Gwyneth Paltrow

First of all it was the Chelsea home game to Arsenal that clogged the roads in and around Stamford Bridge at lunchtime (is there no way the King's Road, Wandsworth Bridge Road bottleneck can be sorted out, it may take knocking down a house or two though to do it). This evening it is some unknown event or possibly nothing that is clogging the Chelsea Bridge Road. Caught in Chelsea traffic coming back from golf can be a bit of a bladder challenging experience but nothing is as bad as being caught in one of those endless traffic jams on a motorway. Just as frustrating is waiting in an airport departure lounge for your flight to leave and particularly so when the delay is inflicted by the staff of the airline you're flying on. The Qantas strike is set to cause huge misery to its customers as the pilots and ground staff seem likely to continue their action for as long as it takes to get their way. Traffic jams come and go but this particularly bitter dispute seems destined to last for months and to lose the airline a lot of money. Indeed there is talk of Qantas having to close down certain sections of its business. Cameron and Hague are unaffected by the strike as they are flying back from the Commonwealth summit on Virgin and of course I imagine the Queen flew back yesterday on one of the 'planes of the Queen's Flight, if it still exists. Flying is a funny business and you only appreciate how funny when you are kept on the ground wondering whether you are ever going to get off the ground or not. There are of course other moments of an altogether different kind such as the occasion when one of my friends was upgraded to first class on his way back from New York this week and found himself sleeping in the bed next door to Gwyneth Paltrow.