Beautiful blue sky day today, which had me walking to and from the cinema to see 12 Rounds. The lack of clouds got me thinking about them, and in particular about a teacher at school.

Mr Dail was my class teacher at primary school in 1984/85. He was an American ex-pat who was a rather unconventional teacher. To me, as a 9 year old, he seemed like an older guy, but I doubt if he was any more than his late 40s. Mr Dail didn’t stick to the standard syllabus for a class of 9 year olds. Amongst other things, he taught us the names of cloud formations, introduced us to slow worms, showed us how to make butter, brought his beautiful rough collies, Ola and Tubby, into class and let us walk them on the school field (a reward for finishing work), and, perhaps most interesting of all, gave out US Air Force rank pins for academic achievement. Where he got this ready supply from, I don’t know, but I was immensely proud when I was awarded a Staff Sergeant pin with 4 stripes. Only a few students in the class had a rank this high, so I was really very pleased with myself, in the way only a nerdy little kid can be.

One day in early summer, as we were heading back to class after a PE lesson, one of my classmates tripped on a slightly raised paving stone. Down she went, and it was immediately obvious that she’d broken her arm. Whilst an ambulance was called for her, the rest of us were herded into class. The following week she returned with her arm in a cast, and Mr Dail made a big show of awarding her with a 6 stripe Master Sergeant pin for bravery. I remember being immensely jealous at the time, thinking to myself that I’d studied really hard to get my Staff Sergeant pin, and all she’d done was break her arm.

I still have my Staff Sergeant pin knocking around somewhere, boxed up with a load of stuff in the loft, if I remember right. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but I’m tempted to go looking for it.

Tales of horror relating to travel can be quite common. Some are worse than others, but most go along the lines of airport delays, lost luggage, or hellish hotels. I’ve had more than my fair share of travel woes, and some of them are pretty high up there on the list of awful experiences.

Back in 1995, whilst at University, I played a lot on a particular online game, a text based Multi User Dungeon. The servers and staff were based in Germany, and a large majority of the players were German, but it was an English language MUD. The staff decided a meet up would be a really cool idea, and so set a date in October for a weekend get together in Cologne. I decided to go, and booked a train ticket to take me there via the Channel Tunnel - Cardiff to London, London to Brussels, Brussels to Cologne. I was invited to stay with one of the MUD staffers, a guy called Frank. He would meet me at the local S-Bahn train station when my train got in at around 8pm. Things are never that easy though, right?

I got to Brussels fine. I even had time to get something to eat before my connecting train to Cologne. The train to Cologne itself, though - that was a different story. There were massive delays en route. Just after passing through Aachen, the train stopped. And waited. And waited. By the time I finally got to Cologne, it was 11pm. Problem was, I didn’t have Frank’s phone number. I just had to hope that he was still at the S-Bahn station. No such luck. I got there, and the place was absolutely deserted. No staff, no other passengers. Large car park, completely empty. Close to midnight.

I studied German up to the age of 14. The only sentence I fluently remembered was, ‘Wie komme ich am besten zum Bahnhof, bitte?’ Given I was already AT the train station, not particularly helpful! Only one thing I could do - I went to the nearest payphone and dialled 112, emergency services. The operator answered, and I crossed my fingers and said, ‘Do you speak English?’ Someone up there must have figured I needed a break, because thankfully, she did. I explained what had happened, and ten minutes later a police car turned up to take me to Frank’s house. I wished I did speak German, because the police officers gave him a very stern talking to when he answered the door!