Turkish Delight.......

Where it was that......Luton witnessed my trousers falling down, this time I was taking no chances…… Gatwick would not witness my lingerie….. I was keeping my belt on until I reached the security barrier at departures….

This time on the bus from parking to airport, I kept my trousers on….

Where ya off to mate ? enquired the friendly bus driver…no doubt relieved to see my britches were not falling down….

Istanbul ….

For a holiday ?

No, business ….

Oh that must be interesting….

I said nothing…. My only thought was…..

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Istanbul in the film  Skyfall………. now that really was a fooking interesting business trip to Istanbul….

Alas I am no James Bond..... and I am sure as hell not Daniel Craig either…..

But I suppose that going to work in Istanbul as opposed to say Guildford for a meeting can be seen as interesting to some …..

Once again I missed Guildford although I did fly over it…..

 .....not sure if that counts…..

 But on my arrival in Istanbul, I was greeted with a familiar arrivals hall......

 

I did think that one airport looks like another… I wonder if every time they build a new airport anywhere in the world……. they google the word ….. airport …….and look at the image index……. See this and think……

 Ta dah !...... this is what we will make the airport look like…..

But on leaving the metro train system on the journey from the airport and seeing the hustle and bustle...... it was a very appealing entry into Istanbul life…
I can recommend the public transport... I could have taken a taxi..... but that seemed far too insular.....

What I was not expecting when I looked out the window of the honeymoon suite on the 12^th floor of the Hilton Hotel, was a typical English scene…… snow !

In fact this winter we have had no snow in the outer reaches of Suffolk, and yet within a day of getting to Istanbul, I wake up to bluddy snow…..

 Whilst I wasn’t expecting snow in Istanbul......I was aligned to the risk of delhi belly, although this form of montezuma's revenge should really be the Turkey trots, and when I went to the pisser it seems they shared my concern…… that’s an awful lot of bog roll to get through in one shitting sitting .…. But this is Istanbul…..

 

Then I looked down at the bog…. And thought Christ what the hell is that pipe sticking out of the back of the bowl...….. I’m not risking sitting down and that thing firing up me arse……. The only answer was to dose up on as much Imodium as is packed..... and wait till I get home….

But all in all it has been a very pleasant first trip to Istanbul, my hosts were wonderful with their hospitality and I suppose there are some boring places I could have to go to work to instead…… Istanbul is not one of them....

.......interesting though... in that I was writing the other day about internet scamming…… and here I am at work in Istanbul investigating an internet scam……. involving of all things Microsoft Computers….. and only in the last week or so there was the Microsoft IT [as it was claimed] Tech Support trying to scam me….. in an internet scam.....

All in  a days work I suppose……….

And a great excuse to play a [some] track[s] from a sublime band…… having had the joy of seeing them live in Dublin…. They are just as brilliant recorded….. and what more track can there be but……

Hotel ……..

And...... 
as they are so wonderful here is a couple of bonus tracks…… 
One of my all time faves is Jesus is a Rochdale girl….. 
but instead this is equally endearing…….
a song about missing someone....

miss them during the day....
 because the night will always win...

And for the last track...... I nearly chose Starlings recorded with the BBC Concert orchestra, and it is an amazing song [in my head it is amazing] but this particular rendition….. it seems a touch over engineered..... which then slightly kills the beauty of the song….. the orchestra seem to want to be the focus of attention and have too many smug grins on their faces…… knobs....... the song is not about them…. it’s about the song….

So instead I chose this one for the last track, a previous SoD…. Now this song is engineered to pure perfection…. This is a youtube song, that you can watch a 1,000 times and a 1,000 times you will see something different, but what will always remain the same...... is the perfection of it…. 

At the end…. 

Guy Garvey looks across ….. a wry grin…… 

he get’s it like I get it……