Rugby post not travel

As per my profile, I managed to get to a Jason Robinson Benefit dinner tonight in Newcastle. Apart from the man himself (modest & generous with his time, autographs etc), Toby Flood, Matthew Tait and Jamie Noon were at the dinner with of course one J Wilkinson esq.
Despite his new "relaxed image", JW still looked nervous because as ever he attracted his biggest cheers of the night. His recent interview on BBC's Inside Sport did show the new JW is different but you felt the old , slightly obessesive JW was just below the surface during the Q&A session with John Inverdale.
Meanwhile Messrs Tait and Flood come across as modest, yet great role models, I am sure they do not realise the influence they have young 14 year old rugby players like my son.
However Jamie Noon stood out for me - he again does not realise how junior rugby players across the nation, idolise his defensive strengths, went out on Sunday morning (and Sunday mornings to follow) to try and do " a Noonie" on the nearest opposition full back or 3/4 in honour of the tackle on Cedric Heymans in the 4th minute of the England v France game, last Saturday night.
Let's hope they can can kick on and beat Scotland a week on Saturday.

new passport

Those of you have read this blog will know my old passport I felt was bita of a liability with all its "dodgy" stamps.
Well it finally got worn out and a passport officer at Heathrow suggested I procured a new one. So I now have a new passport with a microchip and a shiny cover. It now takes me twice as long as it used to ( well it seems that way) to get through passport controls; because it appears 95% of UK border officials believe it's fake ( it's not folks !) because it is so shiny and has no stamps (yet !).
Finally I was stopped by a plain clothes officer on the way to Brussels this week who asked on inspecting my virgin passport: "Do you not travel very often sir !"?

sorry i have been away

I realise I have done a lot recently but none of it was really world shattering or reportable; but it must have been time consuming since my last entry into this blog was August 2007. I will try and renew my efforts to record my travels in 2008 starting with a great comment from the Captain of the VLM flight into Manchester from Antwerp this morning:

"The weather in Manchester is rainy like it always is"

Give the man a job with BBC weather team !