I spent most of the interminable flight to Britain composing a letter to Amnesty International asking if there was anything they could do about the barbarity of long-distance airline travel, and in particular if they could arouse international sympathy for myself and all my fellow passengers who were being tortured hour after hour in seats with so little legroom. And sometimes, I added in capital letters, THEY TURN THE OXYGEN LEVEL SO LOW I THINK WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!  The final crunch came when we were making our approach into London. I should have been looking out of the window absorbing the sights of my hometown. But I couldn’t because I was locked in an argument with a steward and stewardess about why I hadn’t got the Full English Breakfast.
"Where is my Full Monty?"
The stewardess looked at me and then crouched down so quick I thought maybe we’d hit some turbulence. She put her heavily made-up face close to mine, gave me that special tight smile only air hostesses can do and hissed, "You take your clothes off and so help me God I’ll have you arrested," and then she straightened up and smiled in that oh so special way and said, "Now sir, we can offer you a frittata."
"I don’t drink alcohol this time in the morning."
"Well," said the steward as he flung out hard bread rolls fast as bullets, "there are no more English Breakfasts. Okay?"
"But it’s on the menu you handed out when we took off a week ago."
"But you’re sitting in row 42."
"So?"
"So, you’re in the middle and we start at the front," (he swept his arms here like he was showing me the exit door. I swear that if you met them on the street and asked for directions they would move their arms in this slow sweep as they directed you to take the nearest exit over there), "and we start at the back, and by the time we get to where you’re sitting there are no more Full English Breakfasts. Sir."
"So, they pay more to sit at the back, do they?"
"No, but like I say-"
"But I want my Full Monty and I want it now!"
"Well you can’t have one."
And then we glided in and touched down with the most perfect landing I’ve ever experienced. The bloke next to me leaned over, smiled like Jack Nicholson and said, "Looks like the guy up front got his bacon and eggs."
Down on the ground it all seemed disturbingly familiar. Five years away and nothing had changed. Surely it should have done? Shabby Heathrow transit corridors, a copper shouting at me to turn my mobile phone off, the customs officer bored and tired, just waving me through, and the cold early morning air making me cough. It had been five years since I’d breathed this air shared by 11 million other Londoners. A polite little cough seemed the least I could do to trumpet my arrival.
When you get out in the London streets you realise just how hectic the pace of life can be. Of course it’s partly down to the number of people. In London and its suburbs you’re mixing it with all those hustling, bustling, shouldering, barging people. It’s not like Sydney where you’ll often bump into a familiar friendly face down on George or Pitt Street. In London there are so many people you are well and truly alone.
And of course things had changed. It was just that the changes weren’t that obvious at first.
Now there’s a two pound coin, Channel Five, a Labour Government, interactive TV, whatever that is, and tens of thousands of European and Middle Eastern refugees. And then there’s an oh-so-slow 40 mph speed limit on the flyover going into London at the end of the M4. When I was 21 and sharing a place with Deak, The Prince of Darkness, I used to whiz along here as fast as I could, all flash in my road-test cars, hugging the bend as I zipped past the swish new computer company buildings. Today there are no more computer company buildings. In fast-moving, ever-changing London they’ve all gone bust or been absorbed, or replaced by swish new global pharmaceutical conglomerates whose brand names are so long you can’t read them comfortably, even at 40 mph.
As I was meandering along I had plenty of time to wonder what the new-found British preoccupation with speed - or rather lack of speed - was all about.  
In the UK there are now at least twice as many speed cameras as in any other country in Europe. There’s actually a good reason for this mushrooming of the inquisitive lens and it’s not what you think - it’s got hardly anything to do with the stated UK government intention to keep speed down in order to cut accidents. (This is a stupid fallacy in any case. Figures released by the UK’s Department of Transport revealed that in fact only 4.5 per cent of crashes are due to excess speed). When I was last living in Blighty five years before there had been enough speed cameras to record every journey, even those taken by pedal bike, but now the cameras are so numerous and so technically advanced they can tell you the name on the bike’s frame and even the make of bicycle clips you’re wearing.
Now, if speed isn’t actually to blame for the bulk of accidents, why so many cameras? The answer’s depressingly simple really, it’s because the police forces who erect them get to keep the money from any fines they are able to grab from the offending and photographed motorist. Mind you, there are still some laughs to be had out of all of this. Police in Kent sent a speeding motorist a photo of his good self breaking the speed limit along with a demand for payment of the fine. He being a bit of a joker sent them a photograph of his own - of a bundle of money. Not to be outdone, the coppers sent a picture of a pair of handcuffs. The speedster got the hint and paid up.
That aside there is little to laugh about. All the time you feel you’re being watched, which of course you are. There are some good reasons for this - namely pick-pocketing and muggings. You always had to be careful in old London town, even in Roman times I reckon it was a bit risky, but now you need SAS training to spot all of the dodgy geezers and ensure you avoid having your wallet lifted or mobile phone snatched.
If you’re a mugger in London, the best trick, apparently, is to grab someone’s mobile phone and then sell it on quick as you can. This means young working professionals are being targeted by the muggers, rather than the old or vulnerable, though presumably they’ll still get a tap too if the mugger thinks it’s worthwhile. So, you’re working for some big corporate, and this is London so you’re smartly dressed, which sort of alerts the mugger, and you come out of the Underground, phone glued to your ear, nattering to a mate or colleague and they pounce, hitting you to the ground, nicking the phone and running. Newspaper articles regularly detail this crime and there was even one paper with a regular table that told you where that week’s mugging hotspots were. I think you can even phone a special number and get the latest info - well, you can if you’ve still got your phone. They’ll also tell you how to find out what your mobile’s serial number is. Apparently without this you can’t actually get the phone cancelled and the muggers know this and phone away at your expense and to their heart’s content.
While I was in London someone told me how she’d just that day seen a man beaten on the Wandsworth Road. This is the busy main road linking Vauxhall with the trendy suburbs of Wandsworth, Battersea and Clapham. Just a stone’s throw from the multi-billion pound MI5 building, as it happens. Early on this particular evening, before it had even got dark, three kids attacked an Asian man, punching him, battering him to the ground. When a bus stopped they ran off but not before they’d stolen the bloke’s wallet and turned him into a hospital case. Someone else told me how a couple of months ago she’d been waiting in the bus queue with another woman and an old man. A youth walked up, stuck a hand calm as you please into the old man’s jacket and came out with his wallet and ran off. It only took a few seconds. The old man couldn’t believe it. "I’m being robbed!" he shouted, as much in disbelief as in concern for his lost belongings. But at least the mugger didn’t shoot him...
And this is the thing. I’d wondered why almost all of the police officers I saw were wearing black flak jackets over their white summer shirts, especially in the sticky summer heat. Well, in today’s London if they’re to stand an evens chance of reaching the end of a shift without being wounded - or worse - they have to wear the bulky protection simply because this largely unarmed police force is constantly having to face guns on the streets, guns in the clubs, even guns in the schools. It used to be a pair or Nikes or the latest Adidas trainers that sparked fights in the playground. Now it’s about who’s got the smoothest, most powerful gun. It’s about controlling your patch, and never mind that some of these gun toters are only 13 and 14. Kids in London know that you can certainly get rich quick - you just need the inclination and the right tools for the job. First off you have to go and get a gun, then point that gun at someone and take their drugs off them. That’s cheaper and less risky than trying to import the hard stuff into the country yourself.
Just before I arrived there was a US-style drive-by-shooting outside a city nightclub. What bothered the police was not so much that someone could drive by and start indiscriminately shooting, though clearly that was a worry in itself, rather it was that some of the club-goers who were leaving at the time took out their own guns and started firing back.