8 hotels, 6 buses, 5 tube journeys, 4 taxis, 3 trains, 2 each plane and luas rides and an innumerable number of pasta-cheese-and-tuna-fish dinners straight out of the pan (courtesy of my trusty electric hotplate, which got up to mischief of its own at John Lennon Airport by impersonating a bomb and forcing me all the way back through security…