Philip Blazdell requests your presence in England

Philip Blazdell has written at least 70 articles for BootsnAll (here's one of his latest stories), and he's one of the first members who ever signed up. Nick got to meet up with him back in December, and it looks last — at long last — that it's my turn. Here's an email I got from him on Friday:
“Ant, do not think for a second that you aren't going to at least spend a night stopping with Sas, Max and I when you come over to the uk…

“Let me know when you arrive and I will pick you up from the airport and give you a few days here to chill out… no excuses now – after nick’s trip over you have a lot of hard drinking to live up to… Philip p.s if you need a head-up on travel or cheap flights or some contacts over here let me know.”
Hmmm… my one concern? I’m a Yank, Nick’s a Brit; do I at least get a handicap on my drinking? Say I start a pint or 2 ahead? Maybe I’ll just have to train more in Oregon. I wrote Philip back Friday afternoon, and here’s the response that was waiting for me over my Monday morning coffee:
“Ant,
“no worries mate. I will try to give you a call from work this week to see if i can offer more wise words on europe – I can definitely hook you up with folks in Sweden, Greece, and Holland – maybe a few others as well who can give you floor space.
“Sas and I agree [that] to see the UK we are in a prime place and you are more than welcome to use chez Blazdell as a base whilst you explore the UK – we can hook you up with rail cards etc and drop you off each morn at the station – e.g london 30 mins, york 2 hrs. manchester 2 hrs etc….let us know if this is attractive…
“We could also plan a trip to Wales or Kent if you have time and the inclination – we could do this over the weekend and book a nice b and b or something – again, let us know if its interesting to go somewhere by car with us..
“Also, if you want to go a short hop with me to somewhere like amsterdam, sweden, oslo or somewhere else like that we can do that for a weekend from here for about 10 pounds return…
“I have some friends in sweden who have a summer house, but for my money oslo is lovely……
“I also plan to try to hook up with you (if you like) whilst you are travelling – if I am close on business I will take a detour to buy you a beer…”
anyway, hope this helps a bit…
cheers
philip