sydney

Now I own two properties in Melbourne, one shared with my good woman, the thought of travelling to Sydney is even less attractive. But go there I must, to the Mind and its potential conference. Like all conferences, its allure dims as the date approaches. But MM is footing the bill; indeed, I am an ‘endorsing body guest’, MM being one of 34 bodies with its logo on the back page of the program.

Even on a Sunday afternoon Croydon to the hotel lobby takes five hours, of which one is spent in an aeroplane. The rest is consumed getting to and from airports, queuing and waiting. Europcar provide a wonderful service, stowing my car and shuttling me to Qantas’s front door. When I return they’ll whisk me away and have my car idling on their tarmac ready to roll. All power to them.

The taxi rank in Sydney has a queue longer than at the check-in desk for an international flight. We shuffle left, turn the corner and shuffle right. A constant stream of white taxis surges to the kerb and surges away along the tunnel and into the night. My driver has bad body odour and I ride with the window down, wind in my face and rocketing up my tormented nostrils.

I nominate the Ibis at Darling Harbour as my destination. “Which Ibis would that be, sir?” he asks. “There are two.” The one nearer the Sydney Convention Centre is my best guess. He asks if I’d like to be surcharged for taking the freeway, on top of the airport surcharge and the this-and-that tunnel surcharge. Whatever. It’s on MM; they insist I take taxis rather than the train, bus or monorail.

On the forecourt of the Ibis he can’t get his Cabcharge card-reader to function. For ten minutes I sit, nose hung out the window, while he presses buttons, grumbles, apologises, stabs more buttons. At least five times the reader asks for his driver’s ID.

Finally I’m in the foyer. The reception woman is a robot, reeling off the does and don’ts, telling me my MM debit card has been declined. Whatever. I hand her my personal credit card. I hate it but can’t seem to live without it.

Room 1006 lives on the top floor, long grey passages, red-framed doors. I open mine and wonder where the room is. All I see is a short passage, but it opens into a small room, much smaller than the usual hotel room. But I like it. It has my one requirement—a bench under the window to set up the laptop and write on.

An appalling convenience store across the road sells me a muffin, my dinner on this first night in Sydney: it’s the worst muffin ever, the stink of some vile preservative steaming off it the moment I rip the cellophane from it. I bin it and consume a KitKat instead.

Is it travel? Is it Sydney? Is it me? It’s a horror show on wheels. Whatever.

Rock on.