Who wants to see my penis?

Sorry for the rather rude headline. I don't want to be too saucy as family members read this blog and I am not one for smut. There is too much rudeness in today's modern society. Anyway, the headline will make sense and is, in fact, quite apt...

I am still working on a 'proper entry' (!) which I hope to post up over the weekend. Until then I thought I'd let you know the top ten searches on how people find this blog. The majority of people come in because they know Emma and I, and this they want to know our toptastic news. Some, though, come in via search engines and that jazz. Here are the top 10 search terms put into google over the last few months that have lead people to this blog...

1. marc ollington penis
2. marc ollington blog
3. Robbie Williams
4. diddydelicious
5. conor oberst
6. marc ollington
7. marc ollington blogspot
8. jon ollington
9. jon ollington nude
10. Carter USM

As you will see someone has been looking to see my penis! Who? Is it the same person? Is it multiple people? Do they want to see it, or do they think I'm a penis? People also want to see my brother naked but that is understandable as he is a good looking lad. I am starting to worry about the internet though. It's a little bit weird and strange.

What gets me readers is that 'marc ollington penis' is number one in the charts. I could cope with this being in the lower reaches of the top 10 but this is just disturbing.

I thought that it could be someone who doesn't like me and who is after revenge. Perhaps they want to find rude pics of me to use as bribes or to destroy my career. That is what happens to dudes like me who are in showbiz.

Anyways, I'll be back soon with my penis certainly not on display. And if it was you who 'searched' for this term please feel free to leave a comment to explain what in fact you were looking for.

marc x

The Barry Conor Chronicles

I have been working on a blog that is all about my dear friends, Mr and Mrs Spoons and their visit here to LA. We had a top week with them and I would love to tell you cats all about it. I haven’t had a chance to finish it though. It’s the same old story and excuses from me but you need to spend time on these things. It will be worth waiting for I’m sure.

Anyroad (as northerners still say I’m sure) I thought I’d tell you about my day yesterday. I got up to find that I had a cold. I don’t get ill readers. Well, I do every now and then but not as much as most people. I think I have seen the Doctor about once in ten years, and I have probably had about two sick days off work in my life (it may be a bit more than this, but you get the vibe). I have no allergies to speak of, the migraines I suffered from in my twenties seem to have gone (touch wood) and I see myself as a healthy boy. I was not pleased to wake up with a cold therefore. When I do get ill though it’s always the rubbish kind of illness where you feel rough but you are still able to go to work.

The day was therefore off to a bad start because I had this cold. I then had a rubbish, rubbish day at work. Without going into details it was a ruddy stressful day. I very rarely get stressed but yesterday was an exception. My cold made it all the worse and I was not a happy boy.

I was therefore looking forward to seeing one of my favourite pop artistes play that evening namely ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes. In reality ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes is some dude called Coner Oberst (for those of you cats who don’t know). He is an American singer songwriter who has released lots of albums and I reckon they are all ace. He is one of the best lyric writers of all time too. He has also had the sex with Winona Ryder but I think they have split up now.

To make things a bit confusing Conor Oberst has stopped calling himself ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes for his new album .He now calls himself by his actual name ‘Conor Oberst’. Which to be honest would have made a lot of sense for him to do in the first place. He only performs songs though by Conor Oberst on this tour (along with his new backing band) and doesn’t do any Bright Eyes songs. I read this in the music mags and was still keen to go anyway as I like the new album very much.

The gig was at the Henry Fonda Theatre which is ace, and it’s a little bit like the Shepherds Bush Empire in London, apart from the fact that it’s smaller and has better sight lines. I am getting ahead of myself though. I got cross when we actually got to the venue as it was twenty dollars to park. I am turning into a proper grumpy old man as I was disgusted with this price. We said no to the charge and turned the car around. We found on street parking nearby that was free. This was one in the eye to the rip off car park merchants.

All I wanted to do was get into the venue to see Barry Bright Eyes. So after a quick bite to eat Emma and I arrived at the venue at 8:30. I hoped that with a bit of luck we had avoided the first support band and that Barry would be on soon. How wrong was I? The first ‘band’ (and I use that word loosely) were on at ruddy nine pm. And they were Barry’s bassists other band. You can tell that they got the tour as a favour as it was a terrible racket. The singer was flatter than Flat Stanley. It was thirty five minutes of the most terrible indie dirge I have ever heard in my life.

Emma and I were sat in the balcony. We could have stood downstairs with the kids, but I am a man in my thirties now. I like to sit at gigs these days and listen to the music properly. I don’t feel the need to dance. In fact once you reach thirty you should never dance again if you are a man. It’s ok for women, as they can dance and move in time. In fact women never get bad at dancing. Men should deffo stop at thirty though. I should point out that they had lovely comfy chairs at the Henry Fonda Theater.

Anyways I digress. It was a good job we were sat down as after this rubbish band came another act just as terrible. Actually they weren’t, but they still were not great. They were this female three piece who had a couple of ok songs but nothing more. None of them were that good looking either. Without being a sexist you can sometimes enjoy a band with girls in it even if they are rubbish, if they are good looking. This was no Girls Aloud. Unless you are a fan of the albino one (Nicola?).

I am off the point again! Damn. I should quickly point out though that two small beers came to fourteen dollars. That is worse than London. Going by the current exchange rate that is over four pounds for a beer. This is a shocking state of affairs. It’s a good job I was ill and didn’t want to drink anymore.

By the time all the awful supports had finished Barry didn’t wander on stage until 11pm. Doesn’t he realize some of us have jobs to go to? I know he is a pop star but I have TV programs to promote! He should have a bit more thought for people like me, Doctors and firemen who have valuable jobs in society. I let him off though as he played a brilliant set of all the songs from the album. The hour passed by very quickly and apart from some idiots talking behind me it was wonderful in every way. There is nothing worse than people who get in free to a gig, then talk through it and ruin it for people that pay. That is the way of the guestlist though.

We then went downstairs to watch the encore. I thought he would play a top song from the album called ‘I Don’t Want To Die In The Hospital’. It’s a bit crazy and a great set closer. Barry had other ideas though. He let his band (who had already done some pretty mediocre songs of their own) do a few numbers. These were pretty rubbish. A whole forty minutes later they were still going on with their muso twiddlings. Emma wanted to leave but I was desperate to hear my favourite song. Eventually they did it and at almost 1am, and after two hours of hearing Barry and co., I could leave happy. The venue was half empty at this point as while everyone loved Barry people weren’t so keen on members of his band farting around.

It was certainly a gig of two parts. The first half was excellent, but the second half was a bit rubbish. And Emma was tired and Barry should have realized this. It ended on a high note though so I went home happy. Barry was great in the main and the venue was too. It may be one in the morning, I may have a cold, I may have had a rubbish day at work, I may have almost been ripped of for parking, I may have sat through two bands that were crap and I may have paid fourteen dollars for two beers. This didn’t matter though as you need geniuses like Barry Bright Eyes to bring a bit of maverick sparkle into your life. I think he did that.

Emma and I drove home and sang along to some tunes on my ipod compilation to keep awake and fresh. It was fun. It was a nice end to a funny old day.

Marc x

A Segway Into Politics...

It feels like ages since I sat down to write an entry for you all. Emma has been keeping this blog burning and to be honest she has done a better job than me. The hits are up which just goes to show that she was the best writer all along. It’s my blog though and I’m in charge. I have therefore decided to make a comeback whether you cats like it or not. I am not here to pander to you people. Or indeed to be a Panda, as I am not a fan of bamboo.

Since I wrote to you last a few ‘amusing’ incidents have occurred to little old me. The first happened when young Felicity Furness was staying with Emma and I. We had gone out for a bite to eat one evening (at our favourite diner called ‘Swingers’). We had a jolly nice time and I ordered my normal turkey roast dinner. During the meal I felt that I was getting something of a stomach ache though. I don’t think it was the food, but perhaps a virus picked up from Emma (as she had recently had a stomach thing). By the time we left I was in agony. This meant that on the walk home I was meandering behind the Furness sisters. I was also looking a bit weird I guess as I was kind of hunched over, holding my stomach as I was walking along.

Before I knew what was going on a cop car pulled up next to us. The policeman asked Emma and Felicity if they were ok while he gave me the Barry Evils. It was then I realized that he thought I was some weirdo or rapist that was following them. If I hadn’t of been in so much pain I would have given that doughnut eating cop a piece of my mind. It’s probably a good job that I didn’t as the policeman have guns over here. He could have shot me in the head if I had given him too much lip. I think they are just allowed to do that as they are always killing people in ‘Without A Trace’. They are FBI though which is different than your normal cop. Anyways Emma and Felicity found this dead funny, even though I was in mucho pain. As a positive aside I was ok the next day.

I also went on a tour with Mr. Furness. This wasn’t any old tour readers. The father in law and I went traveling on some segways for a couple of hours. For those of you who don’t know what these are please look above at the photo. Mrs. Furness has a picture of me on one that I will try and obtain. I will then put this on the right hand side of this site with the other random pics that are already there.

I am getting off the point! I bet you want to know how Mr. Furness and I ended up on these babies? Don’t worry, I shall tell you. The ladies wanted to go shopping, as they normally tend to do, and it was then that Mr. Furness put the idea to me we could try hiring some of these segway things. We had seen quite a few dudes both here and in San Fran driving them around and they looked like great fun. We went to the Segway place to enquire if it was possible. We were told that we could join a group outing with some other dudes and that he would take us on a beach tour of Santa Monica.

This sounded like too good an opportunity to turn down and before we knew it we were in training! We had to watch a safety video and everything. It is actually harder than you think as you don’t move them by pushing or steering, it’s all to do with how you lean. If you lean to the left then you will turn to the left for example. In our training Mr. Furness did the best, and he was better than me and the rest of the group. I did get the hang of it though and before I knew it we were out and about, and touring the beach.

Even though we were only doing this for fun we got some abuse from the public. They were shouting things at us like “Geeks”, and “Get some exercise”. This was a bit rich as the man who shouted this was in a car. We cared not one jot though as it was great fun. My best moment came when our instructor made us go down a steep hill. I think I did it the best and it was dead exciting. I wasn’t so good getting up the hill as apparently I stuck my bum out too much. Anyway, we enjoyed the Segways very much. It was a top afternoon and a much better way to spend it than shopping.

It’s also gone a bit election bonkers here too as we get closer to November 4th. Most people in LA are wooly liberals, so they are still wetting themselves over this Obama dude. I get the impression they think he is better than Jesus. I’m not so sure he is as I have not seen Obama or his running mate Bin Laden (I think he is called) make bread and fishes for the masses.

Don’t get me wrong, I would vote for Obama (and Bin Laden) too but all I would say is that he is still a politician type. He will no doubt be as disappointing as the rest. He might be all smiles and niceness now but the power will go to his head, and before you know it he’ll be bombing some country for a laugh while getting sexual favors from an intern. Back in 1997 I thought Tony Blair was the business. When he first got into power the young, innocent and politically naïve Marc was dancing in the streets. I could have been David Bowie or Mick Jagger circa 1985. A few years later though dear Tony was bombing Iraq like some power crazed bufoon. If only I knew that as I sang along with gusto to ‘D:Ream’s’ ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ on that glorious summer morning in the late nineties.

These days the love and passion I had for politics as a student has all but died. I still like to know what’s going on in the world, and all that jazz. And I will still read tomes like ‘The Alistair Campbell Diaries’ with interest. I have no real affiliation with anyone anymore though. I do, of course, have an opinion, and I will always take the time and effort to vote (you should always vote kids. I’m not sure why these days, but that’s what I keep telling myself). Anyways back to the point… Do I believe Obama is better than John McCain? Of course I ruddy well do, and to have a black president would be a huge step forward. Is he as great as everyone is making out? I doubt it very much sadly. Hopefully time will prove me wrong. I am not always right, as hard as it is to believe. I thought Keane were rubbish at first until I realized they write quite magnificent pop songs.

I can’t wait to watch the results and everything come in though. I think it will be an amazing couple of days and I am very grateful to be living in the States during this time. It will almost be as good as last weeks ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. I am glad Jessie Wallace and Kathy Beale have been voted out, as I hate all the common scrubber women from Eastenders. I am still able to tune into this show via downloads off the interweb, and it’s good as ever this year. If I was Rachel Steven’s fiancé I would punch out Vincent Simone. He is all over her, and he kisses her whenever he can. I know he was publicly dumped last season when his girlfriend went off with that dude from Eastenders but that is no excuse. I did like it though when asked to talk about her nerves he said “She was shaking like a leaflet”. Genius! I think my favorite this year is Cherie Lunghi. She is very nice for an ‘older’ lady and I enjoy her dancing too.

I would like either Diane Vickers or the Spanish Lady to win X-Factor this year. I am liking Cheryl Cole as a judge. She is actually very good and makes Danni Minogue seem the most pointless person that has ever walked this earth. Her husband Ashley Cole is still a greedy twerp though.

I shall sign off now. I had started to write about the visit of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Spoons but I should save that for next time, and I should give them their own entry. That is something else to look forward too I hope.

Marc x

Wham Bam, Thank You San Fran. Part 4 in a series of 4. Thankfully.

I’m back! Yes I thought I’d finish off our San Fran tales before passing the ‘blog’ baton back to Marc. It’s taken a long time to get to this stage so thanks for sticking with us!

Sunday morning came and I awoke tummy ache free – well it seemed to have gone and I could actually walk around so it was a step in the right direction. The question then is what were our plans today to be? We decided to kickstart the action with a trip down memory lane, for us Furnesses anyway. I have thus far neglected to tell you that I have been to San Francisco once before, back on a family holiday about 15 years or so ago. It was during this vacation that we experienced the best breakfast buffet ever. As a family we have often reminisced about this breakfast and we’ve spoken about it so much that even Marc knew of it and the esteem it was held in within the Furness clan. Could it live up to its memory? Whilst the rest of us were reticent to risk tarnishing our memories, Mum wanted to put it to the test so off we went to the famed “The Palace Sunday Jazz Brunch”. The buffet is served in this huge glass atrium garden room which actually featured in the movie “the Game” where Michael Douglas crashes through it at the end – I don’t think he did actually fall through this as it would have cost millions to replace so I think there was some camera trickery involved there.

We were shown to our table and Marc’s eyes widened with wonder. As we sipped on our champagne (limitless I hasten to add) we took in the array of food on offer. It was incredible and I’d go so far as to say it was even better than we’d remembered. We’d only ever experienced their breakfast buffet before but as this was Brunch it was so much more. My favourite thing was the tiny, melt in the mouth pancakes with maple syrup. This was closely followed by the perfectly cooked poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon, or perhaps it was the miniature pastries? Oh and this was only the breakfast offerings. There was still a carvery, a cheese table, a seafood bar, a crepe station, sushi, dim sum and to finish off an amazing dessert table to sample. We all tried to pace ourselves and sample as much as we could humanly manage. At least we knew we wouldn’t need to eat again for a week.

We managed to roll ourselves out of there after a few hours and decided to take a ride on one of the famous trams down to Pier 33. Or is it Pier 31. I can’t remember. Anyways, we hopped aboard a tram and whilst my Mum and I took the seat option, Dad, Felicity and Marc decided to live dangerously and hang off the side. It was a lovely way to travel across the city and I much prefer that to London’s smelly tube. Bring back the trams to London. I might start a campaign. We decided to take a stroll through the park and head towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Marc was very keen to walk across the bridge, whereas the rest of us were happy to admire it from afar. Luckily after walking for a couple of hours (we all needed it to burn off our massive brunch) we soon realized the bridge hadn’t got much closer and it’d take us a good 5 hours to actually reach it so that plan was thwarted. We persuaded Marc that we’d go to the Science museum instead, and that seemed to appease him. The museum was ace. We were able to create our own tornado, make giant bubbles and look in to a mirror that showed you what you actually looked like, not a mirror reflection. That one was really freaky. You go through your whole life thinking you know what you look like and then you’re suddenly shown what other people see. It was really disturbing as you look really different. Sounds odd but it’s true.

After this we were all quite exhausted from all the walking and the museum so we decided we’d catch the tram back up to Union Square and freshen up before heading out for dinner. We reached the tram stop to discover an almighty queue and no trams. It seemed the tram network had broken down. We were all a little bit grumpy and grouchy by now and didn’t face walking all the way back to the hotel and so we tried to find a couple of taxi’s. A guy saw us trying to hail a cab and said he could take us all back to our hotel and quoted us a price. It seemed fair to us so we agreed and the next thing we knew he was opening up the door to a stretch limo for us to get inside! Obviously he could see we were used to the finer things in life, so off we went through the streets of San Fran in our limousine. However it wasn’t quite the relaxing drive we imagined it would be as he drove like a maniac and obviously thought he was driving a bumper car. By luck more than skill, we arrived back at our hotel safely without causing any traffic accidents.
Sadly this was our last night in San Francisco. Marc, myself and Felicity were due to fly back to LA on the 6am flight the next morning. Mum and Dad were going to head further up the coast for a few days and would join us back in LA at the end of the week. Felicity was going to hang out with Marc and me in Santa Monica before returning to the UK at the weekend.

After enjoying a lovely meal in Union Square we had to have an early night as our cab was picking us up at 4.45am the next morning to take us to the airport. I kid you not. I felt like I’d only just fallen asleep when our wakeup call awoke me from my slumber. We hurriedly got ready and with Felicity Furness in tow we hopped in the cab. This driver had obviously been taught how to driver by our limo driver as despite being told by the hotel it’d take half an hour to get to the airport at this time of the morning, he did it in about 10 minutes. We were therefore pretty much the first people to check in and then had to wait half an hour for security to even open. Marc has the ability to be extremely chirpy at this hour of the morning, so he was irritatingly chatty at this ungodly hour. Luckily the flight was right on time so after boarding the plane (which still had the neon lights and club music blaring at 6am) we settled in to our seats and before we knew it we were back at LAX.

Marc and I had to head straight in to work, so after picking up the car and making a quick detour to our little house to drop off Felicity and our bags, we were back in the office and at our desks by 9.03am. Not bad for a mornings work.

This has turned in to a mightily long entry again so I hope some of you are still reading this. You will be happy to hear that normal service will resume for the next entry with Marc back in the helm. Make sure you tune in to read about Marc almost being arrested by the LA cops and Mr and Mrs Spoons visit.

Em x

P.S. Vic & Gary - obviously the Brunch in San Fran wasn’t as good as last time as you weren’t there with us!

Wham Bam, Thank You San Fran. Part 3 in a series of 4. By Emma Ollington

I thought I’d pick up where Marc left off for part three. Seeing as he has now taken two blogs to just introduce our trip to San Francisco we’d be here till Christmas otherwise. Did you know that it’s only 81 days till Christmas? We’ve decided to have Christmas lunch at our favourite restaurant, ‘Shutters on the Beach’ this year. I’m excited already. Not sure I can wait 81 days. Then we’re off to Vegas for New Years Eve – where we’re going to party like its 2009. Yippee!

Anyways, this is turning in to a Marc Ollington blog special and I’ve gone off on a tangent already. Back to our San Fran adventures. Firstly I couldn’t believe how freezing cold it was there. Stepping off the BART tube thing on  Friday night I thought I’d arrived in the North Pole. But being in the know we had come prepared for this, you have to layer it up in this city as one minute it’s boiling hot sunshine, the next its freezing cold.

We departed our hotel Campton Place bright and early Saturday morning (after enjoying the lovely bathrobes and slippers - you know you’re staying somewhere nice when you get a decent pair of hotel slippers) and headed down to the docks where we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of pastries from the farmers market. Marc also got a fruit salad as he is healthy these days.

Our first port of call was a trip to the famous Prison on an Island, namely Alcatraz. It’s a bit odd really that visiting a derelict prison is one of the top sightseeing trips in San Fran but there you go. In the queue we had the obligatory group shot in front of a fake Alcatraz picture. When collecting the photo after the trip my Mum decided to rate us all on our appearance in this photo and put Marc in last place. She didn’t think he’d tried hard enough with his smile. I won’t rub it in that she put me at the number one spot.

 After a short boat ride we were on the island and were soon heavily absorbed in our audio tour as we were directed round the prison and all its nooks and crannies. I’ve undertaken numerous audio tours since moving to LA and I’m becoming a connoisseur of them I think. I’d rate this one a strong four out of five because they actually had several convicts telling you what it was  like being a prisoner there. This was a brilliant touch. As prisons go, I think it seemed quite nice. I’m not an expert and I’m sure it was horrible to live there but the surroundings were nice. All the families of the guards who lived on the island said they had an idyllic childhood and loved living there. I’d pick it as my prison of choice I think. 

After a few hours on the island we headed back to the main land and on to our next sightseeing spot, the Coit Tower. This was after a spot of lunch in an Italian restaurant. One of the waiters was a kind of transsexual. We weren’t sure which way they had decided to go but Marc was sure that whatever way it was they had taken a shine to Dad.

I love the architecture and streets of San Fran.  A lot of people say it’s very European in its appearance. The hills are crazy, some are so steep that you practically had to crawl up them. Luckily I had Felicity Furness on hand to pull me up them. Being a young thing she is much fitter than me.

The Tower finally appeared at the end of a little residential street and discussions broke out as to whether we’d opt to use the stairs or lift to get to the top of the tower. It’s quite a tall tower so stairs would be no mean feat. Luckily it turned out that the stairs were currently broken so it was in to the tiny little lift we went, helped by a slightly mad lift attendant. Several photos later we’d all had our fill of views so we headed back down  and off for sightseeing spot number three, “the crookedest street”. At this point Marc decided to start telling us all some boring story about a tea towel he’d seen in a shop that listed all the sightseeing spots in San Fran. This street wasn’t on it so he said we shouldn’t bother as it obviously wasn’t worth seeing if it didn’t make the tea towel. Half an hour later he was still going on about this tea towel but luckily we’d reached the wonky street at this point so his argument had been lost. This street has featured in lots of films and it’s very pretty indeed. It’s on such a steep hill that they’ve had to make it bendy so that cars can travel down it safely. But really it’s now only ever used by tourists or for car chases in films.

Reading this back to myself, it sounds like our day was only just beginning but by this time the sun was setting and we were all exhausted from walking for miles and miles all over San Fran. So we went back to Union Square for a bit of shopping. We had time for a wash and brush up before going out for a lovely dinner and then we all collapsed happily in to our extremely comfy beds. Well actually I didn’t as I was suddenly struck down by a tummy ache so severe I couldn’t stand up. Not one to make a fuss I bravely took some painkillers and tried to sleep and hoped it would have gone by the morning.

Would Sunday bring an end to my stomach ache and yet more fun adventures in San Fran? Stay tuned in this exciting blog adventure, which is fun for all the family.

Emma xx

Wham Bam, thank you San Fran. Part Two in a series of about Four I reckon.

Emma and I decided to travel to San Francisco by the crazy invention that is the aeroplane. I know all you eco do-gooders will be tutting in disgust due to the carbon footprint created, but those are the facts. You can therefore carry on tutting until your organic teeth fall out. If it was possible we would have got a bus, a train or something (especially as you can get nice views via this mode of transportation). The plane meant though that we could get from San Fran to LA in an hour, rather than six hours or so, and it also meant we could return home first thing Monday morning. This would give us three whole nights, which is much better than having that rubbish feeling on Sunday morning that you know you should think about leaving in a few hours.

When you work during the week you don’t always have the luxury of saving the world when you travel, you have to squeeze things in. If it makes you feel better Emma makes us recycle everything, and most of the gubbins we buy seems to be organic or free range. We even get organic cleaning products. These are rubbish and don’t actually clean half as well as proper products with chemicals but that isn’t the point. It’s worth having a stinky house just so long as you are buying organic. That is the rules these days. I’ve got no idea how we survived in the nineties when things weren’t organic, and we weren’t paying twice the price for every item to have that word sprawled across the packaging - but there you go. Emma and I are doing our bit to save the world so I shall not feel guilty about my carbon footprint. I even planted some trees a few years ago for some charity thing. It was rubbish as I got rained on and covered in mud. That is my dedication to this planet of ours though.

Anyway I digress. We were flying with Virgin America. Virgin is my airline of choice when flying back and forth to the UK. I like their hostesses. They are a bit more common than their BA counterparts but they have a cheeky charm and they are much friendlier. They also seem to be a little bustier and saucier too. I, of course, don’t care about these type of things now I’m a married man but its worth noting for all you single men. I really don’t think they are virgins themselves! I also like the fact they do seats in rows of two. If you have to travel in smelly economy (not even a man of my standing is in upper class all the time) it means at least Emma and I get our own space. Their air miles scheme is also brilliant. Emma and I already have enough miles to travel to Australia (not that I have ever thought about going there as it’s full of Australians* - but you get my vibe).

We are also close to being silver members. Without boring you with too much detail you have to get a certain amount of points within a year before you lose some of them. We have worked out by the time we return home we will be one measly point short of silver. Being a silver member gives you untold luxuries. It isn’t as good as gold but it’s on the way. I thought flying with Virgin America would at least give us the one little point that we need. Little did I know that they class Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic as totally separate companies. I was quite cross as I still need to get this extra elusive point. Damn these crazy flying schemes. The Virgin America plane was a bit weird as it had funny blue and pink neon lighting when you entered (see pic above which is exactly how it looked). It was also playing some weird ambient type music. It’s like being in a bad dance club. I stopped clubbing years ago so I don’t expect a trip in an aeroplane to remind me that I am now a man in my thirties who is too old for that kind of caper.

The flight was only forty minutes or so in proper length. I slept the whole way whilst Emma watched an episode of ‘Entourage’ (a drama on HBO). I think she enjoyed it. I couldn’t tell as I was sleeping but that’s the vibe Emma gave me. Before we knew it the plane had landed and we were soon traveling to our hotel on this tube type thing. It was very cheap, very clean and very efficient. London Underground take note is what I say to that! We did have to go through about a million stops until we got to Union Square though. This was a bit boring as we couldn’t see any scenery as we were underground most of the time.

It was about 9pm when we got to our hotel. We were staying in a hotel called Campton Place. It was the bomb! Emma’s parents had chosen it and had treated the wife and I. It was the best treat ever. The bathroom was the size of our Santa Monica bungalow, the bed was so lovely and soft and it had a great mini bar to boot. Emma was very excited about the Molton Brown beauty products. We were also right in the heart of town. The location really could not have been better and a bit of luxury never hurt anyone.

We had a nice meal in the hotel brasserie and we caught up with the Furness Family adventures of the previous week. Mr and Mrs Furness, along with young Felicity had been travelling up the west coast. They had liked Carmel but weren’t so keen on the Big Sur. They thought it was over rated and that Cornwall was in fact nicer. For any of our future guests that plan to visit that area you should take note and perhaps go to Cornwall instead. It was soon time for sleeps. Emma and I started to watch a film but before we knew it we were having lovely dreams in the comfy bed and thinking of what adventures the weekend will bring.

I shall go now. We are finally in San Fran so you can almost smell the action and adventures.

Marc x

In the next installment: Alcatraz, some big tower and stomach cramps.

*This a joke. I love the Aussies and their bar tending skills.