This is the Diary of Kobi Annobil. I’m on the road again, but this time I’m bringing you lot along with me. You will see what I see, feel what I feel and drink what I drink.

Day One: This morning started well enough – I was up and out of bed in good time. I was all packed and the taxi arrived promptly. It was going swimmingly. That was, until the good folks at South West Trains threw a spanner in the works by cancelling the 9:26 to Gatwick Airport. I’ll be cutting it fine, I thought, but I’ll make check-in time. The public transport gods, it seemed, had other ideas (This is why I either normally walk or drive everywhere – If I’m gonna be late; I’ll be late on my terms, thank you very much).

I arrived at the airport and hour before take off, to find that the flight was overbooked and 2 minutes from closing. I was going to have to wait for the next one. It’s usually in situations like this that I lose my temper. While I don’t mind queuing, my least favourite queues of all have to be airport queues, because I know how close I am to getting out of the country when I’m stuck in one. I loitered around departures for 45 minutes before going back to the desk. After a further ten minute wait, I was told that the next flight had some spare seats. “Between you and me” the desk bloke said “I’ve put you in business class.” What a guy. Perhaps it was my typically English manner of dealing with the whole situation that got me bumped up. I didn’t complain as such, but I let him know that I was jolly put out by the whole ghastly affair.

That, my friends, is True Brit.

I spent the next 8 hours doing what Englishmen on holiday typically do best. Drinking. Five glasses of champagne, two beers and a whisky, to be precise. It was free – what was I meant to do? I put my seat in recline and then proceeded to watch four films back to back. Fantastic Four (never seen it before as I was apprehensive about the portrayal of Doom. Didn’t matter at all. Jessica Alba in Spandex will make you forget things), The Mask (Jim Carrey hamming it up isn’t so hard to watch when you’re half cut) Die Hard With A Vengeance (an unintentionally hilarious edited version, littered with the word “shoot”. Anyone ever heard Samuel L say “shoot” in another film? Exactly. The sandwich board that John McLean wears in Harlem now reads “I Hate Everybody”. Those who have seen the original know what I’m talking about) and Dodgeball to finish (Ben Stiller kills that flick). I also got asked if I worked for The Billionaire Boys Club because of my T-Shirt. We landed in Detroit around 5:00; I knew I had to move with all haste to avoid missing my connection, but first things first, I had to get a picture of the cute stewardess, purely for blogging purposes, of course.

Last year, the super stringent US Passport Control had meant that I missed my connection from Philly to Ottawa. This year I left three hours between flights – one was eaten up by the passport queue again, leaving me two to kill. I spent half an hour swearing at my phone as the automatic roaming function is still yet to kick in and the other hour and a half changing money, shooting pictures which will be used to photo reference the comic book and eating. The quesedillas I clapped down were good, but unfortunately, they are still repeating on me now. The flight to Toronto was a sobering experience. No-one got to do the glamorous left turn as they boarded the plane. We were all in cattle class. The flight was only 40 minutes long which was a good thing, as my hangover had started to kick in and I was getting irritable. Just as my mood was about to change for the worse, due to non-existent legroom and lack of air conditioning, I got my first glimpse of Toronto from the sky. Wow.

I whizzed through the paperwork and hurried off to meet the welcoming party at the gate. Now, my uncle is a bit of a legend in the T-dot. Mr. Jojo Chintoh has been a reporter over at City TV for almost three decades now, which is why it was a bit like driving around town with the mayor when he showed me around town last year. Everybody knows him. My mum stayed at Auntie Ama and Uncle Jojo’s house while she was at university over here in the early 70’s, so to quote Dame Shirley Bassey – it’s just a little bit of history repeating. We cruised out of the airport tonight, jamming some Grover Washington as we weaved through the late night traffic. After an hour’s drive and some orange juice to fight off the effects of the alcohol, I am now ready to put my head down. I’ve been awake for 23 hours straight. Jet lag is gonna be a bitch…