I HAVE been to Australia nonstop, nightstop and fagstop. None of them is satisfactory; Australia, an excellent place, needs to be towed a bit closer to the mother country.
My first visit, 20 years ago, involved 24 hours in the air. I arrived in Sydney utterly bamboozled on a Monday morning; my brains eventually turned up like lost baggage on the Friday. I had wasted four days of my life in one of the world’s great cities feeling as if I was on climbdown from methadone, which the head and neck massage in my hotel did little to alleviate.
Next time, I stopped a night in Singapore. It was a blessed relief to strech out for the night in an immobile bed, with no mewling and puking infants in the next seat. I know now that a journey break is essential, and preferably for three nights. But it is best not taken in sanitised Singapore, where a stroll from your hotel leads you on a sightseeing tour of other hotels. Better by far to take your ease in Hong Kong or Bangkok.
As for Australia, they can put on all the fancy planes they like; until they can take us to Melbourne by interplanetary rocket, it’s too far to venture without a break and a change of flightsocks.