Review of 2013

The last posting for another year and the end of the fourth year of this blog; Time seems to be passing so fast these days. 2014 brought 118 flights totalling 331 hours and visiting 45 different airports in 25 different countries flying 247,500Km. I created 31.5 tonnes of CO2 1.68Kgs of methane (by flying before you ask) and 1.37 tonnes of Nitrous oxide.  

Businesswise I thought 2012 was tough but 2013 was tougher still, I ended up having to close down businesses in the France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. but my businesses in the Czech Republic and Warsaw had a storming year making more money than all the other businesses put together over the last five years.  2014 should leave me clear to expand these business again but there are a couple of icebergs that have to be navigated in the last quarter of the year.  Closing the businesses has reduced my travel slightly but increased the distance travelled on each flight, I took 5 less flights but flew over 50 hours more than 2012. I see this trend continuing in 2014 with three visits to the Far East already planned and one of these extending across the Pacific to Hawaii.  

Highlights for 2013 were my first visit to the South pacific with a visit to Fiji and my first visit to Hong Kong for a number of years. I still get a huge amount of pleasure about my volunteering in the local school Football club and ATC unit. Being a workaholic these allow me to divert my attention away from my “work” to other “work”.

2014 has, as I indicated, three trips to the Far East along with other European trips and I am sure a number of other trips as well.         

Sri Lanka

After getting back from Fiji I was quickly off to Sri Lanka, and once again I had a small amount of spare time one evening. we walked out of the Hotel and stopped by a the beach, there were plenty of tuck tuck's passing us and trying to encourage us to use them for a tour. we were also being pushed by "passers by " to take a tour of their beautiful city" and visit the Buddhist temple where there was a big Festival about to start with Elephants. After a while of turning them down we picked one at random and allowed them to take us on the tour, as is the case with these sort of thing the price was difficult to pin down but we did not think it would be much. At the temple there was no festival but there was an elephant. The Elephant was a baby and obviously in some mental distress as it was chained on its rear left and front right foot and had very little ability to move. we were being encouraged to pay to feed it. when we were dropped back at the beach the discussions started about the fee, they tried to scam us but only for the equivalent of 15 Euro, we negotiated it down to 10 Euro and then paid him. I hate the bitter taste this sort of thing leaves and was distinctly uncomfortable about the elephant but there was nothing I could do about it.         

Church in Fiji

for the rest of my spare time in Fiji I opted for an organised tour of the local area. The tour included some time in a local village called "First Landing" as part of the village tour they took us into the Church, They follow Christianity. What interested me was the seating layout in the Church, During the service the adults are segregated by sex with the men and women sitting either side of the isle facing the alter, Grandparents sit in the to the left of the isle and children to the right of the alter. The third photograph shows the area where the village chief sits behind the children. Being a “chief” he gets a fan which is the only air conditioning in the building.

The Fijian tribal system has an interesting aspect to it, you are born into a specific role in the community so if you are born into the family of a fisherman you have a responsibility to feed the village, if you are born a chief then at some point on your live you may become the village chief. When the chief dies the village come together and vote for the new chief, they can only vote for people born into a “chief” family if you are from a fishing family you are not eligible to stand in the election.           

    

Cars in Fiji

Its been a busy few months and I have had very little time for the blog, now its Christmas things have slowed down a little and I have time to catch up.

I was in Fiji in October, this was a new destination for me I did not have much spare time but I found myself next to a used car dealer for a small amount of that spare time. Cars on Islands tend to be more expensive, they have to be shipped to the islands and this makes them easy targets for taxation in the form of import duties. looking at the costs of these cars they are more than double the price that they would be in the UK. this  Inevitable means that cars are very much a luxury item and therefore most people do not have them and those that do have them tend to have a basic car.

   

An great man died today

I heard late last night of the passing of Nelson Mandela, a truly extraordinary human being. And I think that David Cameron summed it up well when he said that “Nelson Mandela was not just a hero of our time but a hero of all time” I have visited Robin Island three times and on the occasion when I took the photograph was present to see Nelson Mandela receive the Olympic flame. That for me was an iconic day. When he walked out it was immediately obvious his body was broken and walking was really difficult for him, when he spoke it was clear his mind was as sharp as ever and you could hear a pin drop. There was a real charisma around him that I cannot describe other than that it was a very physical feeling and talking to other people they say the same thing about Bill Clinton.

For me the key thing that made him a hero was his extraordinary lack of bitterness about what had happened to him and his desire for reconciliation, somehow against all the odds he managed to pass this spirit and this message to an entire nation. I don’t believe we will see the likes of him again in my lifetime.

RIP Nelson Mandela                 

 

E Boarder’s fiasco

After my weekend in Turkey I had a day in Hamburg on the following Friday. It’s a regular trip and I know the journey well, It involves leaving one London Airport and returning in the evening to another one, neither of which is my “local” airport. The weather conditions on this day were forecast to be blustery. The return flight left Hamburg on time and all seemed to be proceeding as normal but as we descended below the cloud on the final approach I thought the ground looked familiar, as we touched down I thought I recognise this airport and we had in fact just landed at my local airport some 10 minutes from my house, I assumed that the weather had been too bad to land at the airport we were scheduled to arrive at and that we would turn right off the runway and make our way to the terminal. We then turned left and headed to the anti-terrorist hijack stand, at this point I could see things going pear shaped for me especially as I was leaving for LA and Fiji the next morning. Once we arrived the engines were shut down and the captain made a PA to the passengers saying we have been instructed to land here by the UK boarder control agency and that we should not use our mobile phones. After a small while some steps were brought up to the aircraft and the police boarded and after speaking to the crew made their way towards the back of the aircraft and stopped by a row of seats occupied by a youth football team. After a few moments it became apparent there had been a HUGE error made by the UK Boarder agency.

The UK have a voluntary scheme where all names are transmitted by the airlines to a database prior to the departure, these names are then checked for outstanding arrest warrants and against anti-terrorist watch lists this is all done before departure and if there is a suspected terrorist on board then they are supposed to be removed from the aircraft prior to departure. On our flight for whatever reason the names were not checked until after the aircraft had departed which prompted a request from the UK government to divert the flight, to ensure the safety of the UK they scrambled 2 Typhoon fighter aircraft to escort us into the airport at huge costs. So who was this suspected terrorist it turns out he plays for a Danish U12’s football team and was coming to the UK for a long weekend of football matches against other youth football teams. It took about an hour to resolve this and then they said it was all fine and that they would fly us back to the airport where we were supposed to be going. Several of us said thanks but no thanks and we would like to get off here, sorry that’s not possible they said, that’s too complicated and not allowed. We argued for some time but to no avail and it became apparent that we were not going to be allowed off, not willing to risk being arrested we complied and were flown back to our original scheduled airport where we caught a bus back to my local airport arriving some five hours after first arriving at the airport earlier in the day.

 

The mad month of October

 

I have not posted to the blog for a few weeks due to the pressures on work, on the flying side I spent two minutes below seventy eight hours on aircraft between the 2^nd October and the first of November spread over 14 flights. I worked every weekend bar one in one form or another visited 8 countries and was diverted inflight due to an anti-terrorist scare on a flight I was on.  I will over the course of the next few blog postings try to catch up on things. At least November is slowing signs of slowing down a little on the travel front with my first flight since the 1^st being today the 17^th with a quick 24 hour round robin from Home to Lille and then to Bordeaux and back home again.

Uncomfortable

After Iceland I travelled to Antalya in Turkey where I was providing support to an event management company who were managing a corporate incentive program for an online gaming company. My role was to ensure that the two charter flights that the customer had paid for went without any problems. The event management company had arranged for me to stay in the all inclusive resort that the incentive group were staying in. I arrived late on Friday night and spent most of Saturday at the airport making the arrangements for the departure in the evening I was back at the Hotel but the group and the events management people had the Gala Dinner that is common at these events. This left me to eat on my own and I have rarely felt more out of place. The resort had several big buffet restaurants but all were set up for families or couples, no one goes on holiday on their own!!. I was the only person eating on my own. I felt if everyone’s eyes were on me saying “look at him he is on his own”, I ate quickly and left for the room. Tomorrow is all day at the airport before an early night and then a 4AM pickup on Monday back to the airport so just one more night of “Billy no mates” to suffer.  

Car Rental in Iceland

I spent a night in Iceland this week, this was an unusual map in the car hire centre at Keflavik Airport, It would seem that in Iceland hiring a car only allows you to drive to a small part of the country. I asked an Icelandic friend about the reason for this and it would seem that the driving conditions are less than ideal in the interior with glaciers and crevices large enough for cars to simply disappear into.      

Lost in translation

I found this sign near the Eiffel tower. Make sure you don't loose your children !!!!

Paris has a reputation for good food and I have to admit I enjoyed it immensely but I don't think they were doing their best at making the herring fillet sound appetising  

what a view

I found myself at the Greenwich Observatory recently and was very taken by the stunning view of the London Docklands, I was really taken by the parklands and then the view of the tower blocks. I suppose that, given these tower blocks are home to a significant part of the financial district known as the "City", that the tower blocks in this view collectively have a total economic output higher than some countries.    

Lost in Translation

http://news.tj/en/news/dushanbe-airport-imposed-restrictions-takeoff-and-lending-aircrafts

so .... don't lend your aircraft to anyone; it seems there are no restrictions on landing however

I cant understand why this has never caught on

This is one of the best inventions of French cuisine; I don’t understand why it has not caught on. Cafe Gourmand is a desert common in France; it consists of four mini deserts and an espresso coffee all served on a single plate, the deserts are rarely listed on the menu but on is usually a crème Brule giving a sense of randomness to the dish . The deserts are a perfect size to allow a couple of mouthfuls and getting the coffee at the same time is perfect. All in all a piece of culinary genius      

something I cannot understand

This is something I have a lot of difficulty understanding, how must the woman feel? She is being treated as nothing more than an object. I know it’s the local custom and normally I am a respecter of local custom, after all there is no saying that western values are correct, but this is something I will never understand.  Why is it right that women are treated like this and traded as nothing more than a possession and advertised in the local paper?    

Interesting driving school

I was in the Middle East last week, things are done differently there and what we would take to be “normal” rules for western society do not always apply. The advert above for a local driving school it is not clear to me why free transport is only available for Men only, I am guessing that there would never be an unaccompanied woman so they would not need to provide transport as her escort could provide the transportation. I also wonder how much training is actually provided before the test. To be fair most people are in the country for work and will already be able to drive so it should just be a conversion to the local licence.   

Lost in Transation

At the event today there were a number of documents related to Stansted in the war the "secret note" in the middle of the map made me laugh. it wasn't very secret

Humbled by a big story

I attended a tree dedication ceremony to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the completion of the runway at Stansted Airport. The star guest at the event was Major Edward W Horn an 88 year old veteran who flew B26 bombers from Stansted in WW2. He was offered the chance to say a few words and what a story he told, I have copied the article from the local paper below as they recorded the story better than I ever could. It was simply amazing how much history he had lived through and how matter of fact he was about it. I felt truly moved and humbled..... I could have listened to him for hours. Only once before have I been in the presence of such a person and that was when I was in the VIP lounge in Keflavik airport in Iceland with a veteran of the Normandy landings, again it was an amazing story told in a matter of fact way.

 

Airport chaplain Chris Bishop led the memorial and along with six local air cadets, he read the names of the all 97 members of the 344th Bomb Group, known as the Silver Streaks, who made the ultimate sacrifice before Major Horn placed a memorial wreath by the tree and gave an emotional speech which visibly moved all those listening.

He said: "Seventy years ago I was a 19-year-old young man, just got my commission and wings and was assigned to the 344th Bomber group in Florida, where I learned to fly a B26 Martin Marauder.

"It had a bad reputation in those days. We had a lot of accidents and they called it the 'widowmaker'. I apologise to the ladies, but it was also called the 'flying prostitute', because it had no visible means of support."

After initial training, the young pilot was transferred to Savannah in Georgia, where he picked up his aircraft, signing a receipt for the Us government to the tune of £192,000.

"I said 'hey, am I responsible for this?' He said 'no worries – the aircraft is expendable and so are you’."

He was then moved to West Palm Beach in Florida, where he now lives, and from there he and his comrades made the 9,000 nautical miles flight to England to join the war effort, arriving in February 1944.

Their first mission was in March and the first casualties soon followed. Two aircraft and two men were lost, trying to fly in fog and cloud before the bombing raids to France, Belgium and the Netherlands even began.

Their first target was the V1 and V2 rocket bases which were terrorising London.

The 344s also played a key role in D-Day. Major Horn said: "They had to honour of leading four groups into Omaha Beach and it was a very successful mission."

It was also the day the group lost the aircraft he had signed for. It blew up and the crew was lost, but Major Horn was not on board and did not take part in the assault on June 6, 1944.

Just days before, on May 28, he was shot down over Amiens in northern France. He said: "My crew got show down and out of the six man crew, two were killed, machine-gunned as they parachuted."

Two comrades were picked up by the French resistance and Major Horn was one of two captured by the Germans, beginning a stint in a series of prisoner of war camps.

First he was taken to Stalag Luft III in Silesia, immortalised in the classic war film, The Great Escape. Unlike in the movie, which featured American icon Steve McQueen, the escape was an entirely British enterprise as the fliers from each country were kept apart.

Major Horn said: "The RAF were outstanding engineers and they were great at building tunnels They made plans to get 200 of their people out - no Americans were involved.”

Unfortunately although the tunnel, called Harry, emerged outside the prison camp’s fence, it was too close to the guards and their dogs and only 76 were able to make a bid for freedom before the tunnel entrance was discovered and all but three men were recaptured.

Major Horn said: “Fifty of them were murdered on Adolf Hitler’s orders and they cremated their bodies and sent them back to the camp.”

Next Major Horn was sent to Berlin before being moved to a site near Nuremberg – which made him a prime target for Allied bombers trying to finish off the Third Reich.

He said: “I spent my time in a slit trench with a board over my head, there was bombing day and night.”

He was finally liberated from Stalag VII in April 1945. by General George Patton and his troops.

Major Horn, who is a member of the Military Officers Association of America, the Order of the Daedalians, the Caterpillar Club, and The American Ex-POWs, and was past Commander of the Suncoast Chapter of the American Ex-POWs, told the audience: “He said ‘I bet you bastards are glad to see me’.”

Breaking away from the office orbit

The travel dried up for a few weeks and I this combined with a short term management responsibility for an head office based company has meant that I have not been on the road for over a month this means a 150 mile daily commute around the M25.  A few trips recently came up and I started to get the back on the road “buzz” The first was last week and it was an easy day trip to Dublin to see a potential client, the second is this week and it’s  and “educational” for a junior broker where we will fly with an aircraft to Aqaba and back, that one is 26 hours with 5 hours in an hotel in Germany and the rest flying then there are a couple of long haul trips later in the year with visits to Doha and Montreal.

It’s nice to be home but there is also a buzz about the travelling.    

My how things have changed

well times really have changed, I was in San Remo the other week and noticed this set of tiles for some well known European football teams. a few years ago I would have never expected to see Manchester City merchandise at a stand like this, now its everywhere which shows what several billion pounds can buy  

A Colleague of mine was trying to resolve his expenses, judging by the pile it might take some time

Lost in translation

The thought of eating a cricket shirt never passed my mind

No time to stand and stare

 

Well it’s been a busy month and I have had little time to consider any blog entries. I did have to spend a week at a conference in one of my favourite cities in the world .... Vancouver. The city has a really relaxed West Coast vibe and I was lucky enough to visit during a spell of Perfect weather, I have a theory that the weather is always perfect but the residents tell you it rains a lot to stop everyone moving there.  The conference hotel was the Bayshore by Stanley Park a perfect location in a perfect city.

I had allowed an extra day whilst I was there and spent it out on the Water looking for whales; I had not quite appreciated how fantastic the scenery would be. Another treat for me is a visit to, what for me, is one of the best restaurants in the world, the Fish House in Stanley Park. The food is outstanding, the prices are reasonable and you can get a table so long as you book on the day... everything a restaurant should be.

Excess baggage

I recently looked after a charter flight for the company, the agreed procedure is that all the baggage is checked in under my name, this generated a huge excess baggage charge. Fortunately as we had chartered the entire aircraft they agreed to waive it.

It's not Cricket

This cricket field has been destroyed by Badgers, apparently they scratch off the turf to get at some sort of work they like to eat, in doing so they make the cricket field totally unplayable for the entire season.

Keeping on the cricket theme is this some sort of subliminal message on the ball?

Lost in Translation

I saw this in Barcelona last week, is it a drink for you pet or just a Spanish brand name?

Lost in Translation

dont sit on the bench barefoot then ........

Lost in Translation

and the surprise is .........

politically correct

This is the gents sign at the Prague office... nothing wrong here !!

 

 

This would not pass in the UK however .......

Planes Trains and Automobiles

The last couple of days have been a bit of a round Europe wiz…. I started off in London on the Friday morning before flying to Zurich via Dusseldorf which was the cheapest way by some considerable margin and had the added benefit of leaving from my local airport. After I arrived in Zurich I checked the arrangements for the flight the next day, picked up the boarding cards and caught the shuttle but to my hotel. An hour later I was out of the hotel and back to the airport to catch the train downtown to meet my customer at the stage door of the venue to go through the arrangements and hand over the boarding cards so she could distribute them to the passengers. I was fortunate that the customer had made arrangements for me to be invited to the gig which is always great. I am sure I looked out of place though as everyone else was in groups or couples and I was “billy no mates” on my own. This was the first time I have been to a gig in Switzerland and I was surprised to see a number of large signs warning about excessive noise and possible Tinnitus from attending the event. Every person was given a set of disposable ear plugs before they went to their seats, very odd. The gig itself was fantastic as always and at 10:30 I was outside the venue and running for the train that I made by moments as I did the 11PM connecting shuttle bus to the hotel.

The next day I was tasked with looking after the personal baggage of the group and ensuring that it is all checked in without problems, there are 122 passengers and 233 bags at a total of 5077Kgs the heaviest bag being 42Kgs. The porters and check in staff were very efficient and I managed to get the baggage processed within 45 minutes of it arriving at the airport.

 

The flight was a short one to Turin being just 40 minutes in length and passing over the alps at quite a low level, As ever they were stunning after arriving in Turin it took me about 45 minutes with the porters to get the baggage loaded onto the trucks and away to the hotel leaving me just needing to get home. The person in charge of the baggage trucks very kindly offered me a lift to Turin central station. It turns out he must be a wanabee tram driver, at least that’s what I assume he was because when we hit the outskirts of town he decided to dispense with the road and drive down the tram tracks. This was fine until we caught up with a tram and then we had to also stop at the tram stops.  After a couple of stops he got bored with this and pulled out and drove the next three miles on the “wrong track” before re-joining the road system to drop me at the station, Fortunately there were no oncoming trams. Strange as it sounds It did not seem to be unsafe at all, just very odd.

 

 The next stage of the journey was to Milan central station which it turns out is another amazing and vast building not unlike Leipzig Hbf. Finally it was the bus to Bergamo and then the Ryanair flight home and the end of another 19 hour day

Stating the obvious

take a look at the allergy advice on this jar of English Mustard .... contains Mustard, are there really people so stupid that they need to publish this?

Lost in translation

do they accept clothes as well?

One country, two systems

 

 

When I lived in Hong Kong it was a British colony, in 1997 it revered to China with an agreement that for 50 years it would operate as “one country two systems”. In simple terms this means that China would remain communist and without the relative political freedoms that were enjoyed by the people in Hong Kong whereas the Chinese Government would not interfere with Hong Kong. At the time Hong Kong’s position as a trading port and primary commercial point of access to China meant that changing things could potentially harm China. Slowly things seem to be changing and this was noticeable to me in two area’s firstly the newspapers are not as politically free as they were and this is obvious when you read them, the second one was to me a little more shocking. The pictures above were banners hanging at the Kowloon terminal of the Star Ferry.

Falun Gong is a “spiritual discipline” that “combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with a moral philosophy” according to Wikipedia. It has been effectively outlawed in China where it is perceived as a threat to the power of the communist party. It is, however, still allowed in Hong Kong. Taiwan or the Republic of China has long been a thorn in the side of China and the Beijing government would like to see it return to the fold and become part of mainland China. The anti Taiwan and Anti Falun Gong banners are signs of how Hong Kong is slowly becoming more Chinese, the loss of freedom this entails is deeply worrying to me.             

Hong Kong

It has been a mad start to the month with Doha, Hong Kong, and Prague in the first 16 days and all separate trips. Hong Kong is an amazing city; I grew up there and was asked by my hosts what had changed in the 25 years since I was last there. My answer is "everything and nothing" by which I mean the city is still about trade and making money; because space is severely constrained almost nothing is allowed to remain beyond its useful lifespan. This constant change means whilst I could see “ghosts” of the Hong Kong I knew and physically there were a lot of memories everything was “different but the same”   

 

This would be a typical scene in Hong Kong, land is hugely valuable and the only way is up, when they need to develop an area the old building comes down and the new one goes up, there will be a huge amount of cranes within the site and everything will move very fast. This was a Sunday morning but the site was still working.

 

I found this to be unusual; one of the key things the Hong Kong Government ensures is that there is a cheap and reliable transportation system to get the population to work. Unusually the off peak fares are more expensive than the peak fares.    

 

 

There is a huge amount of migrant Pilipino labour in Hong Kong, generally they work in the “domestic help” sector maids working for a family will work six days a week and will have a room in the flat of the family they are working for. They can earn far more doing this than they can earn “at home” in a skilled job such as nursing. Sundays is generally their day off and they congregate in huge numbers around in Central. There was lots of talking and trading of sim cards and Pilipino foods. As I walked along the raised walkway the noise they were making and the amount of people standing around I was reminded of birds roosting in the trees.       

Lost in Translation

I was in Hong Kong last weekend; it is a treasure trove for my “lost in translation” segment. These are just three of the photo’s I took.

 

 

 

Som shop names dont translate well, some where in Hong Kong there is a "Lee Key boots and shoes" shop. hours of fun can be had looking through a telephone directory ........ 

 



 

there is an isotonic drink called "Sweat" would you drink a glass of sweat? 

 

and finally this really does have to come under the heading of "WFT" it was on display in the duty free shop at the airport, it is some sort of Chineses Liniment Ointment but they really need to redesign the applicator (or do they?) 

 

 

Feeling old

The 1^st January is a public Holiday in the UK, so the family and I went to the Science Museum in London, I had a feeling of being old.... there was a display on telecommunications and there was a phone with a dial on it. I had to explain to my youngest son how a phone with a dial actually worked. At the end of my explanation he asked me how you text on it !!!!