Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Will Obama let America be disliked?

Sorry, wrong page. Particle image velocimetry is also wrong too. As is the bit that might say Brunel or Brunch.

So the Mantaster notes (I travelled coach, which is this case is not American for Economy, so found myself with a long time to fill, hence the notes):
- Sequin Scrunchie. I'm not sure adding more words can better express the concept. I was stuck waiting for the coach to get round to picking us up (but I ran, I took the Tube in the rush hour with luggage to avoid being late [the buses having just not come] and this is how you repay me?). It caught my attention. Along with some hair.
- More beards than a folk festival including two bigger than the heads bearing them. Again not much explanation needed.
- V. tempted to mist up the window and write "Let the train take the strain". Not sure the rest of the M1 would appreciate it though.
- When your live's in a mess. Never could remember which was life and which live. Did get to use it later.
- Plan: Bus-Walk-Coach-Bus. Actual: Wait-Run-Tube-Wait-Coach-Walk. Now even less of a fan of buses than I used to be.
- When did curvy lorries happen? I think they're M&S's. It's odd how simple, reasonable changes can seem so, well, odd. Though I still find it weird that they're no longer called artics because they nearly all are articulated.
- Golly, lorries go slowly, by which I mean they take a hell of a long time to sidle past on the inside.
- Is the toilet sign negative or positive? Lit when available? Or does red mean it's in use? [It turns out that despite displaying the male and female symbols for a loo when lit this means that it is not currently available. So red is the coded indicator. Heaven help the colourblind].
- Where the hell is Gulliver's Land? Though it is illustrated with a drawing of a Houyhnhnm, albeit impaled on a pole.
- [I think we can skip the lorry driver beard scoring section. Equus.pl seem to be winning].
- Star's Horror in Bookshop. Headline across the aisle. Suspect correct response is not does not begin "Ooh, is it the new...".
- Toilet is colour not symbol.
- Pentagon building corrugated, j N of M1 Welcome Break with glazed footbridge (S of Northampton Serv). It seemed interesting at the time; wasn't much else to do.
- Trains don't have seat belts. Maybe they ought to but I'm used to sitting side-saddle due to the whole legs thing. That and it's eroding my neck.
- Food & Drink roundel in Winnatrice Station not a clock not matter how hard you squint. I was running through it late and wanted to how.
- Pimped aisle. It had many blue LEDs.
- Autumn's gothy curse. Although gothy could also by grotty. Or apathy. Write like a prescription (ay-oh way-oh).
- Jacket made out of bar towels; useful in the rain. Across the aisle from me. National-Expressers have different sensibilities.
- Temporary speed restrictions on M6 toll. Kinda defeats the point of having a road how they all used to be. How depressing that I can remember the other.
- Muslim woman swathed in scarves, looks like a nun.
- iPhone in front: "starbucks price", "calories costa", "vegetarian falafel". I stopped reading over her shoulder at this point. She had an underfed bone structure (think retroussé cheekbones on a platter of "in the morning I'll be sober") and copy of a Twilight sequel.
- About as confrontational as his images. Of a Flickrite. I'll let you choose which one. But if you draw a 3x3 grid and colour most of the squares in blue and the middle square of the bottom row in pink (Flickr colours) you'll be somewhere near the right answer.
- Offensive (on the, occasionally verging on the outright). Ditto.
- So much Freudian analysis one wonders if he's related.
[And because I was doing stuff and not quite so bored the notes skip to the return]
- GBH Newsagents. Down the road from He Who Queues.
- Mere Monstrosities. The houses of.
- Anyhoo is in historic Canutesford with a Japanese woman of uncertain age nodding on his shoulder. [Guess who doesn't see the point in paying to tell people via Twitter or Facebook how bored I am IRT]
- Anyhoo is in historic Canutesford counting the grey hairs of the guy in the seat in front (5).
- Anyhoo is on a coach lost in historic Canutesford.
- Anyhoo has found Cranford (in historic Canutesford).
- Why is a weekend away odd? Ooh, 200 miles. I was bemused by the bewilderment that repeatedly greeted the idea than one could travel from Loldom to one of the Loldoms of the North for a single event.
- Anyhoo is on a coach with a [illegible] coach driver who can't read road signs
- [Anyhoo needs to improve his handwriting.]
- Anyhoo has Japanese woman again.
- HWQ: sun trousers comment. I think I'd best leave HWQ to explain this one.
- Anyhoo can see the Red Sea (of lights).
- St George's cross badge on lapel of hideously white second-leg driver - National Express customers = ? [Am I wrong in my assumptions? It's just patriotism does seem very American]
- Anyhoo is, after one-hour-and-twenty-minutes of travel, on a road heading towards Batten Park and Mantaster.
- Decorative Garden Centre (?)
- Anyhoo is travelling back in the right direction (finally covering the roundabout [something] like the sign for one [it was dark by this stage, hence the wonky writing]).
- Not a Christian ([something that looks a bit like 'or'] another ['interest' or 'anti[something'}... Oh, figured it out now. It's meant to read "Not a Christian (on another continent '...or European')". The terms in this context being synonymous (equally euphemistic).
- Takes one to know one. Thus spake the ex-teacher.
- Anyhoo voyeurs. Except that sounds like polished metal brushing past concrete, so clearly I could never have written it.
- LDA (Long Distance Awkwardness. Coined through an inappropriate use of LOL, but strangely fitting of about a third of the interactions with HWQ).
- As Chamberlain said to Hitler. Nicked from a book of Victoria Wood sketches (I was waiting post-party for others to emerge and I'd already done the washing up). the line before it was something like "Look, we're both reasonably intelligent adults, we should be able to solve this".
- Mobiles as torches. The Imperial War Museum of the North, or whatever it's called, turns the lights off repeatedly while they show some son-et-lumière, thus meaning all the blurb on the walls, which actually be more informative than the rumbling vox-pops from above, is legible only by the light of a cameraphone set to shoot negative images. Just think how much quicker some bits of the Crystal Maze would have been if they'd had a phone.
- IDing film of 5-greys (not sure yet). 20s hats [something that looks like 'melon claiming']. Looks French, no subtitles, .
- Needed to flirt with pilot more (at all) to get non-coach means of getting home.
- Teh Building. Having seen assorted building site hoardings with varying degrees of techspeak, txtspk and yootspeek I just wondered how long it will be before there is a building somewhere which includes 'Teh' in its name. Or possibly "O HAI!" on the front doors.
- Lowery light, lowering light. Much the same thing. Damp layered greys with the odd block of red. Mantaster gets it way before Loldom.
- NX hand-drier would.
- The second driver turned the coach into the school bus, via the medium of radio playing unheard-of seventies pop. Possibly bus drivers are the only people in the country to still use AM.
- Streets paved with gold [outside the probation office]. Photographic evidence to Flickr sometime in 2010 probably.
- I [heart] MCR. Official slogan.
- I [heart] MAN. More likely to sell, possibly more likely to be understood.
- I [heart] MEN. Best arena name ever.
- Turned to God because no one else would have them [more previous encounters than any current example].
- Warnings [I can't read this bit].
- Few things cannot be improved by sultanas, although this does move anything un-cake-like in to the category of curry.

And that's it for the notes. All that's missing is the art, the art of cakes, the art of war, the art of hammockery and the traditional Mosh Slide Saturday night entertainment of breaking into a car (declining the neighbour's knowledgeable offers of help. All one needs is a wire coat hanger, a curtain pole and some paper plates).

Oh and watching District 9 (good, though pre-LOTR murder while listening to the Archers work shows). And Die Hard 4.0 with an earnest warning for viewers of a sensitive disposition (I was good and squelched the scathing sarcasm).

And HWQ still hasn't sent me the carrot cake recipe. Or the muffins one.

Anyway, need to go now as much, much later and I'm late for a late lunch.

Anyhoo,