It’s amazing how many times I’ve been involved in a drunken conversation about this and argued over the facts of how it was made - is it under the sea bed or sitting on top of it? Or is it floating half way down like giant industrial seaweed?! Who bloody knows? Some things are just better to argue about than to google for the real facts.

In French it is Le tunnel sous la Manche… Yes – the French version doesn’t quite have the same ring (now there’s a first!) as the English pet name for that beast of engineering, The Chunnel.

I’ve been through the Channel Tunnel more than once. Yep, there AND back. At least I assume that’s the case but I can’t really remember the ‘back’ having been drunk on all that good French wine (see picture).

Anyway, I did google it, just (obviously the French name for the chunnel is not something I just happened to know) – I didn’t read much of the boring (or should I say ‘boreing’ ahem) stuff about building it, but here’s what I have found out: There have been three fires; no one has died. At least not in Chunnel fires – a dozen refugees have died trying to sneak into the UK via the Chunnel jumping onto moving trains from bridges, tampering with railway equipment and the like.
One thing I did read about building it was that both England and France had machines on either side drilling the tunnel and whilst England's ones were called dull things like ‘1A’ and ‘2B’ the French gave their machines sexy lady names like Brigitte and Virginie…
Somehow I think men’s names may have been more appropriate for drilling machines…

One thing I love about conjoinulations is how very descriptive and self explanatory they are, and the whole recycling two old concepts into something nu and snazzy.

Actually, one other thing I like about conjoinulations is when they're so obscure that a fully long-winded explanation is needed to disclose the subtleties of the concept. But that's another day altogether.

I got a text from NYC. Someone, who shall remain nameless, clearly doing exactly what we do when WE go on holiday together - eating and drinking - had just spied 'Cidertini' (hmm - that sounds kinda good - metropolitan chic meets West Country tractor driver) and a 'Chaiaccino' (hippy festie meets starbucks office drone possibly?).

Clearly I am none of the above, or people that know me would never let me forget that I'd written about such types (do such types exist?) as if they were some sort novelty...
Actually... strangely enough, on second thoughts, maybe I do have a little bit of each in me. (Except the starbucks bit.)

Oh dear, it's been too long. Sorry to my one fan who has sent me irate messages. Sometimes a girls' just gotta do what... you know the rest.

So, in remembrance of my super cool Dad (no, I never would have called him that while he was alive - even tho I secretly thought so), I am writing with an aviation theme. This was s'posed to be the theme of the day on Dad's birthday which came and went last month but alas, I lapsed.

Anyway... I have two words today. Yep. two whole words. Well actually kind of four words if you count the conjoinulations as... oh never mind. No wait! I've got three! Oh! I mean six!

Aerobatics - Aeroplane Aerobatics - RIP Popsicle
Avionics - Aviation Electronics - It's the fancy shit, the worky bits they use to make airplanes fly so the pilots can put their feet up and drink some camomile tea.
Avgas - This IS one, I promise. Ok, maybe it's a brand name, can't be sure. All I can be sure of is that when I get the scent of burning Avgas I know that I'm about to go on a trip. Or I'm meeting someone after they've come from a trip. Or I just drove past the airport.

Stepping out in Brixton yesterday (yet another weekend spent in my London Pied a Terre :-P [sorry], avoiding facing up to my new/real life which apparently exists, albeit largely without me, in Bristol) I discovered the first negative side effect of the new English smoking ban in pubs – all those leery ol’ cunts that you normally don’t have to deal with unless you actually go into the pub, are now outside on the street spouting forth their opinions to anyone who is unfortunate enough to pass by close enough, commenting on personal attributes, and generally making wankers out themselves.

Which reminds me, have you ever been on holiday somewhere, you’re wandering around some unknown area, maybe a little lost (not seriously lost, maybe just a little off track), you see a quaint little pub so you decide to stop in for a pint or to check out the local cider?

Rocking in, with all the confidence of a city dweller, you are suddenly put in your place when confronted by a wall of Smocals (no, it’s got nowt to do with smoking, this time), they’re the folk that have chosen that particular establishment as their territory, clearly maintained by the fact that they spend 17 hours of every day there, are practically fused to their bar stool and the bar would actually collapse if it weren’t for them fervently propping it up.

Anyway, their attitude to outsiders is what I’m describing with the term ‘smocals’, or ‘smug locals’ – princely as they are in their comfort zone, looking down their red and misshapen noses with double vision at any hapless traveller who dares to blunder into ‘their’ pub – you may as well stroll into their own living room without knocking for all the silent disdain directed your way…and don’t even think about trying to order a vodka, lime and tonic.
However, drop them in the middle of a bar off Shoreditch High Street, and see them drown like rats in a barrel.

Ooh – sound bitter don’t I? Don’t worry, I’ve been on the other side of this too – sometimes there are just days when I just don’t feel like helping that tourist with a backpack the size of the African continent struggling to read their map in the gale force wind, secure in the knowledge that I know where I’M going, at least.

The dear, sweet 80's have become so special to us in the last 10 years or so. I mean, I love the 80's a hell of a lot more now, than I did when I was actually existing in the 80's.

That distasteful decade brought us some really snazzy marketing tactics, and I think that in many way, the modern conjoinulation really came of age back then.
Then again, that is clearly just how I see it, since I really didn't see anything much at all before the 80's.

Nevertheless, (nevertheless is a brilliant word, in't? - 3 words in one!) let me continue my tedious monologue (it's great - I'm writing, so no one can talk over top of me) by talking about Motels.

Yeah, Motels were around long before the 80's, but don't they just scream 'budget 80's family holiday'? (either that, or as the pic would suggest, seedy rent-by-the-hour vibraty-bed dodginess - though in my experience mostly the former - mostly, I say). There's a reason it's a 'motor hotel' and not a 'chauffer driven hotel' (chautel?)...

Writing of '...-tels' reminds me of another favourite of mine, and intrinsically linked to the 80's, I think - The Floatel - gloriously, huge, white, shiny, ridiculous looking cruise ships. I don't know about you, good reader, but when I think Floatel, I think The Love Boat, and when I think The Love Boat, clearly I think 80's.
I saw some of the most monstrous floatels in existence in Acapulco, and damn! you shoulda seen the leathery hides of the punters shuffling off them things! Oh how we laughed.

I can't mention the 80's without mentioning Telethon (Television Marathon) - those crummy fundraising events we used to get (I have to admit) wicked excited about - mostly, I think, because we got to stay up all night watching tv, even if it was possibly the worst tele ever made on the spot and with no imagination - good cause and all, well, I'm sure it was, what I was, I'm sure I don't know.
I just looked it up and supposedly New Zealand was holding telethon's thru the 70's and 80's and up until 1990. Sheesh!
They must've slipped by me.