There was no applause when the plane left the runway, like there was on my last long haul flight. But, LHR wasn't snow-bound and it hadn't been touch-and-go as to whether we would take off at all. BTW, that was Christmas 2010, not 2011 as I incorrectly told someone recently.

The plane had an outside camera, so you could see the view as the plane took off and landed. You could look at the view mid-flight too, but generally there wasn't anything to see.

Hong Kong is the only airport I've been to where you go through security checks when transferring flights. Not counting the USA, that is, which has its own bizarre rules. Of course, I could equally say that, based on my experience, you go through security checks between flights at 50% of the worlds' airports. Statistics are a funny old thing.

For example, at LHR they claimed an average (mean) of ten minutes to clear security. But if one person takes one minute and one person takes nineteen that would give an average of ten but this is not representative of either person's time. The mean is, er, meaningless. The median might be better. Hang on, that would be somewhere around 10 too. The range - now that would be good, in association with the mean.

And this ten minutes was only the time from starting through security. It didn't include the sixty minutes you queued to get to the security gate in the first place. No joke - it was one of the longest queues in the history of queues. It stretched right out of the terminal and halfway to the car park.

I watched a couple of movies on the plane. I missed the very end of the second film when the entertainment system was switched off for landing. I think there were only a few seconds to go - but quite important seconds as there are two ways the film could end. Hopefully the same film will be on the next flight so I can see whether the needle did stick in the record [it was and it did].

Have you ever wondered why planes are boarded from the left hand side when they have doors on both sides? It is because that's how ships were boarded and the custom stuck.

Have you ever wondered why ships were boarded from the left hand side? It's because early boats had the steering apparatus on the right hand side, so had to moor with the left hand side against the dock. The steering apparatus was a large lump of wood (or steer-board = starboard) and the dock was also known as a port.

I had a good trip up north to scun-up. Lots of useful stuff learned that I shall try to remember and regurgitate at some point. Autism, teenagers, transactional analysis, mental capacity. All human life was there. I was quite glad to have a day off on Monday to recover.

Dinner on Saturday I was the only straight man on the table, which meant that the conversation tended to have interesting and amusing themes. Interesting that the gay people have speculated as much as straight people about the sexuality of a couple of mutual acquaintances. "When I first met them I thought they were a couple". "Yes, a lot of us have wondered the same".

I don't know whether (at the risk of being outrageously stereotypical here) gay men are more common in healthcare (including SJA) because they are more caring and empathetic and so attracted to this career, or whether they are more willing to be open because the profession is staffed by people who are caring and empathetic so don't give two hoots about a person's sexuality.

I suppose I could have written that last paragraph as "is the proportion of gay men higher in the healthcare profession than in the public as a whole and, if so, why?".

Dropped in on the Aged on the way home. He is doing well after his knee operation and has managed to walk a mile ("What, in total since the operation?" "No, you fool, in one go").

Right, time to go and see if my gate has been announced and get ready for another exciting 12 hours of nothing.