Almost didn't make it.

So I'm sat in a Holiday Inn near Heathrow. 'A' Holiday Inn because there are two by the airport and, unbelievably, the one that appears when you click the link on the booking email isn't the one I need. It's obviously a common mistake judging by the contemptuously weary face on both the receptionist and taxi driver's face. Three hours in to my transatlantic journey and I feel like a bumbeling tourist in my own country. I've navigated Tokyo with little more than a photocopied underground map and the Japanese phrase for "please help me". Oh, and pointing, lots of pointing. Thanks England.

The hotel doesn't help make me feel anymore competent when I arrive. It takes half an hour of messing around with the internet to discover the box has been unplugged and the wire neatly coiled and hidden under the desk. To add to the challenge the phone cable needs to be plugged into the 'wall' socket, rather than the 'phone' one. Each attempt to connect meaning I have to switch the computer on and then off again. During my life I've built things with my bear hands. I've killed a mouse, caught in a trap but not yet dead. I've climbed 14, 000ft up the Himalayas and been a teacher. I can do shit. Current events suggest I need a carer.

Everything on this journey, so far, seems like a conspricey to undermine my confindence. Even ordering food. Stupidly, I asked at the bar - burger and a beer, please - no problem. Assuming an £11 burger, £4 drink and £2 service charge is okay. Is it okay? £17 pounds for food and a lager. I'd stare, silent and unblinking, into the face of a barman that charged me that much for a round, let alone lunch in a chav-tel. This is Holiday Inn remember, not The Mondrian. And, just for some secret, unexplained extra humiliation, the internet is inexplicably presenting Google in German.

Tomorrow, LA.