Dan McNeil's Blog

I really dislike weddings.  Well maybe that's a little unfair.  I guess I really dislike wedding receptions.  And it's all about the dancing. You see the thing is I don't enjoy dancing.  I know a lot of people have an awkwardness about dancing, and need some encouragement - but with me that's not the case - I simply don't like doing it.  Yet at weddings there seems to be this desire to get everyone "on the dancefloor" even if they'd really rather be doing something else - like sitting and talking to people or just sitting enjoying the music. But no, people hover in packs finding those who've not ventured onto the dance floor and start off by trying to encourage them, then cajoling them and eventually trying to physically drag them onto the dance floor.  And I don't understand it?  Why am I allowed not to go on the dancefloor if I don't want to?  I'm not unhappy to miss out on the dancing, I'm not crying into my glass of bubbly w

I have just got over to the US West Coast, and that means a rather long flight from London.  And it's a daytime flight.  Well it's at the cusp of daytime, but I guess I mean that an "overnight" doesn't happen in either timezone whilst you're on the flight, so my plan is always to say awake. I realise that just one night into my stay over here, I'm somewhat tempting fate, but I'm quite lucky in that jetlag doesn't really appear to affect me too badly at all.  The first night I usually wake up a few times during the night, but generally after that things click into the new timezone.  The way I do it is to force my sleep into the new timezone as soon as I get on the plane - and for the flight from London over to the US West Coast that means staying away for around ten hours.  And that means in-flight entertainment.  It wasn't that long ago that British Airways used to play everything on a loop, so you picked your channel and sat through it - and