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May. 14th, 2006 10:33 pmThe Portsmouth Property Association lunch on Thursday was pleasant enough. We were at a table with Caroline and Jean, two of the association bigwigs, and Stuart, who runs the property-advertising supplement in the local paper. Over a very tasty fillet steak, they all made fairly interesting conversation about office life, and the chat even swung round to football (not prompted by me!) at one stage.
From there, it was home to make a quick change out of my posh suit, then off to Southampton for the England v Hungary women's match. Inside the ground before the game I bought a hot dog, which turned out to be one of those 'rollover' ones - so there is somewhere other than ice rinks that sells them!! Quite a good game, and England won 2-0, sub Alex Scott clinching victory with a sublime injury-time header. Lianne Sanderson came on as sub and put in a very promising display - she is a star of the very near future. I was sat next to a father and daughter from Bournemouth; the daughter, Lauren, was a women's footie fanatic, so the three of us had a pretty good chat on and off throughout the evening.
Went straight to sleep as soon as I got home, as on Friday morning I had to haul my carcass from bed at 5 am to begin my journey to Switzerland! Getting on the coach at Portsmouth, the in-coach TV was showing My Family - an episode I hadn't seen before, albeit an inferior one from the era without Janey. We were also treated to episodes of The Simpsons and My Dad's The Prime Minister that I'd never seen either.
Arrived at Heathrow at 9.30 and checked in. Four hours to kill till my flight. Killed two of them sitting on a bench reading FourFourTwo, then moseyed up to the restaurant area, had a fruit salad with luscious Rachel's Organic Greek Yogurt for lunch. Went through to the departure lounge and read more FourFourTwo until boarding time.
Before take-off, a lady carrying a baby, who'd bought a standby ticket, wasn't happy that there were only middle seats of rows of three available; she much preferred either aisle or window. I offered her my window seat, saying I was happy to move into a middle one. She thanked me profusely, and the stewardess who'd been dealing with her insisted on moving me to a better, aisle seat.
A couple of times during the flight to Zurich, stewardesses came round handing out cucumber and Swiss cheese sandwiches - very tasty - and we also got a little square of Swiss chocolate each. Going through the security check at Zurich, the lady security officer said something to me in rapid-fire Swiss-German. I'd flown enough times to rightly guess she wanted me to put my phone, coins and keys in the little box... We even got a square of chocolate on the half-hour flight from Zurich to Geneva - thank you, Swiss International Airlines.
Took a taxi from Geneva airport to my hotel, which, to be honest, was a total dive. The main light in my room didn't work - when it got dark I had to just put the bedside lamp on - and in the bathroom, neither the bath nor the sink had a plug. On the bright side, though, there was BBC Prime and BBC World on my room's telly! After dinner at the pizza parlour attached to the hotel, I tuned in to BBC Prime; the first programme that came on was...SWISS Toni!!! Next was Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please, then Red Dwarf, then I fell asleep.
Saturday morning I bought a postcard at one of the petrol stations close to the hotel, waited for the nearby Post Office to open, sent the card off to Ann then took the bus into central Geneva. Wandered round looking for somewhere that sold flowers; it wasn't long before I saw some on display outside a little supermarket. Inside, there were bouquets of 7 roses, plus individual extra ones; I picked out a lovely bunch of red ones and the lady added three single ones to make the bouquet of 10 I wanted.
I dropped the flowers off at the hotel and took the bus to the Baxelert, a huge shopping complex, where I had a tasty Doner kebab for lunch and found Catherine Leander's album on sale in a record shop called FNAC. Listened to the whole thing on my personal CD player back at the hotel - it really was absolutely superb, Catherine's voice is stunning and the songs range from happy uptempo numbers to haunting ballads - all of which she sings beautifully.
Alas, neither BBC Prime nor BBC World showed the FA Cup Final and even Eurosport preferred to show some Italian cycle race, so I spent the late afternoon reading FourFourTwo's World Cup preview.
Left the hotel at 6 to make the 45-minute bus ride to Onex, the suburb of Geneva where Catherine's concert was taking place. It was raining, thankfully lightly, when I got to Onex; for the last part of the walk there I was able to take a pedestrian path through a park, sheltered from the rain by trees. I arrived at the venue at 7.10 - it was locked up and there was no-one around, although two cars were parked in the grounds. The concert was due to begin at 8. Before long a silver car pulled in and an old couple got out; seeing me there with the roses, they asked whether I was going to a wedding! Then they went off for a walk in the park. Sheltering from the rain in the covered area in front of the entrance, I waited...
At last, just after 7.30, two guys came to open the venue. They confirmed that the concert was on. I told them I'd come from England to see Catherine, having been a fan of hers since Eurovision 1996, and that she knew I was coming; they were well impressed. They told me Catherine was away eating at the moment but she'd be along soon, and invited me to sit in the (closed) bar and wait.
It was only a few minutes before she arrived. I introduced myself, and gave her the 10 red roses, explaining they were for the 10th anniversary of her Eurovision appearance. She was absolutely blown away by the flowers. She asked when I'd arrived in Switzerland, I told her yesterday; she outstretched her arms, and we held each other and kissed. I took out her new CD and asked her to sign it; she was amazed I'd already got hold of a copy and asked where I'd got it. I told her FNAC, and she signed the back of the lyric booklet. I thanked her and took out my copy of the promotional single of her 1996 Eurovision song. She was totally stunned to see one of those again after 10 years! She signed that one too, and we spent the next couple of minutes effusively thanking each other. She said she had to go and get made up for the show now and thanked me again for the roses, saying she'd put them in her dressing room. As we said goodbye, Catherine said the show wouldn't start for another hour so suggested I go out onto the main road for something to eat.
It was still raining. Out on the main road, I darted into a nearby pizza restaurant and had a pizza napoletana and a Coke - while facing the TV, which showed all the goals from the FA Cup Final, three West Ham penalty misses, and Liverpool lifting the trophy.
Arrived back at the venue with about 10 minutes to go. The (still closed) bar was now full with people waiting for the show, while a black curtain was drawn across the room, separating us from the concert area. (By the way, I was never charged a single centime to get in!) Just a couple of minutes behind schedule, the curtain was pulled back and we all filed in and sat down.
It was an intimate little venue, with about 100 of us there, about half-filling the seats. As soon as we'd all sat down the backing musicians came on stage and played a few chords, then Catherine appeared to a huge round of applause. She said 'bonsoir' to us all and ran through the songs from her new album, in the exact same order as on the CD, saying a few words to introduce some of them. My French is good enough to pick up most of what she said; one haunting ballad was a tribute to her younger brother who died in a helicopter accident. Catherine looked stunning in her stage outfit of sky-blue fairly low-cut blouse and tight white trousers, she put the songs across very well, and for me it was just incredible to experience her beautiful voice in a live performance.
After the show I, with the rest of the audience, had a free plastic cup of wine and sampled the crisps laid out on plates on the bar. Catherine, assisted by a girlfriend, was busy selling copies of her CD; she clearly had quite a few friends in the crowd, as people kept coming up to her and sharing the traditional francophone double-cheek kiss with her. At one point I saw one of her band, Stephane, helping out with the drinks; as it was he who put me in touch with Catherine (during a Google search 18 months ago I discovered she was working with Stephane; there was an e-mail address for him, so I e-mailed him and asked him to pass a message on to her, and she e-mailed me back herself), I complimented him on his performance in the show, then thanked him for putting me in touch with her and shook his hand. He told me to wait a moment, disappeared backstage, came back with a copy of his own CD and handed it to me. What a gent.
Just after 10 pm I went over to Catherine, explained that I had to go back to my hotel and asked whether she would have her photo taken with me before I went. She agreed enthusiastically, and her friend took a couple of shots of us. I thanked her for a wonderful evening, she thanked me for coming over, we talked a little more and I wished her the very best with the new CD. She had me give her a double-cheek kiss as we said goodbye. As I left we waved until we could no longer see each other.
All through the bus ride back to the hotel I relaxed in my seat, contented. Had this been worth an overdraft I'll be paying back for months? Absolutely. Worth depriving myself of away games for the foreseeable future for? Yes sirree, Bob. After 10 years I'd finally met Kathy and seen her perform live.
Checked out of the hotel at about 11.45 this morning and went to get the bus to the airport. Among the options offered on the ticket machine (in French and English) at the bus stop was 'All Geneva - free ride for 1 hour'. The French version also said 'Libre'. I pressed that button - and the machine displayed 'pay 7 francs'! They need to work on their wording. As I was 3 stops from the airport I bought a three-stop Short Trip ticket for 2 francs.
Had a salad buffet lunch at Geneva airport and bought a couple of big bars of Swiss chocolate, as one or two of the ladies at the office (untouched by the dieting craze!) asked me to bring some back. Going through the check at Zurich I forgot to take my mobile out of my pocket, triggering the alarm and leading to me getting taken into the little curtained square and frisked. More lovely cheese sandwiches and chocolate on the flight home.
I'd intended to buy a Non-League Paper at Heathrow, go to one of the eateries and chow down while reading it, but NONE of the newsagents at Heathrow had the NLP, and I spent so much time looking round for one that I just about had time to grab a bag of crisps, an apple (displayed on a '5 A Day' fruit rack, pricking my healthy-eating conscience) and a Coke from the Smith's in the bus station before going to catch the coach home.
Worse, there was no in-coach TV. Now that's just cruel. I made do with reading the latest issue of the UK Eurovision fan club journal.
Arrived in Portsmouth at 9.20. The Co-op on the Hard had the Non-League Paper. Bought 2 bacon rolls from the 24-hour snack window and chowed down on the Gosport ferry.
From there, it was home to make a quick change out of my posh suit, then off to Southampton for the England v Hungary women's match. Inside the ground before the game I bought a hot dog, which turned out to be one of those 'rollover' ones - so there is somewhere other than ice rinks that sells them!! Quite a good game, and England won 2-0, sub Alex Scott clinching victory with a sublime injury-time header. Lianne Sanderson came on as sub and put in a very promising display - she is a star of the very near future. I was sat next to a father and daughter from Bournemouth; the daughter, Lauren, was a women's footie fanatic, so the three of us had a pretty good chat on and off throughout the evening.
Went straight to sleep as soon as I got home, as on Friday morning I had to haul my carcass from bed at 5 am to begin my journey to Switzerland! Getting on the coach at Portsmouth, the in-coach TV was showing My Family - an episode I hadn't seen before, albeit an inferior one from the era without Janey. We were also treated to episodes of The Simpsons and My Dad's The Prime Minister that I'd never seen either.
Arrived at Heathrow at 9.30 and checked in. Four hours to kill till my flight. Killed two of them sitting on a bench reading FourFourTwo, then moseyed up to the restaurant area, had a fruit salad with luscious Rachel's Organic Greek Yogurt for lunch. Went through to the departure lounge and read more FourFourTwo until boarding time.
Before take-off, a lady carrying a baby, who'd bought a standby ticket, wasn't happy that there were only middle seats of rows of three available; she much preferred either aisle or window. I offered her my window seat, saying I was happy to move into a middle one. She thanked me profusely, and the stewardess who'd been dealing with her insisted on moving me to a better, aisle seat.
A couple of times during the flight to Zurich, stewardesses came round handing out cucumber and Swiss cheese sandwiches - very tasty - and we also got a little square of Swiss chocolate each. Going through the security check at Zurich, the lady security officer said something to me in rapid-fire Swiss-German. I'd flown enough times to rightly guess she wanted me to put my phone, coins and keys in the little box... We even got a square of chocolate on the half-hour flight from Zurich to Geneva - thank you, Swiss International Airlines.
Took a taxi from Geneva airport to my hotel, which, to be honest, was a total dive. The main light in my room didn't work - when it got dark I had to just put the bedside lamp on - and in the bathroom, neither the bath nor the sink had a plug. On the bright side, though, there was BBC Prime and BBC World on my room's telly! After dinner at the pizza parlour attached to the hotel, I tuned in to BBC Prime; the first programme that came on was...SWISS Toni!!! Next was Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please, then Red Dwarf, then I fell asleep.
Saturday morning I bought a postcard at one of the petrol stations close to the hotel, waited for the nearby Post Office to open, sent the card off to Ann then took the bus into central Geneva. Wandered round looking for somewhere that sold flowers; it wasn't long before I saw some on display outside a little supermarket. Inside, there were bouquets of 7 roses, plus individual extra ones; I picked out a lovely bunch of red ones and the lady added three single ones to make the bouquet of 10 I wanted.
I dropped the flowers off at the hotel and took the bus to the Baxelert, a huge shopping complex, where I had a tasty Doner kebab for lunch and found Catherine Leander's album on sale in a record shop called FNAC. Listened to the whole thing on my personal CD player back at the hotel - it really was absolutely superb, Catherine's voice is stunning and the songs range from happy uptempo numbers to haunting ballads - all of which she sings beautifully.
Alas, neither BBC Prime nor BBC World showed the FA Cup Final and even Eurosport preferred to show some Italian cycle race, so I spent the late afternoon reading FourFourTwo's World Cup preview.
Left the hotel at 6 to make the 45-minute bus ride to Onex, the suburb of Geneva where Catherine's concert was taking place. It was raining, thankfully lightly, when I got to Onex; for the last part of the walk there I was able to take a pedestrian path through a park, sheltered from the rain by trees. I arrived at the venue at 7.10 - it was locked up and there was no-one around, although two cars were parked in the grounds. The concert was due to begin at 8. Before long a silver car pulled in and an old couple got out; seeing me there with the roses, they asked whether I was going to a wedding! Then they went off for a walk in the park. Sheltering from the rain in the covered area in front of the entrance, I waited...
At last, just after 7.30, two guys came to open the venue. They confirmed that the concert was on. I told them I'd come from England to see Catherine, having been a fan of hers since Eurovision 1996, and that she knew I was coming; they were well impressed. They told me Catherine was away eating at the moment but she'd be along soon, and invited me to sit in the (closed) bar and wait.
It was only a few minutes before she arrived. I introduced myself, and gave her the 10 red roses, explaining they were for the 10th anniversary of her Eurovision appearance. She was absolutely blown away by the flowers. She asked when I'd arrived in Switzerland, I told her yesterday; she outstretched her arms, and we held each other and kissed. I took out her new CD and asked her to sign it; she was amazed I'd already got hold of a copy and asked where I'd got it. I told her FNAC, and she signed the back of the lyric booklet. I thanked her and took out my copy of the promotional single of her 1996 Eurovision song. She was totally stunned to see one of those again after 10 years! She signed that one too, and we spent the next couple of minutes effusively thanking each other. She said she had to go and get made up for the show now and thanked me again for the roses, saying she'd put them in her dressing room. As we said goodbye, Catherine said the show wouldn't start for another hour so suggested I go out onto the main road for something to eat.
It was still raining. Out on the main road, I darted into a nearby pizza restaurant and had a pizza napoletana and a Coke - while facing the TV, which showed all the goals from the FA Cup Final, three West Ham penalty misses, and Liverpool lifting the trophy.
Arrived back at the venue with about 10 minutes to go. The (still closed) bar was now full with people waiting for the show, while a black curtain was drawn across the room, separating us from the concert area. (By the way, I was never charged a single centime to get in!) Just a couple of minutes behind schedule, the curtain was pulled back and we all filed in and sat down.
It was an intimate little venue, with about 100 of us there, about half-filling the seats. As soon as we'd all sat down the backing musicians came on stage and played a few chords, then Catherine appeared to a huge round of applause. She said 'bonsoir' to us all and ran through the songs from her new album, in the exact same order as on the CD, saying a few words to introduce some of them. My French is good enough to pick up most of what she said; one haunting ballad was a tribute to her younger brother who died in a helicopter accident. Catherine looked stunning in her stage outfit of sky-blue fairly low-cut blouse and tight white trousers, she put the songs across very well, and for me it was just incredible to experience her beautiful voice in a live performance.
After the show I, with the rest of the audience, had a free plastic cup of wine and sampled the crisps laid out on plates on the bar. Catherine, assisted by a girlfriend, was busy selling copies of her CD; she clearly had quite a few friends in the crowd, as people kept coming up to her and sharing the traditional francophone double-cheek kiss with her. At one point I saw one of her band, Stephane, helping out with the drinks; as it was he who put me in touch with Catherine (during a Google search 18 months ago I discovered she was working with Stephane; there was an e-mail address for him, so I e-mailed him and asked him to pass a message on to her, and she e-mailed me back herself), I complimented him on his performance in the show, then thanked him for putting me in touch with her and shook his hand. He told me to wait a moment, disappeared backstage, came back with a copy of his own CD and handed it to me. What a gent.
Just after 10 pm I went over to Catherine, explained that I had to go back to my hotel and asked whether she would have her photo taken with me before I went. She agreed enthusiastically, and her friend took a couple of shots of us. I thanked her for a wonderful evening, she thanked me for coming over, we talked a little more and I wished her the very best with the new CD. She had me give her a double-cheek kiss as we said goodbye. As I left we waved until we could no longer see each other.
All through the bus ride back to the hotel I relaxed in my seat, contented. Had this been worth an overdraft I'll be paying back for months? Absolutely. Worth depriving myself of away games for the foreseeable future for? Yes sirree, Bob. After 10 years I'd finally met Kathy and seen her perform live.
Checked out of the hotel at about 11.45 this morning and went to get the bus to the airport. Among the options offered on the ticket machine (in French and English) at the bus stop was 'All Geneva - free ride for 1 hour'. The French version also said 'Libre'. I pressed that button - and the machine displayed 'pay 7 francs'! They need to work on their wording. As I was 3 stops from the airport I bought a three-stop Short Trip ticket for 2 francs.
Had a salad buffet lunch at Geneva airport and bought a couple of big bars of Swiss chocolate, as one or two of the ladies at the office (untouched by the dieting craze!) asked me to bring some back. Going through the check at Zurich I forgot to take my mobile out of my pocket, triggering the alarm and leading to me getting taken into the little curtained square and frisked. More lovely cheese sandwiches and chocolate on the flight home.
I'd intended to buy a Non-League Paper at Heathrow, go to one of the eateries and chow down while reading it, but NONE of the newsagents at Heathrow had the NLP, and I spent so much time looking round for one that I just about had time to grab a bag of crisps, an apple (displayed on a '5 A Day' fruit rack, pricking my healthy-eating conscience) and a Coke from the Smith's in the bus station before going to catch the coach home.
Worse, there was no in-coach TV. Now that's just cruel. I made do with reading the latest issue of the UK Eurovision fan club journal.
Arrived in Portsmouth at 9.20. The Co-op on the Hard had the Non-League Paper. Bought 2 bacon rolls from the 24-hour snack window and chowed down on the Gosport ferry.
