On the way out I got to try the Heathrow Express' e-ticketing with a barcode scanned from my phone (it worked, but I had printed it out anyway just in case, sorry trees). There was a free sandwich and cake and drink in a proper glass on the flight (Lufthansa, not expensive, a nice treat after dozen of Ryanair cattle transport). Once in Milan airport, I rushed to catch the last train and did not notice my friends who had come to pick me up – surprise! And then once in town we found that we had the flat to ourselves, as Giorgio stayed at his boyfriend.

On Saturday we got going too late to drive to the seaside (Liguria) with our friends, so we visited the cathedral. Surprisingly, they let Stuart in wearing shorts (last time there I was banned from entering because of showing my knees – don't say the Catholic church is not evolving!). Then walked down Via Torino and Corso Porta Ticinese to check out shops. Stuart needed a hat and sunglasses, I needed shorts – the temperature was an unexpected 35 degrees! You can tell how much we care about attire because after popping into Diesel, we went down a downmarket slope via Energie, Gas, then Carhart and Coin (roughly John Lewis-style), to end up making our purchases at Upim (think Primark with less style and twice as expensive).

We took a quick nap then our friends picked us up and went for dinner at La Giara near where we were staying. Great restaurant with Puglia cuisine. Tried very hard to pay but the owner did not let us because Giorgio and Paolo vowed never to eat there again if he did let us pay. Mind games!

Then went to Mono for a few drinks and saw Michele and Emanuele (these are boy's names in Italian – but they were there with some very glamourous lady friends). This is people I have not seen since I moved to London in 2002. Lovely evening. They played La Roux, didn't know the song but that screeching falsetto is unmissable. An odd movie was shown on a monitor (I asked, it was Mysterious Skin, I watched at home after I got back, absolutely worth it if a little disturbing). Michele knew about my objectionable musical taste and asked the DJ to play a certain song for me. The DJ (who I was told is a fan of my Barbie dolls) obliged – with a Spanish version I had never heard!

On Sunday we spent the day with Giorgio. We walked a lot, again around 35 degrees. Walked to the cathedral, had lunch and then a fantastic icecream at Chocolat (I had chocolate orange and peanut brittle). Went to the castle but did not go in, then strolled through the park. Had an Aperol Spritz in Via Dante, met Michele and Antonio and then went from air-conditioned shop to air-conditioned shop. Went home to change then walked to Paolo's for dinner. His flat was an oasis of cool (air-conditioned fortunately), with a huge terrace (that we just popped out on, it was still stupidly hot). I had my first Aperol with Orangina (interesting, sweeter than usual) and another couple of culinary 'firsts': Tuscan 'crostini', and home-made pansotti with pesto brought back from Liguria (pesto had added French beans, found out sometimes it is done with potatoes too).

On Monday we tried to do all the rest. Went up the roof of the cathedral, then to the Scala theatre, went back to the castle but it was closed, tried to see Da Vinci's last supper but it was closed, so we had icecream instead (it made sense at the time). Met Giorgio and his colleague Simona for lunch, then walked to Via Sammartini, the 'gay street' which these days looks all shut or run down, perhaps it is busy in the evenings? Slowly made our way home via Via Orefici where we had probably the most expensive drink of our lives: two Aperol spritz for 24 Euro (not even with the customary bowl of little snacks). It must be said that the terrace of the bar overlooked the cathedral.

Went back to the flat, showered and packed, and as usual left for the airport well over three hours before departure – just in case. Once at the airport, we realised we (er, I) had mixed up flight times and we had another three hours before departure. And the flight was delayed. Fortunately Milan airport has a lot of shops. Then you go through security and you have another lot of shops, so we passed the time somehow. Once in Heathrow, we managed to jump on the last train to London, then taxi home.

It was just three days, but it felt like a much longer holiday. It must be the temperature and all that sun. Fantastic. Although no tan to show for it because we lathered with once-a-day total protection every morning. A few photos on Flickr.

One of the items that needed monitoring is my holidays expense. I had spent thousands of pounds in the space of twelve months one year ago – but I did go to Iceland, New York, Australia, Madrid and a few times to Italy.

I have given myself a generous allowance, am putting some money away every month and checking how much I spend. I am so far doing OK, and it has helped me figure out what I can and cannot do.

I will not be able, for instance, to go to Madrid Pride again this year, no matter how much I would like to. If you have the cash and the inclination, it is guaranteed to be a fantastic party, as people take over the street for fiesta Spanish-style for a whole weekend.

I might, however, go to Berlin, because I have not been in over ten years and I am very curious to check out Folsom Europe in September.

And this year I have already gone to Italy twice: once in February to purchase furniture for my new flat, which took three trips to IKEA – two hours each way by car, and once in April to put the furniture together and finalise the order for the kitchen (which was mainly done via email). I will also go to Italy again at the end of May, but this time it will be to see a friend in Milan. I used to live there and I have not been since moving back to London in 2002.

Oh, and soon I will be in a French chateau with a bunch of friends (Stuart paid for my accommodation as my birthday present this year), followed by a weekend in Paris, another city where I spent seven years and don't go back to as often as I would like to.

Can you tell I love travelling? If money and time off work were not an issue, I would probably be on the road even more often than I do now. Having said that, I'm doing rather well as it is.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, originally uploaded by bitful.

Sixteen years after spending one winter in Nottingham to start a Ph.D.
I never finished, I went back for a brief afternoon visit during this
Christmas break.

As we approached Nottingham, this familiar landmark popped up and
brought back many memories. It was probably the first sight that
welcomed me to the place where I was planning to spend a few years
researching, writing and teaching, and I realised I had no idea what
it was, so I looked it up.

Wikipedia says it's a power station – I had figures that bit out. It's
coal-fired (not nuclear then) and lets out steam (not CO2).

I do wish I had a more positive outlook at the time.

Merry Christmas from Stuart and Luca: photoset on Flickr

Merry Christmas from Stuart and Luca: slideshow on Flickr

I have therefore experienced healthcare (fortunately, as a fairly healthy individual) in three European countries. And in the US too, if you count losing a contact lens while on holiday and having to go see a friend's doctor for a prescription to buy a new one (being uninsured, it cost me a small fortune).

In Italy and in France, when you go to the doctor you always leave with a prescription or a referral. You sort of feel short-changed if you don't, as the BBC correspondent from France Emma Jane Kirby describes in her piece on this week's From Our Own Correspondent. Her take on the French 'heavy legs' syndrome can be listened to on iPlayer until Sunday 21st December (skip to 17:02 to go straight to the segment), or read online.

In the UK on the other hand, three times out of four the doctor shrugs off your condition, tells you to get a grip and only to come back if the condition persists for a number of months. I have learnt to live with it and now I hardly mind it at all, unlike a couple of friends who go back to Italy for treatment when in need. And unlike most of the French who are now having a very hard time facing a new approach recommended by the government and very similar to the British attitude.

We left on Thursday morning very early, took a taxi to the hotel (guide books and even a sign at the airport say that it is a fixed price, but Roman acquaintances told us 'Good luck with that!').

The Hilton Cavalieri is an impressive hotel, and I am so grateful that Dr B. still had some points left over from when he was working away and staying at the Hilton in Swindon (sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?). These points meant that with a very small contribution we could use a 860 Euro per night room.

We got out straight away and I showed Dr B. the place where I got cruised for the very first time in my life. I was eighteen, sitting on the edge of the fountain at Piazza di Spagna, and this curly blond guy my age in a tracksuit asked me to go home with him. I thought it was well dodgy and didn't – but kept his number for days.

We met Ugo, went for a drink and a chat, he is adorable and speaks English fluently (considering he has never travelled to an English-speaking country, he said). Definitely a clever chap. We talked about going out that night to the opening of Muccassassina but we never made it as we got back to the hotel soaking wet and tired from the early start. Ugo, being much younger, partied the night away.

The following day we went to the Vatican. The queue for the museums was ridiculously winding around the building, so we tried the cathedral, which had a very long queue too. The square? All cordoned off because apparently the Pope was out running errands ('Gut morning. Let's zee. One loaf bread, one litre milch, one pair of Prada slippers…'). We hung around until his popeness came back. I filmed him but the movie did not come out, unsurprisingly as he is the spawn of Satan. Just kidding.

And then the great adventure commenced. Either a dodgy pizza the night before, or a dodgy pizza that lunchtime, made us start a tour of Rome's cafes and we spent the rest of the weekend from toilet to toilet. I seem to get that a lot when I travel, and have now a collection of anti-diarrhoea tablets from three different countries (Sweden, Spain and now Italy). First thing I did as I got back to London was to put some in the washbag for future trips.

Fortunately, by Monday morning we were alright, which meant that we could visit the Vatican Museums without too many calls of nature, and then meet an old friend of mine who moved to Rome a few years ago.

We saw most of what there was to see, thanks to:

• Eyewitness travel Rome pocket map & guide: so tiny it fits in your front pocket, yet complete for a four-day trip;
• Eyewitness full-size Rome travel guide: Italian version, borrowed from my brother, not much use for Dr B. but it gave me further information that I could then share;
• My brother's tips and advice. He's a Catholic priest, so I guess he knew what he was talking about. He knew I'm not keen on religious art (I break out in hives) and suggested I might want to skip the Vatican Museums. I am glad we visited them anyway, because they are spectacular. And to think we only went because Dr B. wanted to add a picture to his collection of photos of Pomodoro's spheres from around the world.
• Advice from a friend's friend: 'Go to Coming Out cafe and get leaflets and free press on what to do in Rome'. We went, we found a booklet, it only listed the one night I had heard about. Only when I checked online did I find out that there isn't much else in terms of gay life in Rome. Maybe only the locals know. Honestly, we did not miss it at all.
• Dr B.'s Windows mobile phone with Tom Tom satnav, and my iPhone, which I did not hesitate to whip out every time I wanted quick directions – and then got a not entirely unexpected 100 pounds phone bill for data roaming.
• Frommer's suggested itineraries (Rome in one, two and three days): online tours and maps (very good and handy, used them in Madrid too (the Madrid version, obviously), just print them out from the website and fold away in a pocket.

A few tips:

• You will probably want to walk everywhere, as there is a lot to see outside, and Rome is not that big. Get individual underground tickets for one Euro each, there are only two lines and you can also use them on buses. Tickets are valid 75 minutes and entitle you to one underground trip and unlimited bus trips during that period.
• Visit the Vatican Museums on a Monday afternoon when it does not rain: we entered at around 2.30 and there was no queue. By 4.30pm, the museums were almost empty and we did another tour of the highlights.
• The ticket to the Forum includes a visit to the Colosseum. Had we known, we would have combined the two, which we saw instead on consecutive days.
• Must see: the Pantheon.

And a few photos:

• My Rome photoset on Flickr;
• Dr B.s Rome panoramas on Flickr;
• A photo of us just moment before being struck down with lightning in St Peter's square ;-)

I had to join in, even if it means I almost dropped my camera. I also have some photos of the pillow fight on Flickr.

It was very pointless, yet exhilarating, and it put a smile on my face – until I thought of whoever would have to clean up the mess.

So when I book seats I try and get one that's got a power outlet for laptops and phones.

Not if you book online, you can't. You can only choose airline, front or back. And even then, you are warned your choice might not be available, and even if it is, you might have to travel the opposite way because the train switched directions.

They might as well write 'Enter the big seat lottery – click here!'.

I booked a front seat, non-airline, and once again I was allocated a non-table backwards-travelling one in an otherwise empty and mostly unreserved carriage.

I have of course scattered my belongings on four available seats around a table, phone plugged in and happily surfing the power-hungry 3G network, my originally reserved seat unoccupied behind me.

It's not as if the data is not there: a few minutes ago I changed my return reservation at the ticket office, explained I needed a power outlet, and was given a 'table – window' seat.

All this data, and still a long way from seamelessly accessing it from anywhere.

And the crew's uniforms at the gate. One of them looked at my boarding pass, then projected "Le six" across the queue to her colleague entering boarding pass numbers into a machine.

So imagine my surprise when the terminal bus delivered me in front of a Dornier 328-100 by Scot Airlines – operated by Air France (or was that Air France – operated by Scot Airlines, I never know which one is which).

31 seats. 11 passengers. One cabin crew. One pilot. No make it two – it had to be two, as mid-flight the pilot crossed the aisle to go to the toilet at the back).

Somebody had thrown up tartan everywhere. The seat and the crew were upholstered with the same material. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call classy.

I was sitting right next to the propeller. I feared the worst. But as the plane flew right over the O2, so low I could make out what was on the circular screens around it, and then over fireworks, and pitch after pitch of little men playing football, I was giddy with excitement.

Our lovely Michelle (both on the way there and back, probably sleeps on the plane in tartan PJs under a tartan duvet) was charming. She offered me a free newspaper (choice of four), and drinks. Being a Ryanair boy, I almost cried for being showered with such luxuries.

I think I might treasure the Air France cocktail napkin forever.

Weeks without a proper post on these pages, apart from Word of the Day, My Week on the Web and sometimes 7 Things I Did Not Know Last Week.

Not a lack of time per se, but rather a shift in priorities.

A new position at work that's briliant and absorbs me so much I've been enjoying working through lunch almost every day for over a month now.

And when I am not working, I am likely to be playing with the Tytn2 a.k.a. HTC Kaiser a.k.a. T-Mobile MDA Vario III. It's so good it turns heads. One fellow passengerand the cabin crew on the flight tonight asked me where they could get one.

Speaking of the flight, I thought I made a mistake when, after booking, checking in and boarding at gate all with Air France, the airport bus left me in front of a minivan with wings emblazoned with Scot Airways and a lot of tartan everywhere.

Flight surprisingly smooth, and leaving from London City Airport is a treat. We flew very low over the O2 and I can't wait to fly back tomorrow night and peek into the top floors windows of Canary Wharf.

And in between, lots of work meetings.