Concordski

 

Well, I seem to be getting in the habit of looking out for odd aviation-themed items and so was happy to get my hands on this little gem. The TU144 was a Russian competitor to the Concorde. A supersonic passenger aircraft although it didn't have quite such a successful career as the European jet. Of the 17 aircraft built, two crashed and only two went into passenger service. Between them, they flew a grand total of 55 passenger flights. This letter was onboard the first of those passenger-carrying flights, on the 1st of November 1977, between Moscow and Alma-Ata. 

You can see the flight and my little envelope take off in this YouTube clip

Rocket mail

 

What's this? An envelop delivered by Rocket? That's right up my street and a no brainer addition to my increasingly eclectic stamp collection. find out more about his remarkable piece of paper here on Wikipedia and this great blog by the Scotsman

Geoffrey

 

An unusual round stamp on a Christmas card from my oldest friend Geoffrey. I met Geoff the Chef while working at ACS Gatwick, then he moved in as our lodger. He then moved to Bermuda and finally to Cape Porpoise, Kennebunkport, Maine, from where this stamp was sent. 

 With Geoff in Kennebunkport

Geoffrey just after he'd left the safety of being my lodger, newly arrived on the island of Bermuda. 

Ship of the desert

 

One of two memorable camel encounters. This was on one of my short trips to India. In Rajasthan, we stopped at this beautiful hotel. It was one of the Heritage collection we'd been staying in, which were old Maharaja palaces, rich in history and full of character. In the evening they arranged this trip which involved a camel with a trailer upon which was a mattress on. We laid down, staring up at the stars while the dromedary towed us into the desert where we stopped for tea. A magical experience.

The second camel encounter was during our Red Sea dive holiday. We went out into the Sinai Desert on a really touristy evening trip. I should have hated everything about this but I loved it. Sitting by a fire, in the peaceful desert, then they made us ride the wretched things

A little red

 

A one cent stamp from British Guiana. No not that one, this is worth a bit less money, but I bought this to celebrate the fact that I do now own 1/80,000th of the rarest most valuable item by weight in the world. To celebrate my acquisition I popped up to London to view the item itself, the famous British Guiana 1c Red Magenta. Here's an arty (or crap depending on how  you look at it) photo of the stamp (worth about £8mil) with my ghostly reflection. On this same day, I tracked down the location of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues video and visited St Martin's in the Field where Robert Boyle (of Boyle's law, very important in diving) is interred. 

Herpetological ambitions

When I grew up I wanted to be ... A herpetologist. Was never going to happen but first part of the plan was to make my dad and grandad build me a greenhouse in the garden at Warlingham. 

Thriller to Manilla

 

A first-day cover. I had no intention of collecting these when this all started but some are too interesting to miss. And just how much excitement can one piece of paper evoke? This little envelope was one of 110,000 items onboard 'China Clipper' registration NC14716 – a Martin M-130 four-engine flying boat, when it completed the first airmail cargo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Alameda, California to Manila after travelling via Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island, and Guam. It was the first commercial flight across the Pacific and marked the dawn of a new era of flight. The aircraft later crashed on approach to Trinidad! Historynet has a great write up on the flight and its treacherous start. 

I flew to Manila once, in January 2014, on one of my ‘top ten Virgin Atlantic moments’. Flying with just three other passengers on an empty Airbus A340, we were headed down there for heavy maintenance, but also delivering aid for Typhoon victims. It was a crazy trip that included dwarf wrestling, a street called ‘The Axis of Evil’ and a trip home via Tokyo. 

China Clipper sets off from San Francisco with my stamp onboard

On the ground in Manilla