flying north from Luton, surrounded by noisy coughing I'm heading back home after a very quick visit to London for an interview today about potential research funding.Yesterday I travelled down by train during the day for the first time in years, a far more civilised and responsible mode of travel. It just takes bloody ages. I stayed at Alison's last night and got to see her recent eBay purchase of an 18th century cello, which after close inspection by an expert today, turned out to be a brand new and very clever fake. That's going back to the dealer then.I built just enough slack into the day's schedule to visit my favourite 'gentlemen's outfitters', Burrows in James St, where the knowledgeable Scots guy behind the counter writes out receipts by hand, and the changing room is basically a cupboard. It's always a treat: they get shirts dyed for them in a wonderful assortment of colours, so I took away some yellow, red and orange for the summer, and some stripy socks.I'm lucky they've let me on the plane at all, as when I reached in my pocket for ID at boarding, I realised that I'd brought Helen's passport by mistake. It could have been a long night going back to London and getting the night train home. Fortunately I still have a BBC ID pass with my photo on it, so I brandished that instead and tried to look confident and relaxed.