Wednesday, December 13, 2006

ASH

ASH is over for another year. I arrived back on Tuesday morning and spent most of the day falling asleep at inappropriate times. Today I spent in London at the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee. One of the applicants sent his apologies as he had just returned from ASH. I saw him on the same plane as me, so if I could make the effort why couldn't he? I had the longer journey.

This year I decided to remain on European time to try an avoid the jet lag. Tuesday was still a write off. I really can't remember much about it. Apart from the 158 e-mails that I answered.

I will blog later about the impressions that ASH made upon me, but here are a few thoughts.

Over 150 CLL abstracts, but was there really a need to put on oral presentations on CLL at the same time so that it was impossible to go to everything?

Orlando has new entertainment attractions since the last time I went, but there was no time to visit any of them.

I'm sure that paying £3000+ for business class is not worth it. It would be more sensible to fly via New York, sleep in an airport hotel and get the daytime flight across the Atlantic - total cost around £500. The seats that lie flat in business class are too narrow and very hard.

American food is vast and tasteless, but they do good sandwiches.

I suppose it must be time to prepare for Christmas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

'American food'? You just went to the wrong restaurants. I'm sure there were some wonderful restaurants just off the beaten track.

Of course, the complaint about British food (other than the weird names 'bangers and mash' 'bubbles and squeak')is that the vegetables are overcooked and everything comes in a heavy cream sauce.

Fish and chips as health food? Not!

Anonymous said...

We have great food and find it amazing that you missed out on our excellent American cuisine. If you promise to give us another try, I promise to disregard all the rumors I have heard about the bad food in the UK.

Terry Hamblin said...

British food was terrible from the 1950s to the 1980s, and some is just like American food today, fatty, tasteless and huge portions, but there is a wider variety of ethnic eating houses in Britain today than anywhere in the world. However, I prefer home cooking.

Overcooked vegetables are a thing of the past in the UK. In most restaurants they are crunchy these days. Heavy cream sauce? I don't think so. Bubble and squeak - just leftovers fried the next day.

Bangers and mash is a Mockney pop song. It goes along with Kate and Sydney Pie and Spotted Dick.