OKINAWA

There are two ways to get to Okinawa, Japan's southernmost province (of which more, on page 20). One is to fly non-stop to Tokyo and take a quick domestic flight. But if you are saving money, you will do what I did and endure a 26-hour journey via Heathrow, Amsterdam and most other airports in the northern hemisphere.

To make matters worse, as soon as the China Airlines flight took off from Amsterdam a veritable Yangtse of water flooded down the aisle from business class to the poorer quarters of economy. For the next 6,000 miles the cabin crew squelched around the cabin. The malfunction in the water supply meant that half the loos had to be closed for the flight, resulting in twice the queues.

The return flight took 33 hours, a duration which would allow you to fly to Australia and half-way back. So what is the longest air journey possible to London? The rules: nothing tricky such as changing airports is permitted, and airport layovers must be at the airline's insistence rather than yours. The prize: a floppy disc edition of the ABC World Airways Guide, so you can plan a better route next time.

Death is insufficient reason to qualify for a refund at one Paris hotel. That, at least, is what Graham Webb of London was told when he asked for a refund after his mother was injured on her way to the French capital.

"I arranged last month to take my mother to Paris on Eurostar for her 90th birthday, and gave the Hotel Recamier in St Sulpice a cheque for over Fr1,000 (pounds 130)," writes Mr Webb. "Unfortunately my mother fell on the escalator at Waterloo International just before boarding the train. No fault of Eurostar, but a laceration of her shin and lots of blood. Excellent first aid on the platform, an ambulance to St Thomas's where the wound was dressed, and eventually a taxi home. End of birthday treat."

Mr Webb called the hotel to cancel the booking, but says the manager refused to return the money. "Meme pas la mort", he was told.

Eurostar was much more generous. The company offered a full refund or a change of dates for the (officially non-refundable) tickets, and sent a bouquet of flowers to Mr Webb's mother.

Last week we bemoaned the fact that Greenwich, rather than Cleethorpes, is the world's prime meridian - even though the line of zero longitude runs through the Humberside resort, too. Now a reader, who requests anonymity, adds that the marker of the meridian has a special significance to people like her who grew up in Cleethorpes.

"The car-park around the monument functions as the local Lovers' Lane," she writes. "Most nights there's more action there than in the whole of Lincolnshire put together." She confesses that her first amorous experiences took place in a car parked astride the meridian, and suggests "As well as a mile high club, what about a zero degrees club?". Readers should note that other exotic destinations on the meridian are Accra, Benidorm and Boston (Lincs, not Massachusetts).