TRAVEL | Excuse Me, Where Do I get Off?

Patting myself on the back became habit forming in the hours after I cleared UK customs.

The ol' travel savvy was kicking in a treat.

The Heathrow Express got me to Paddington in 15 minutes. I had time to find a phone charger at Virgin Mobile at the station. I wandered up and out into the shopping street away from all the travel plebs and found a cafe where a french girl served me a lovely cup of tea.

Returning to the station I took a chance and dived onto the 3.45pm instead of 4.21pm to Oxford. Damn this is easy.

Arrived at Oxford an hour later and charged at pace through the streets to find my books that I ordered online. Hey - whats the point of going to the hotel and THEN coming back in? Who can be bothered doing it tomorrow? Nup. Lets get it all on the way. Efficient. Dare I say, sensible?

So it was a bit of a walk but nothing I couldn't handle. I cleaved my way through the tons of tourists that swamped every central street and there it was. Blackwells Books. All I needed at this point was a healthy dose of Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey topped off with some 'Are You Being Served'.

Funny thing was I didn't know that Blackwells have 3 (!) stores in the one street. I then found out that "no, you need to go to...." was quite a common saying at Blackwell's ....although "oh no, you need to see someone in customer service" was also making its way up the charts. And that from someone seated behind a customer service desk.

I took it all in good fun. Everything was working out.

And then I met my driver for the Number 5 bus towards Cowley.

I dunno...was he Spanish? Croatian? Couldn't be Russian. But I can tell you one thing he was: A pretender!!!

So once the bus had done an entire loop of the number five route, the travel/jet lag was beginning to kick in. I was sure he could see me in his mirror glowering at him and throwing imaginary screwed-up bus tickets the size of a Doha fuel tanker at his head.

Pulling up to the stop opposite the one I got on at there was only one choice.

But he played dumb and insisted "no, it wan't me you gave your money to", "no, it wasn't me who gave you your ticket", "no, you didn't ask me....you want to go where? Kassam....oh KASSEM stadium. You need to catch bus going that way".

And 3 hours later I arrived at Holiday by Express Inn (I kid you not) only to be checked in by a bloke who looked very suspiciously similar to my bus driver.....

Spooky....