight to Australia this morning. Unfortunately before I managed to get to bed I got the exact details of the funeral I have to attend on Friday back in Sydney. Calls like that at 4am are usually not too welcome.

What was equallty not welcome was the news I got when I checked out. Despite calling a 0845 (national local call number) to access a UK-based free ISP – Webtribe – while in London, the Holiday Inn Victoria had charged me hundreds of dollars for phone calls. Indeed my bill was almost twice what I had anticipated (explains why my credit card seemed a little battered when I checked the available credit online at Citibank yesterday).

I was so shocked I just paid the account and caught my can to Paddington Station to catch the Heathrow Express. It wasn’t until I was on train heading to Heathrow that I managed to comprehend just how much I had been charged and paid.

So after checking in for Qantas QF32 to Sydney via Singapore, I went to the BA Executive Lounge and got online (which was just another expense) to research how much called to 0845 numbers should cost on the BT website. From what I can tell, I was charged about 6-8 times the normal rate for such a call, so I sent a strongly questionning email to Holiday Inn to query the charges. We will see how we go, I can write them all off againsts the business, but that is far from ideal when i think I should get about several hundred dollars refunded.

As a distraction from the ills of death and horrendous telephone charges, I’ll say that the quality of the Executive Lounges provided by BA is pretty attrociious when compared to Qantas Club). The toilets in particular are just a shocker.

On the way to boarding the flight I stopped off to check out the PCG-TR2 Vaio subnotebook that I am thinking about purchasing in Singapore if I can get one for a decent price. While I was there I had a look at the new DSC-F828 digital camera as well. Fuck wish I could afford one of those.

When to WH Smith to buy a note pad and pen so I would write my journal entry in lieu of having access to my laptop on the plane (just not enough room between economy seats!).

The plane took forever to board. They had to stop half way through because the walkway to the 747 was just too cold (it had snowed last night and it was -6° with wind chill at Heathrow about 11am). As a result we were about 30 minutes late taking off.

I thought I was lucky with noone sitting in front of me until after we had taken off and this old geezer sat in front of me and immediately pushed his seat back as far as it could go. Ouch.

The aim would be to stay awake till a reasonable time in Singapore’s time zone and then get some sleep overnight. Wake up before arriving in Singapore and then try to stay awake throughout the shorter fay time flight tomorrow.

That’s the plan anyway.

Started to the flight by watching Runaway Jury. Actually not as bad as I originally would have thought. Followed that up with Secondhand Lions.

Time for a sleep I think, since the screen in front is now only 8-9 inches away from my face.

I actually set an alarm to make sure that I got up at a reasonable hour this morning because I really wanted to get as much as possible done today. So I was on the road just after 9am and heading off to Notting Hill and Kensington to a more ritzy part of town.

The great thing was that the rain that had been forecast didn’t happen – in fact is was sunny for part of the day. It didn’t get much about 2°C anyway.. so brrr and the thermals came in handy.

Caught the Tube to High Street Kensington. Could tell was in the High Street when we hit things like The Gap and big chains. Walked my way to Kensington Palace which is actually open to the public. From there, walked past the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall which apparently had over 6 million visitors in its first year of opening.

Across the road is the really amazing main building as part of the campus of Imperial College. One thing about London is the absolutely amazing university campuses.

This area around South Kensington is just full of the most amazing museums. First stop was the Science Museum. Unlike most Science Museum’s it doesn’t look all futuristic from the outside. Must more than a focus on interactive games for kids here. I particularly liked some of the climate change stuff.

From there walked over the road to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This place is just massive – and some of the most amazing art ranging from graffiti to stained glass. I could have spent all day there.

Next stop was the National History Museum which looked not so impressive when I first saw it from Exhibition St (but then I went around the corner to the Waterhouse Building). They had some absolutely brilliant natural photographic exhibitions. Highlights had to be the Wildlife Garden complete with a range of habitats and the dinosaur galleries.

Walked my way along Brompton Rd to Harrods at Knightsbridge. Tried yet another Sainsbury’s for Kevin’s biscuits. No luck.

Took the Tube to Embankment and walked to Somerset House and walked up to Australia House which has to be the most impressive Australian embassy anywhere in the world.

Then walked up to Covent Garden and checked out the Royal Opera House before catching the train back to Westminster and walking to yet another Sainsbury’s. No Canoli Wafer’s so I am giving up!

Got back to the Holiday Inn Victoria and just chilled out for a little while before I have to head out to Palace Theatre to see Les Misérables. My first real experience of a packed tube ride on the way to Leicester Square. The production was OK. At times the sound was quite dodgy, but all-in-all quite enjoyable. Ben cried. The woman behind us cried at every possible opportunity and the cast was given a standing ovation that wasn’t particularly warranted. On the way back to Victoria, Ben stopped into G-A-Y Bar to see if he could buy some Kylie tickets – but no luck. In the two minutes while he is talking at the bar I had three guys say hello.. which I actually find really really uncomfortable. Maybe that is why I never go do the scene thing. Maybe it was just the amount of smoke and the fact I was wearing my ratty old Adidas jumper too.

Back to the hotel and time to pack I think. Early start in the morning.

It didn’t quite stay to the plan of being below 1°C this morning, but it also didn’t rain which was a very good thing. Meant that I managed to get in a lot of things – despite having slept in this morning.

When did eventually wake up – grabbed the Tube to Tower Hill and walked to the Tower of London. One of London’s premier attractions it costs a frightful £13.50 ($40-ish) to get in and because of my sleep in probably didn’t get as close a look as I would have liked.

From there walked to Tower Bridge which is fairly cool and definitely one of the sights to check out – even if just for that picture opportunity. Just on the southern bank of the Thames is HMS Belfast and the quirky London Dungeons museum.

Walked my way back to Southwark Cathedral past the Clink Prison Museum which boasts itself as a corporate conference venue – I’m not sure what kind of events you would have there though!

Past Shakespeare’s Globe to the Tate Modern which has this great weather installation at the monument which is stories high with a huge sun you can lie under in a room that is foggy. Check the pictures out later.

Walked back to the north side of the Thames over the Millenium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral and then walked back to Trafalgar Square to meet Jason to go to the movies.

We grabbed a cup of tea at the National Theatre before walking back to King’s College to watch Medea – a flick by Pier Paolo Pasolini (who is famous for the long banned Salo). As usual it was overly confronting, but opera singer Maria Callas was pretty good in it.

Caught the Tube back to Holiday Inn Victoria before attempting to catch up on some freelance into the night.

Hopefully it won’t rain tomorrow either. That would be a major bonus.

Happy Australia Day to all the Aussie’s reading (well even though Australia Day was over by the time I got to write this).