Living in the centre of London became fun today – walking back from a few afternoon beers, I came across some kind of march along bayswater road – looks like a few thousand people who – a very nice teenage girl informed me – was the commemoration of the death of the grandson of Mohammed – Banu Hashim.
The march is noisy but basically very quiet – aside from the fact that they’ve closed off the road in one direction it all seems very pleasant.
The annoying thing is that there are about 100-150 policemen hemming them in as if there’s about to be some explosion of violence – I can see the need for maybe 20 cops but the rest are just annoying me and the crowd – why are they there?

Anyone who travels by plane very much will list Singapore’s Changi airport as one of their favourite places to transit. The airport is spacious, there are many interesting stores and plenty of space to relax – in short it’s everything Heathrow is not. I travelled through Changi on the way to Australia about 2 weeks ago and it once again impressed me at every turn.
Which is why I was somewhat concerned that the return journey moved me into the brand new terminal 3 building – Terminal 3 opened the same day I landed there and I saw infinite potential for Singapore to mess with the only place a traveller has some peace these days.
I was very wrong – Terminal 3 is wonderful – much more modern than terminal 2 and with every store you could want yet no rush to buy. Plenty of decent food and drink spots and a gorgeous Koi pond (yes Terminal 2 does as well but I prefer the new one) for meditation or just hanging.
If you have any choices, choose to fly through this place – its’ wonderful. Heathrow and JFK just appear even worse now by comparison.