On Monday night I rang 3 local cab firms, who gave varying estimates on the amount of time it might take to get to Heathrow Terminal 4 from Tooting Broadway during rush hour. "An hour and a quarter," said Zam Zam cars, on 8682 4321. "About an hour", said Broadway Cars, on 8672 4321. "I'd say an hour and a half," said Savoy Cars on 8672 6595. I like Savoy Cars, as their name gives me the feeling I've booked a ride in a luxurious air-conditioned Mercedes, right up until the point the horn sounds outside my flat and I see someone waving out of a rusting Ford Zephyr. So, as they had also given me the most conservative estimate, I made the decision to endorse Savoy Cars for my journey, and informed all the major news-gathering organisations.

The car drew up at 7.55am with bits hanging off it. We got in, manouevred our way up to Wandsworth without incident, at which point the driver decided, rather than go around the South Circular to Kew before joining the M4, decided to head further into town, through Putney. I raised my eyebrows, knowing that he couldn't see my eyebrows in the rear view mirror, but nevertheless assumed he knew what he was doing. He may well have known what he was doing, but none of us expected the kind of queue of traffic on the Fulham Palace Road that has people getting out of their cars and wandering up and down the pavement, cursing. I was amongst the first to do this, watching cyclists and buses whizz merrily up the bus lane while Jenny sat there, head in hands and suntan lotion in her suitcase. "This is bad," said the driver, perceptively. "When's your flight?" he asked. 10.50, I told him. Jenny suggested ringing Air Malta. I snapped. "Well, they're not going to hold the f*cking plane just because traffic is snarled up around the Hammersmith flyover, are they?" Jenny, used to dealing with a fat boy with a frayed temper, calmly replied "Just ring them, and find out what's the latest we could check in." I called Air Malta, and a serene gentleman informed me that they would hold the gate until 10.20am. "I'm afraid I cannot personally come and move the traffic," he noted correctly, "but my fingers are crossed for you."

Back in the car we were moving at a rollocking 40cm per hour, and the driver was becoming apologetic. "It's not your fault," I said, my tone implying that, actually, if he'd gone through Kingston-upon-Thames we'd be there by now. The time was now 9.30am, 10 minutes after our alloted check-in time, and we were only up to the junction with Lillie Road SW6. I got out of the car again, looking for a black cab that we could perhaps transfer into and whizz up the still deserted bus lane, for an exorbitant charge. Nothing. "Can't you go in the bus lane?" asked Jenny of the driver, desperately. I was thinking the same, as I'd rather pay the fine than miss the plane. But he looked as if we'd asked him to participate in a vigorous session of satanic sexual abuse, so we fell silent.

At 9.45 we finally reached Hammersmith. Suddenly the roads cleared, and our path westwards was empty, save for a solitary man wandering slowly across the road eating a pre-packed sandwich. "Kill that man!" I exclaimed, with a rush of adrenalin. The driver looked around at me with a terrified look on his face. "Not you, him." said Jenny. "Oh," he replied.

We pulled up at Terminal 4 at 10.10am and rushed through the gates. After a cramped 3 hours journey on an Airbus 319 we landed in Malta, which, contrary to the picture painted by the guidebook, was strewn with rubble.

We'd hired an automatic Daewoo car, which Jenny drove confidently out of the airport carpark and immediately into a building site, full of rubble. Malta has just joined the EU, and various regeneration programmes have turned the skyline from a mass of small Mediterranean houses and occasional domed churches into a parade of cranes, and rubble. Guided by a useless map, we drove through an archway near Valletta where some police were crowding around, looking serious. Later that night, on the Maltese evening news, we watched a 5 minute feature which showed the same police looking concerned at the same archway; apparently someone had sprayed some graffiti on it. The newscaster intoned the word "Vandals" several times during his report. It was clearly a slow news day.

We're staying in a village called Attard for the first couple of nights. Here is a view for you:



Not much rubble, you might be thinking, but I carefully composed the shot to minimise rubble. You can't show holiday snaps to your family while saying "And here's some bits of rubble - awfully nice, they were. From Italy, I think."

I didn't really know much about Malta before I came here - we just stuck a pin in a map, realised we'd stuck it in Libya, and then moved the pin a couple of inches to the right - but the place is absolutely rammed with British people in their 50s. Whenever we told people we were going to Malta, they would generally look at the floor, and say "Oh, right, yes, nice," as if there was something we ought to know. Clearly the rubble and the British contigent was that thing. Well, now we know. But is it going to stop us from having a good time?? Probably not. But last night, as we wandered through the bar, we heard a woman say "You know what? I'm going to have a Gin Fizz!" Amazing.