[gumby]

> Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes.

Maybe to the Costa Del Sol, but not the lovely city of Melbourne.

The overhead of flying from India to Europe makes a 2-3 day holiday pretty unlikely. The flights depart in the middle of the night, and then there is jet lag.

> Can you not go to a conference when in holiday?

That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well.

[seanmcdirmid]

> That is immigration fraud. If you’re a white Australian coming to the UK and doing that I seriously doubt there will be any negative consequence (source: an unofficial comment during an unfortunate visit to the Home Office). People in other situations may not fare as well.

Speaking of Australia, it isn’t clear to me at all if the e-visa Americans have to apply for to visit covers conferences or not. It is weird that Americans require a visa to Australia for a short visit (we don’t have a visa waiver agreement for some odd reason), but at least they make it easy, but if it involves a conference…well, I didn’t look into the e-visa terms very closely on my last visit, and very well could have violated visa terms.