Bye bye, Blighty
Fact for the day: the term 'old blighty' (meaning 'Britain', if you haven't heard it before) comes from a Hindi word bilayati, or foreign. The British introduced a few strange things to India in the late nineteenth century, notably the tomato (bilayati baingan) and soda-water (bilayati pani, or foreign water) and after being corrupted by British troops to 'blighty', the term stuck.
Anyhow, in seven hours time, I'm jumping on a Virgin flight to South Africa, where I'm doing a load of presentations for the Standard Bank. On the 16th I fly from Joburg to Florida (where I'm speaking for GE), via the Cape Verde Islands, back to South Africa on the 20th, to the UK on the 27th and on to Berlin for another talk the day after that.
In all, I'm flying 17 times in the next 22 days, which is rather shocking – to offset both carbon and conscience, I'm buying ten trees from the Carbon Neutral Company.
Once I'd finished packing this morning, I took one last chance make the most of the weather we're having before jetting off to SA…
— Filed under Miscellany