Thanks to people who pointed out that a 90/270 is a course reversal - that is bleeding obvious to all of us!!!
What I had missed, reading N1EPR's tale, was that he overflew the runway first. He mentions descending above the airfield perimeter but that is what you do on a normal approach too. Nor did he give runway headings. It's hard to read such a big block of text, especially when it's fully justified!
Anyway, it was a good read, albeit wildly off topic
