More IT Smartness

A delegate said her laptop's screen had given up the ghost so she brought it in. Nothing outwardy obvious and pressing the expected buttons did nothing.

We looked for the reset button but couldn't find it. I then removed the battery and found water. Oops!

Huge denials of course.

I reckon the chambermaid knocked a bottle of water over the thing and kept shtum.

DW
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Read the Small Print

It pays to read the small print. You know my car was stolen in December. The insurance company paid out: half of what I thought they should.

Today I called the insurers for my unused premiums back. I was told that the small print says I can't have them back. I checked and found it to be true.

So effectively the money they paid out was virtually nothing.

Top tip then: read the small print AND don't use the NIG insurance company.

DW
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He Works for an Airline ...

... So tell him my favourite aeroplane story!

Made the 1050 flight to Manchester today and just across the aisle from me was a BA cabin crew chappie who was obviously being put in place following their many cancellations.

Following a thumping landing the man sitting next to the BA chappie decided it was time to regale the self same BA chappie with his own favourite iffy aeroplane landing. The listener listened politely and might even have been interested, who knows!

DW
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Long haired and the drum roll

It is a world wide phenomenon I suppose that men who play a guitar or the drums or sing in a group often feel the need to sport long hair or wear a woolly hat. Odd that ... A complete lack of individuality and absolute conformity.

Didn't know that when someone in a group says something funny or witty on stage they STILL earn the right to one of those little drum rolls! Saw this in Bangkok and Pattaya.

DW
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T5 Day 2

Woke really early and saw on the LHR departures board on the telly that my 0630 fight has been cancelled. I looked for options and found a couple. I ate breakfast and left the hotel at around 0530. Even though it was only about 0545 when I got to T5 the customer services queue was already 100 metres long. I would like to be on the 0740 flight. Oink, oink; airborne pork!!!???

0811 and after two and a half hours in a queue to find another flight I was booked onto the flight I missed yesterday ... The 1050.

Noticed 11 customer service desks not open ... That's more than were open!!

Above the desks is a notice saying:

Welcome to our new home

I was ready make a quip about it saying:

Welcome to YOUR new home!

The BA man appreciated my attitude ... Non threatening and non angry and he gave me TWO refreshments vouchers!! 5 quid each.

In the security queue now at around 0830.

What a palaver.

Two more WCs: one with lock broken and the other where the door doesn't meet the jamb so the lock can't do its job even if it wanted to.

I used one the refreshment vouchers at Pret a manger.

DW
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Heathrow Terminal 5: my first impressions

I got to T5 at about 0745 on Sunday morning just over one week after it opened to passengers.

Queues are still delineated by those cheap movable ribbon affairs
I spent a total of around 30 minutes queuing for passport control and security.
Just before passport control they have fenced off an open area with hideous plywood block board painted white
They are taking photos of Brits at passport control and when someone taller or shorter than average turn up, the immigration officer reaches out and manually adjusts the position of the cam ... Even in Thailand they have cameras at passport control that can be adjusted much more sensibly than that
A WC I visited is already leaking and the seat is cracked
It already looks as if it is going to be too full too quickly ... Room for expansion of passengers?
There are no bins near the cash machines so the unwanted receipts will end up on the floor
There seem to be far fewer cash machines than in other parts of the airport
All of the artists' impressions I have seen of T5 before show a very large open plan space whereas the reality is far removed from that

To cap it all my flight to Manchester was cancelled and my luggage has gone missing again. So I am at a hotel for the night.

DW
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Airbus A380

Just arrived at Heathrow from Bangkok and on the way from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 I saw my first Airbus A380, in Singapore Airines Livery. Not sure whether it's the first ever commercial A380 as I read somewhere that three have been delivered so far. I have to say it doesn't look as long as I thought it would.

DW
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Opposite

I know I won't be the first to spot the possible irony in this but I hadn't seen this book until about eight hours ago:

This is what you see on the front cover of a book by Paul Arden:

Whatever you think think the opposite: Paul Arden author of the world's best selling book.

Does that mean it's the worst selling book then? Or that we are meant to believe it is the worst selling book?
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Beijing here we come!

I am more than delighted to tell the world that my daughter Fran has just qualified to represent Britain in her swimming event at the Beijing Paralympics.

I will keep you fully informed at all stages of course.

DW
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Snake in the Grass

We just went for a lovely walk, Tar and me, during which we met a fellow Brit. Just before we met the Brit, however, we came across the smallest snake I have ever seen: no bigger than a pencil in all respects.

 

Of course, that tiny snake was like T Rex to a petite Thai lady so we had to turn round and go back the way we came ... that’s when we met the Brit. We were just beginning to walk around the very nicely landscaped lake at the back of the houses here in Min Buri. Never mind, we then went off in a different direction and had a different but equally lovely walk in the gloaming, as they say in Scotland!

 

We finished our walk by sitting and chatting at the tuk tuk stop: the stop just outside the estate where the larger style tuk tuks stop to take one to the main road and the shops and beyond, around 2 kilometres away. I walked that road last week and whilst that’s not very far, it is when done in 30 degree heat even though it was late afternoon when I did it!

 

So now you know!

 

DW

Baggage problems

I saw on the strap line on BBC World News this morning that an EU Minister has written to the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Milliband to complain about the loss of his luggage as a result of travelling through Heathrow Terminal 5. I will watch this story with interest and if I remember I will also write to David Milliband and ask whether he got involved. If he did, will h get involved in my case too?

 

If Milliband does get involved it will show the world how much of a club these people live in and how little we count for.

 

DW

Dating top tips

Gentlemen, when trying to woo a lady by mail, the following two genuine examples are best avoided

 

·         I don’t have a job, I don’t have any money and I am on benefits but I would like to get to know you ...

·         (Having enclosed a photograph of himself, this gent said) Don’t let the tattoos and scars put you off ...

 

Honestly, I have read these in genuine love letters!

 

DW

 

The Lizard and the Mouse ... possible top tips

What do you do

 

a)      If there is a lizard hiding inside the air conditioning unit?

b)      A mouse hiding behind the wardrobe?

 

a)      DO NOT poke the lizard with a stick so that it runs INSIDE the air conditioner and into the fan blades thus rendering it inoperative and necessitating a call to the air conditioning engineers

b)      RUN AWAY in fright and ask the young slip of a lass of a maid to chase it under your ever watchful eye so that she can catch it with her bare hands and then throw it off the balcony where it either survives or the fall kills it

 

These are possibly top tips.

 

DW

Thai Ladies melt into the Background

If you go shopping in a large supermarket in Thailand with a Thai lady in tow then stay together otherwise you will probably have considerable difficulty finding her later:

 

They are all around 155 centimetres tall

The majority have long black hair

Many of them wear a tee shirt and shorts

 

Top tip that and by way of a bonus it will probably apply across much of South East Asia!

 

On the other hand, if you both have a mobile phone with you and you know each other’s number ...

 

DW

Mugabe

Readers might care to reflect on Kal’s cartoon in this week’s Economist: http://www.economist.com/daily/kallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10881977

 

I have posted this comment on that cartoon with which you may agree with none, some or all:

 

This anti Mugabe cartoon is very perceptive of course. However, how will the world's politicians and other international influential people be held to account when Mugabe wins the up and coming election?

Gordon Brown has made a bit of a stand against Mugabe but he stood alone; although Angela Merkel said some stern things at an EU summit in support of Brown's ideas. Since then?

I have just heard on BBC World news that Morgan Changerai has threatened to withdraw from next week's election if some changes are made to the way the votes are counted. Even he is prepared to throw in the towel and thus will also have blood on his hands.

I visited Zimbabwe late in the 1980s and in the early 1990s. I saw an old colonial State where things seemed to work and, unusually for the Region, where the major roads were brilliant!!

We have to ask how Mugabe has survived so long and with such deleterious effect. Yes he was a freedom fighter. Yes he is seen by some as a hero. But he is reigning over a murderous and financially ruinous regime. Mugabe blames Britain and the US and big business for his country's problems. But Mr Mugabe, you have been President FIVE times already, don't you have enough power to set at least most of your problems straight?

Don't forget the power of the hangers on: those people behind the throne and for whom life is probably exceptionally good.

 

DW

Luggage ... wet luggage?

The luggage eventually arrived then: late in the evening when I was out to dinner and far too late to use in my training sessions. I was a scruff for the two days then! I thought you'd like to know that the case was sopping wet when I got to it and there was water damage to:

• my suit ... it stinks now
• my spare jeans
• six shirts, casual and formal
• black formal socks
• white sports socks

Since it hasn't rained anywhere near Bangkok airport over the last few days I wonder where it got so wet? They also made a real mess of my Emirates Skywards Rewards luggage label: covered it with some hideous to remove sticky paper, I called them at BKK and they offered me GBP35 since I pointed out that they hadn't offered me any money to pay for my replacement shaving tackle, toothbrush and paste, deodorant and so on ... they wanted me to go to the airport and collect it. I told them I want to collect it when I leave the country ... GBP35 isn't enough either as I have had to have all of those items properly laundered. As a very frequent flyer you must appreciate that I tolerate a lot of hassle from a variety of arilines. Losing three sets of luggage since August is too much too:

• one case went for two months
• one case got to me after a week and just two hours before I left for the airport to go home
• this final case could well have been a farewell case except that I am staying on in Thailand for a few days extra

DW

Thongs but no thongs ... And it's a top tip

I am going to be ageist now.

Gentlemen, when you get to a certain age, the gluteus maximus muscles wither. That is not, repeat NOT, the time to start wearing a thong and parade around the swimming pool. Even if you are on holiday and nobody knows you!!!

That is also a top tip!

DW
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Luggage ... what luggage?

So you work for British Airways do you? I wonder how much pride you take in your work and your company?

Following my WEEK in The Sudan without business clothes and toiletries, here I am again waiting THREE days for my luggage to arrive. Again I have had to stand in front of people who really didn't pay to see me turn up in trainers, jeans and a casual shirt.

Clowns to the left of me,
jokers to the right,
here. I am,
stuck in the middle with you.

DW
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Short queues can be the longest

I joined a short queue to board the Manchester to Heathrow flight. Just two people in front of me as opposed to the five or six in each of the other two queues. Beggar me, though, but the scanner wouldn't read the home printed boarding pass of the boy at the front of my queue ... So what price the shortest queue now, eh? I am fated like that and I really am the world's worst queue chooser.

Luckily an opening arose in another queue and I took it. Somewhat immorally in a way as I sort of pushed in a bit. Just a bit; in the way that one can be a bit pregnant!!

On the plane prior to take off to Bangkok as I type this and looking forward to a fruitful few days' worth of work.

DW
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Drug Dealers

This is a simulcast on duncanwil and oxbow

 

Taxi drivers are interesting people: they know a lot about their community and must be a fantastic resource for a wide variety of people and not just taxi passengers either.

 

I heard from my latest taxi driver that in Halifax drug dealers, the ordinary every day young drug dealers are making £6,000  DAY from their evil activities. Now, let’s imagine that this figure is an exaggeration ... how much of an exaggeration, I wonder.

 

These people buy houses too to get their filthy money into legitimate cash streams. They don’t buy for cash since that would look suspicious and they don’t buy more than one house in their own name either. They buy a house for themselves and then another one for their ... father, mother, brother, sister, wife ... who knows. More than that, they put down as much as a 70% deposit and take a mortgage for the rest. These people are potentially buying a couple of houses a month.

 

This news, taking it at face value, rather points the mocking finger at Freakonomics doesn’t it? In the book, reviewed last year by yours truly, they ask the question why so many drug dealers in the US live with their mothers ... the answer is clear: either they don’t or if they do it’s because they are hiding their huge stashes of cash. Easy to pull the wool over some people’s eyes isn’t it?

 

What are the police reported to have responded when told about the activities of these leeches on society? Erm, that they are looking for Mr Big rather than these also rans. Really? £6,000 a day is £42,000 a week and that’s £2.19 million a year. No tax, no records, no bother if the police are after them. Moreover, that’s £2.19 million for EVERY drug dealer operating at the level the taxi driver was talking about.

 

This is obviously a BIG problem when multiplied out onto a national scale.

 

DW