Travelling again

I can be like the rest of us: a sheep in the flock of the airlines. Last night, however, was different.

 

I am currently on my way to Khartoum and was starting my trip with British Airways in Amsterdam. I get to airports early when I am in charge of my arrangements and had a fellow traveller with me who is equally keen to start his journeys early: Dr John Waterhouse, a fellow Tyke. John’s flight to Gatwick was scheduled for 1850, mine to Heathrow at 1915. John’s flight took off on schedule. I then went to go to my gate to find the flight had been set back to 2015 ... strong winds over the UK. I harrumphed, of course; but that wasn’t serious as there was some slack in my itinerary.

 

I ate a slice of pizza and had a coffee.

 

I then saw that my flight had been set back even further, to 2100. That was far too tight for my comfort so I took a decision, having found that KLM was flying to Dubai, the second leg on my four leg journey, to try to be transferred to the KLM flight.

 

I went to the KLM transfer desk to establish the principle of what I wanted to do. I was advised that I would need to buy a new ticket. Yeah, right, I thought! I went for a LONG walk as I went back through passport control and back to the BA check in desk, the only place where I could find any BA staff. The young ladies there were enjoying a slack Friday evening as I arrived and they initially tried to convince me that I should wait to see what happens. I set out a nightmare scenario of the flight being delayed yet again, by as little as just 20 minutes ... and at that point they called someone which led me to being sent 30 metres across the hall to see a man about ticketing. I was expected. I got some griff about not travelling tonight, we will rebook you for travel tomorrow ... I said I’ve got connections to make and he made the valid point that as far as BA was concerned, my journey ended in Dubai. I then said, not for me it doesn’t. I then told my man that KLM has a flight going to Dubai at 2050 and he immediately said, let’s see if we can get you on that then. And he did! And here I am, sat sitting here in Dubai all checked in and waiting in transit to go to Doha for my final flight to Khartoum. Where, of course, Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army fame spent part of Sudanese Campaign in the late 19^th century!!

 

DW

Clever?

Saw this in an advertisement for a tee shirt for an accountant:

 

It’s Accrual World

 

Clever that!

 

DW

What would you do?

A delegate told the group today as we were discussing financial modelling that for his dissertation at University he developed an aeroplane scheduling package for an airline. The airline up until then was scheduling its aircraft using pencil and paper and he felt he could help. His model worked and he graduated. He then offered his model to the airline who said thanks but no thanks. He then said, however, that his supervisor suddenly left the university to go and work for Turkish airlines in a senior position and hasn’t been seen or heard since!

 

Coincidence? What do you think?

 

DW

Comedians at the BBC

It’s getting worse and worse at the BBC now.

 

I have noticed over the last couple of weeks or so that reporters on the BBC have decided that they need to sound their letter S as if they are from some of the central and southern states of the USA, not content with mangling their prepositions and adverbs. This means that an S becomes an Sh ... I heard these today on BBC 1:

 

Shtreets

Exshtreme

Bus shtrikes

Shtruggle

 

Is there a college for language clowns at the BBC now? Can they not take the opportunity to keep the British in the British Broadcasting Corporation?

 

DW

Amsterdam

It’s been a long time since I have been in Amsterdam, 1998 it was and I had forgotten how tall people here are: men and women alike. Now, you know that I am 1.91 metres tall which is pretty tall but I am walking down the streets here and am coming eye to eye with many men and just a few women. Of course, since I learned last night that Holland is the second tallest group of people in the world after the Masai, this should come as no surprise. Moreover, I am also coming eye to chin with some men, too: my eye, their chin.

 

We went on a canal boat tour last night and I haven’t done that since 1998 either. This is a very relaxing way of seeing a city and there are lots of canals to go at. The way these canal boat captains get them round very tight corners is impressive: seamlessly going forward then back then sideways and then forward again round 90 degree corners ... well done!

 

An interesting fact is that there are spaces for 2,500 bicycles outside the Centraal Station (railway); and nearly all of them were taken last night.

 

Speaking of bikes, you really need eyes in your rear end as a pedestrian here: other pedestrians, cars, motor bikes and bikes are all a threat. There are bicycle lanes in some towns and cities in the UK but nothing like this. Moreover, cyclists clearly have right of way either by law or by size and speed so getting in their way isn’t something to be advised I’d say. Add the size of the Dutch to the size of a roadster bike then add speed and confidence and you’ve got the value of ‘C’ ... crunch!

 

DW

Christmas firsts

Here I am sat sitting at Manchester Airport waiting for my flight to Amsterdam via Gatwick and let me record for the good of humanity that I have heard my first renditions of the following songs for 2007:

 

Wham: Last Christmas

Slade: So Here it is Merry Christmas

Paul McCartney: that awful one

An animated version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Various Artists (you know, the has beens and not the first lot): Do they know it’s Christmas?

 

Now, my Christmas season starts on 1^st December so I am not complaining and I have already started to listen to the Christmas songs on my hard drive but I haven’t got to my 3 CD 60 tip top Christmas songs yet: Wham and Slade are definitely there!

 

DW

Windows Vista

Is Windows Vista very fast? Fair question since that is one of its selling points. Nope, not according to the first two weeks that I’ve been running it on my new duo core Turion64 chip with 2Gb of RAM and 250Gb hard drive laptop. I expected a blistering booting speed and haven’t got it. I expect Office to open up like lightening but  have seen it only in fits and starts. Automatic saving in Office can be annoyingly slow with large files too.

 

I have also been experiencing software crashes that I would have thought would have been more rare. On day one I had one. I have had one on average every other day. Yesterday I went to start Windows Media Player ... it wouldn’t start either by using a short cut on the desktop or by clicking directly on an MP3 file. After just two weeks, then, even Windows’ own software is unreliable.

 

I expect these crashes to be sorted out eventually and appreciate that as a relative trailblazer that I would have these experiences. Still, Microsoft has been around for 30 years or so and I read that they have spent $8,000,000,000 on upgrading Windows and Office to get us to Vista and 2007. Where has it all gone?

 

DW