Friday April 18 2008 - Goodbye Leeds. Goodbye Weymouth. By car and train we travelled to Stansted airport and arrived with two hours to kill. Almost immediately we began making new friends.

“He looks like a goldfish,” said Brodos to the lady at the check-in desk as she eyed up our passports.

“He thinks I look like a goldfish,” I added, helpfully. She smiled pleasantly, passport-related humour doubtless a great novelty for her.

“Did you pack your bags yourself?” she asked.

“Yes,” we replied.

“Did anybody give you anything to carry?” she asked.

“Just that guy with the 12 kilos of heroin,” said Brodos. She stopped smiling pleasantly.

“Do you want to be searched? I am serious. Do you want to be searched?”

“Er…no. No, it was a joke.”

“It is not funny to joke about that. You want all your bags to be searched?”

We didn’t want all our bags to be searched. Not that we were carrying anything untoward - besides the 12 kilos of heroin - but it didn’t sound like fun.

“You will need to take your bags to the oversized luggage check-in,” she said. Our bags, both rucksacks, featured straggly straps flapping in all directions, a pair of ticking time bombs evidently itching to play havoc with Stansted’s conveyor belts and bring the airport to a halt. We trundled towards the desk with our tails between our legs.

“You have something in your shoe?” asked the oversized luggage man. His suspicions were not unfounded, as both of my shoes had feet in. It emerged, however, that his interest was focused on the pair of shoes inside my bag. I unzipped the top compartment to reveal said shoes, crammed beside a hair dryer and two kinds of gel. Hair products and footwear. Of all the pockets to search, it had to be the gay one. I rifled through it for his amusement.

“And there is something in the shoe,” he said, a probing statement this time rather than a question. At moments like these, every crime you have ever committed tends to flash before my eyes. What could be in there, I wondered. What terrible forbidden item had I absent-mindedly stowed inside my trainers? Were 12 kilos of heroin small enough to hide inside a size nine shoe?

There was nothing in there. My new friend waved us on and we headed for the next search.

I used to work in an airport. Most days I would pass through its metal detector, eventually learning just which items would set it bleeping and trigger an embarrassing pat down from a familiar face. Thus I was prepared at Stansted, keys and phone and wallet readied to place inside the x-ray tray, like a good passenger.

Brodos, meanwhile, was composed of at least 20 per cent metal. Not only is he pierced above and below the neck - more on that later, and it's not pleasant - but he had also chosen a belt coated in huge silvery chunks. It's the kind of belt which needs a second belt to hold it up. Unsurprisingly, he bleeped. Equally unsurprisingly for those who know him, he also seemed to enjoy the fondling that followed from the security clerk.

But before long we were aboard the plane, bound for the snowy delights of Finland with a one way ticket. We had precious little to keep us entertained - just books, comics, in-flight magazines, iPods, digital cameras, snacks, Nintendo DS consoles with at least 10 games and, if the worst came to the worst, each other’s company.

The engine roared and the aeroplane chugged into life. Seat belts on, eyes fixed out the window, we lurched, accelerated and left the comforting embrace of solid ground, our ridiculous holiday now undeniably real.

Goodbye England, goodbye motherland, goodbye day jobs and ironing and scones and chips and proper cups of tea. Goodbye to our home for a combined total of more than half a century. Stay as we leave you, stay as you have always been and welcome us back safe in 19 long days, as if we had never departed.

Goodbye real life. Hold that image of us steady in your mind, for we are heading into the Internet, and tomorrow we may be nothing more than ones and zeros.