5am (Midnight local time)

“Thank you for flying with [name removed for legal reasons] airways – please don’t hesitate to fly with us again” said a fixed-grinned mannequin of a woman as the passengers alighted from the aeroplane. A woman with too much on her head nodded politely as she accepted the thanks that the stewardess was contractually obliged to offer.

“Thank you for flying with [name removed for legal reasons] airways – please don’t hesitate to fly with us again” she repeated with exactly the same inflection to the man immediately behind the female with the hat. He smiled the smile of a man who would very much like to do something disgusting with a woman her age but has accepted that he has nothing to look forward to but loneliness and infirmity.

“Thank you for flying with [name removed for legal reasons] airways – please don’t hesitate to fly with us again” she intoned to me as I passed.

“Don’t be pathetically stupid, woman” I told her constructively, “I have a return ticket so to even consider paying another airline company to fly me back to Great Britain and all the sanity which comes with that would be utterly absurd. I appreciate that your have a lowly paid and often tedious job to do but I would be grateful if you would not talk down to me in that condescending manner. We call it ‘patronising’ and I find it extremely irritating.” She carried on smiling but somehow contrived to send me tumbling down the steps and land face first on the tarmac. This was odd as all the other passengers simply went along a gangway to the terminal. She must’ve had deceptively nimble feet. I expect they need them in a job like that. They might even measure the angles of rotation at the interview stage.

I brushed myself off and walked to the terminal building, stopping only to answer a few friendly questions from a gun toting police officer who initially mistook me for a stowaway who had been concealed in the wheel arch of the aeroplane. Once I had convinced him that I wasn’t from some harsh and brutal regime but actually from the United Kingdom (which I achieved by screaming like a girl as soon as he hit me, thereby proving I had never been tortured by the secret police) he bundled me off the runway and into the warmth of the terminal building.

“Dennis Brent” panted Ian Devine having foolishly tried to run up and greet me. “We thought you were dead. Or had been mislaid.”

“You haven’t taken legal ownership of my trunk have you?” I asked cautiously.

“Certainly not” he said, screwing up what looked suspiciously like a first draft for an advert in the Bendaton Bugle offering a well travelled gentleman’s trunk for sale, £150 or near offer.

“I was delayed – Miss Mifflin and I were in the bathroom together” I told him. He sniffed jealously and I saw my hastily enacted plan had worked.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“I have collected our luggage – as you can see – and we now must go through the first class customs check and then the world is our oyster.”

“Or even our big apple” I said wittily. We roared with laughter and some Mexican food popped out of Ian Devine’s nose.

“Expanding your diet?” I asked.

“Mexican food really is marvellous when you cover it with pastry” he replied. He snorted as he recalled my splendid joke and a piece of pepperoni flew out. “As is pizza” he explained.

The first class customs and passport control check was marvellously civilised. The staff were extremely courteous, there were genuine trees to look at while they chuckled at our photographs and there was even a woman to attend to our nails while we answered questions about the purpose of our visits. They did query my medical kit as apparently Doctor Flapjack is on an FBI list of the most wanted proctologists in the western hemisphere so they were disinclined to believe my supplies were all for legitimate purposes. This necessitated a small demonstration but it was all cleared up before the crew from CNN arrived. They were disappointed but, as I explained to the glamorous nun who had been stood behind me in the queue, it is vital to retain ones dignity.

A message was waiting at the information desk for me.

“Dear Mr Brent” it began, no mention of Ian Devine which I pointed out to his obvious chagrin. “We have arranged that a car meet you at the airport and bring you to the convention facility. Don’t worry – it’s all been paid for.”

This was marvellous. I had been worried that I might have to venture out onto the streets and find a taxi cab, driven by an immigrant and which charged by the second. I scanned the terminal for hopeful signs and eventually saw a man carrying a sign which read “BRENT”. We headed towards it with hope in our hearts. Well, in mine anyway, I doubt there is room for anything in Ian Devine’s except pastry.

“My name is Dennis Brent” I said to the driver. “You must be the man sent to meet us.”

“Yeah” he sniffed. “Who’s the fat guy?”

Ian Devine looked over his shoulder as if expecting to find an amusingly overweight man coming toward us.

“This well constructed gentleman is the noted telehistorian Ian Devine – he is my companion” I explained.

The driver tapped his nose, told Ian Devine that he may have to stick a leg out of the cab window and led us to his car.

We were ten minutes into the journey when I decided to ask a probing question of our temporary host.

“How long will it take to get to the hotel?”

“Hotel? What hotel?” he replied.

“The hotel which is holding the Doct… the prestigious telehistorical convention.”

“I don’t know nothing about that” he replied.

“I think you’ll find that is a double negative – a reprehensible shackle on effective communication” said Ian Devine. I silenced him with a look.

“What do you mean you don’t know ANYthing about a prestigious telehistorical convention?” I asked.

“I was hired to pick you up, right?”

“Yes” we said in unison.

“And take you downtown…”

“And?” we chorused.

“Make sure you end up at the hospital” he concluded. Ian Devine looked at me, I looked at Ian Devine and both felt the cold and sticky hand of fear upon us.

“I think my bottle of maple syrup is leaking” blubbed Ian Devine.