Backspin

Backspin here - I've been enjoying the Aged H's blog for some time now so I asked if I could have a go. After a couple of technical hitches (I don't exactly do "tech"), here we are...

I've been well up for Kili since the idea was first mooted at JK's 50th. So much so that as Aged H said, I got a mountain bike at Christmas, and a book on Kilimanjaro. To have something epic to do this year really took my fancy and although out of all of us I probably had least to do fitness wise I am cycling, running and rowing regularly, and have been for 4 months now. In fact I'm miles away! I feel full of life. Unfortunately I haven't found any mountains yet (Hertfordshire is somewhat lacking), and everybody tells me its not fitness but the altitude that'll make or break us, but nuts to that - JG is promising to take us for a weekend in the Brecon Beacons, they are quite high and it's nice being 50 with a bit of energy in any event, success or fail!

I have to say Aged and Mrs Aged (who is lovely) have organised us brilliantly thus far. JK gave us a few palpitations but finally decided he was coming and JG has bought himself a rowing machine (it's his 50th on Friday so we'll get to see first hand whether he's taken it out of the box). Punky is a tentative "yes" - his Dad died earlier in the year and it's been difficult for him to commit. We all hope he does though - this is going to be TOUGH and we'll need all the support we can get, from mates we've known for 40 years now...

Cometh the Half Century, Cometh the Climbing Prezzie

So the Ageing Hipster's 50th came, and with it a bunch of Kili related prezzies. What a great idea to plan an adventure that needs equipment as you approach this particular milestone. Everyone wants to get you something, and you have a ready made wish list. So much better than socks and a cardie - although a pair of socks did make it into the swag bag. But not any old pair, oh no - proper moutaineering ones, engineered New Zealand. Along with a bag of all day breakfast specially formulated for high altitude.

"Thanks for the socks and de-hydrated food" I say to Miss SD
"You're welcome, you bastard" comes the reply.

My favourite niece and her kids weighed in with a Camelpack - a 3.5 litre bag that holds your water and straps onto the back of the daypack. And it's got an insulated straw so the water doesn't freeze. Nice one guys!

The large but lightweight box from brother and nephew in Honk Kong (that tantalisingly arrived a week early) was torn apart on the big day to reveal a most excellent rucksack - complete with compass. And, magically the Camelpack fits it perfectly. Couldn't have worked out better if they'd tried.

Gooner D spoiled me rotten - and amongst the booty was a strap-on-the-head lamp thing. Perfect for the final ascent, which is due to start at midnight (unless we miraculously all get super-fit, in which case it starts at half past midnight).

And this particular headlamp is brilliant. It has a filter, so you can have focused or wide beam, three energy settings (called high, medium and low by the manufacturers, disproving the notion that Germans lack imagination), and an option for it to flash SOS - bloody marvelous, but let's hope we don't need that.

And last, but by no means least, a Times Concise Atlas of the World from the Backspins. This particular edition has a small mark in the middle of Tanzania on the flyleaf.  Four months to go and this is getting very exciting.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with internet research

It's  a curious fact of life that whatever journey we take we usually end up back where we started from. And the voyage of discovery into our flight options didn't shift this paradigm.

Gooner D, the World's Favourite Travel Agency, stepped up to do the research. She's good at this - very good indeed. So good that JG has previously offered to pay her to plan his holidays.  I can vouch for the many remarkable adventures that have been sorted, and the countless thousands of pounds that have been saved from the comfort of her laptop.  And so, with gusto, she cranked up the PC and got stuck in.

"I think you can go by KLM" said Bobby Backspin.
"And Air Ethiopia goes there too" I said.
Job done or so we thought. What amateurs we were!
"OK" reported Gooner D after a lot of research. "We've got BA, Air Kenya, Ethiopia, KLM, Condor and Adelweiss for short-hop - long hop (going via any combination of Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam and/or Dar Es Salaam).  And Air Kenya, BA and Virgin fly to Nairobi for a short hop connection on Fly 540, Precision Air Services, Air Kenya Express and Kenya Airways - as opposed to Air Kenya)

By now I am totally confused dot com!

"Prices start from £450 if you want to spend days hanging around distant airports in 40 degrees heat waiting on connections. Or more than £2000 for KLM's Amsterdam - Kilimanjaro return"
"£2000? I thought we were in the age of cheap air travel!"
"That's if you're stupid enough to book direct. But I've found a way to book us all the way from London via Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro on KLM for about £650. Don't ask me why the additional journeys make it cheaper, but they do"

KLM suddenly becomes interesting. Very interesting indeed. As interesting as a butcher's turd to a swarm of flies in the middle of Summer.

Kenya and Ethiopia are cheaper, but, according to the noticeboards, have poor punctuality records. Worse still, if anything goes wrong you've got as much chance of getting your money back as a teenage boy has of keeping a clean sheet after he's hacked through parental control on the broadband. Eat your heart out Ryan Air.

And so, after a jaunt around the Airlines of the World, we're back to where we started from. It's KLM and everybody's happy.

We all love the price.

Gooner D likes the civilised flight times and minimal transits.

JK is very excited about the prospect of visiting an Amsterdam Coffee Shop the night before.
("At your age?" I query
"Never been to one before, could be my last chance"
Good point - you only live once).

Bobby Backspin likes the option to fly from Heathrow at the crack of dawn and meet us on the plane in Amsterdam.

I like the fact there's no changing planes at the far end - when we'll be knackered and just wanting to get there.

And we all like the fact we get back to London early in the morning.  Especially Punky, Bobby and JG, who plan can go straight into work when we land!

Altitude Sickness tablets - a Dentist's perspective

With all necessary permissions now in place, and the trip definitely a go-er, Gooner D heads to the Dentist with the feel-good factor coursing through her veins. Quite how the subject of altitude sickness cropped up in the Dentist's chair is beyond me (the surgery's only on the 4th floor after all), but it did.

"I haven't done Kilimanjaro myself, but I climb Mont Blanc quite often" said the Dentist, before offering an interesting tip. "There are two types of tablets. Diamox is the most common. It's a diuretic, so you pee a lot, and frankly it doesn't touch the sides with me. I felt like my head had been hit with an axe"

 Ouch!

"Then there's Dexamethasone" 

Now this does sound promising. It's three whole syllables longer, and more difficult to pronounce.  

"It's a steroid, so not to be taken too often, but it really works. Although it might make you go a bit puffy"

We can also hire a personal oxygen system - a cylinder of O2 with those little plastic sticky-up-the-nose things you see on ER. Think this might be a good complimentary option.

So there you have it. Diamox - where you could be up half the night with your hat in your hand, wearing the type of head usually reserved for the morning after a night that included (but was not limited to) Red Wine, Guinness, Tequila AND Black Sambucas. 

And then there's Dexamethasone. Tena's worst nightmare, but you might look all Jo Brand in your holiday snaps.

The African Walking Company supply Diamox, but Dexamethasone is prescription only. The choice is yours, best to consult your Doctor (or knowledgeable Dentist) first though.

Better than the Movies II - The Sequel

So just like the best Hollywood thriller, our emotional need plot just had to have a few final twists and turns. And this one reads like something from a teenage Rom-Com.

Wink and Candy couldn't both go to the ball-game because one of them had to sit in the porch with Baby-Bubba and Jim-Bob until the start of the fall semester.  They toss a coin and decided Candy should go with her BFFs Mary-Beth and Aleesha.
This left Wink's homie Ross floundering. "I don't wanna let my buddy down, and do I really wanna sit behind Coach in the in-zone in all that bad weather?"
"Well I ain't going to no ball game with no girls" said Bud "Suki-Lou won't like it none"
Meanwhile Zeke, Billy-Ray and Shania adopt the frontier spirit and proceed to get their pitching arms in shape. After all the show must go on.
A dark cloud descends on Smallstown Arizona and time passes .... slowly.
Finally, Candy says:"Hellz-a-boppin', we could have more fun going to the next ball-game"
"Yeah" says Mary-Beth and Aleesha "With no boys to ruin things with their a-farting and a-snoring!"
"Well waddya know!" thinks Wink. "If they ain't a-going, I guess I can go to the game after all"
"In which case Suki-Lou won't be giving it no never-mind neither" said Bud.
"And if my best bosom buddy can go, then I guess I can too" said Ross.
"You're the best wing-man in the whole wide world" says Wink
"Well that's decided" they all declare in unison "We will go the the ball game after all. Go team! Go team! Go team!"

Cue life-affirming power ballad. Roll credits.

Wow - this is better than the movies!

Ever noticed how every Hollywood movie is essentially the same scraggy old lump of meat mouldering under a slightly different gravy? They consist of two plot lines: emotional need and material goal. The emotional need is often the rediscovery of a relationship (e.g. a long lost love, the pet dinosaur you thought had perished as an egg, or your old school mates aged 49). The material goal is a conscious action undertaken by the players (e.g. to rob a bank, to defend your planet against an evil genius, to climb Kilimanjaro aged 50)

Usually, the two plots are cleverly integrated, climaxing at the same moment (heaven help us).

Invariably Act One reveals two or three initiating events, to introduce characters and plot (the boys have a lunch, they decide to climb a mountain to mark their 50ths, A Charidee will benefit).

 But Act One always closes with a complicating event.

“I can’t make the climb, but my partner and some of her friends are coming in my place” says JK a little awkwardly.

“That’s cool” says The Ageing Hipster, having missed the first bit.

“Child care issue” says Bobby Backspin

“The good news is there’s women there to keep Gooner D company” says JK  

(Not sure if he's trying to sell it to us, or make himself feel better, but Gooner D’s not worried one way or the other).

“Did he really say he’s not coming to his own 50^th birthday event, so that his partner and some of her mates can come?”  I ask off camera.

“That’s about the long and short of it.” says Gooner D

Hang on a second! Family and friends coming with us is great. Family and friends coming instead of us is just a bit odd. Not even Hollywood’s lowest budgeted, "B"-est of "B" movies would have thought of that one. End of Act One!

Act Two sees the ensemble adjust to these new problems. The emotional need plot reaches its climax, altering the material goal plot (e.g. the little furry animals get lost in the woods as night starts to fall, a distant roll of thunder is heard and it starts to get all scary, they spend the night in a cave and discover a secret world of tiny people, where they are treated as deities.  Or the supporting cast decide it won’t be the same without JK, and if he feels he can’t take the time away from the family, which is fair enough, we should find some other way of marking our half century).

By the end of Act Two, the Hollywood plot takes an unexpected twist in order for the material goal to be resolved. (e.g. Earth’s been destroyed by the Lizard Men, but it’s OK, we’ll find a new planet to colonise. Or, Jodie will be a cheerleader, despite having to live in an Oxygen bubble. We’ll just play the match in her hospital ward!). 
And then there's the British version. (JK not being there fundamentally misses the point, but sod it, if he can't get this cleared by HQ, we'll just have to go without him! )

It would be good to get Act Two resolved sooner rather than later, so we can get into Act Three (Will the crime get solved?  Will the aliens take over?  Will JG manage to sleep in a tent?)  Hollywood dictates a secret will be revealed, or some other twist will complicate the material plot one last time. Personally I hope not. In porn parlance, I prefer money shots.  I just want to get to the epilogue, that’s the bit where the characters ride off into the sunset, half way up a mountain in Africa.

Punky Paul and his MOT

Punky's much vaunted MOT was delayed by a few nerve-wracking days, because "the Professor's had to attend an emergency." I wonder what that was? Has Jordan snagged a fingernail? Did The Queen's have a touch of the vapours after seeing the guest list for the Royal Wedding? Or maybe Professor CBE is doing something useful for a change,  like attending to his NHS pro-bono work (although quite what dog biscuits have to do with it is beyond me. Perhaps he feeds them to the poor and needy at his TB clinic in the East End).

And what is Punky supposed to do now his old MOT's expired? Take himself off the road because his insurance is invalid? Who knows.

Thankfully the days go by quickly enough, and the news finally arrives. The nation can breathe a sigh of relief. Jordan has had an extension glued on. Her Majesty has had the wedding list ethnically cleansed. The oikier element have been put in their place (i.e outside the palace gates), leaving a cathederal-load of pure inbreds who all know their whats from their pardons.

And Prof CBE has given Punky the all clear - in fact he passed with flying colours. We're in!