James Combes's blog

"Bad Boy."

  The Lonely Planet talks about Savannah being the "bad boy" of Georgia. It's reputation is seedy and dirty and the town in justly proud. Savannah is a party city. There are pubs and students, and alcohol. This, combined with the fact that there is little else to do, except perhaps to brush up on one's Civil War history by visiting every square with a statue in, should mean that Savannah is a wild place.

There is another announcement from our captain. He says, in a slightly worried American accent:  "Sorry to interrupt your flight but one of the ladies on the flight has lost her marriage licence out of her passport. She still wants to stay married, so if you see it on the floor can you please pass it on to an attendant and hopefully we can save her marriage."

Every customer has a television to watch for free. And that's good. What's not so good, however, is making the customer pay  £3 or $5 for a set of earphones to listen to the sound. Now, what's the idea behind this? Why give a television for free but no headphones? That's just mean. It would be like the BBC charging a separate fee on top of their already extortionate licence fee for the volume as well.

Part I: Toilets, stinginess and toothpaste.

It's about half-way through the flight. I'm still smarting from the fact that the American airline have not sat me next to a gorgeous, single girl who finds me irresistibly attractive. This seems to be a terrible oversight on their part and I will of course be sending a letter of complaint later on.

Tourist Information.

In one of the tourist information places in downtown Savannah there is a skeleton sat on a chair, fully-dressed, wearing a cap. With the one exception - ie. that he is a skeleton - he looks like any other American.  As I browse through the books, leaflets and tourist tat, I keep noticing him out of the corner of my eye.  I keep thinking that someone is watching me ... but it's just a stupid skeleton.

  Tourist Information II.

The scourge of Clerkenwell.

The number thirteen is significant for various reasons. Firstly, it is unlucky and puts the heebie-jeebies up many people. Secondly, it is the maximum number of steps that a person in Clerkenwell can take without being approached by some deperate vagrant trying to force them to take a free newspaper.

Savannah Miscellany 1.

SUVs.

  There is no such thing as a normal car in Savannah, Georgia, USA. At least ninety-nine percent of all vehicles are SUVs - what we know in England as "Chelsea Tractors". They are truly huge and seem to have more in common with tanks than bog-standard automobiles. Even the small ones are big. The big ones are larger than most English houses.  It's no wonder that the ice-caps are melting.

Death Metal Vocalists.

Long pointless, egotistical, meandering blog of no real relevance.

I wrote some comedy, took a train to central London, went to a party, saved a damsel in distress from certain death and did my best impression of a sardine in a tin whilst listening to a bunch of drunken Portuguese youngsters singing football anthems.

Sub-editing.

The crucial difference between editing and sub-editing is that the latter is done underwater.