Bummble-Bee Holiday Travel

February 24, 2010

Everyone dreads the Christmas holiday period whether they admit it or not. Irrespective of the family members who you are attempting to be nice to in the spirit of the time of year. It may grate when you suddenly find yourself loosen your belt or pants again just when you thought the Thanksgiving bonanza had almost worn off of its unintended parts of your body. No, it seems the worst part to the holiday season is the travel involved. It matters little if you are the traveler or if you are waiting for the person who is traveling, events always seem to cast a dim glow upon the entire proceedings.
Take the example of two travelers from Reading who happen to be visiting the wife's family in say a contry in Eastern Europe. I will not name the country, simply refering to it by a false name of P and say perhaps the city may be W being their final destination.
The flight is destined to leave Heathrow early in the morning. Departure is around ten am. Minor problem, a snow storm arrives the night before and yes, as I have stated before, snow cripples England. Leaving their small apartment a.k.a. "flat" at four o clock in the morning to try to catch the four forty five bus to make sure they can make it, our intrepid travlers drag their fifty pound suitcases through four inches of snow about one mile. Let me make a minor correction, the husband drags the suitcases through the snow, slush and water because the English can't figure ot how to clean off their sidewalks, but why bother complaining.
After being told by the bus company the first bus went out, but they wouldn't know if they were sending out another until the first made it to Heathrow and reported, the intrepid travlers were told they should take the train as it was most likely the best way to get there. Inner shudder of fear and distrust passes through the husband upon being told this. Yes the same trains who can't get traction becase of leaves. Yes the same trains who get cancelled because of a dusting of snow or a hint of cold air. Yet, on this occasion, I must commend them, they actually got our train through. I feel sorry for the follow on passengers as I already saw the next few trains were being cancelled as we boarded ours. I, of course did not mention this to my other half. Crazy, not stupid.
Going through check in, one of our boarding passes refused to be printed. It seems there was an error and we would have to stop when we hit our airport change. Oh, yes from London we went to Prague then onto W flying the Czech national airline. No problem, we got our flight landed in Prague and went to check in our outstanding boarding pass. It seems however our seats were no longer together. Her seat was 6c while my seat was 9B. Asking the nice lady if it was possible to switch seats, she hit a few buttons on her computer and said, "No, I am sorry, bt the plane is full." Ok, we'll just ask someone to switch with us.
Arriving at the departure gate, there seems to only be about twenty people milling about. A little while later, they call to begin the boarding. Twenty people move into the line and one person looks out the window to see. . . . . No plane!!!!!!!! Asking my wife, "Did the Polish oops I mean P government upset the Czech airlines or something?" She laughs. Trooping down the boarding ramps from the first floor to the ground floor, we are calmly herding in a waiting airport bus.
At this point, I again count heads and it seem there is only twenty people in the bus as it pulls away from the gate. "Are you sure your government didn't upset the Czechs somehow?" She laughs. At this point the bus seems to be driving across the country giving us a full tour of the runway and airport and runway and hey I have seen this place before. Seeing a small passenger jet, I point it out to my wife, porobably that one. Nope, we continue our scenic jaunt. Past the midsize turbo props. "Seriously, did your government?" She shoots me a dirty look. We continue to drive.
The bus then makes a hard left turn. Why, at this point we are making a hard turn as we are near the ass end of nowhere on a airport runway, I can not fathom. Where we pull up to a small turbo prop aircraft being loaded by one baggage handler. "I just saw our suitcases." To which my wife replied, "You are joking!?" This should not be construed as a question and you should be under no illusion as to you should answer. The baggage handler finishes loading the bags including all carry on luggage bigger than a laptop, the pilot rolls down the window and is handed a small piece of paper. I am hoping at this point it is not the instructions to a) how to drive it or b) how to get there. Also at this point, a laugh escapes with the thought about the P government and upsetting the Czechs. Didn't ask. Crazy not stupid remember? We calmly board the plane to be welcome aboard by the single stewardess and the two pilots. They can turn around from the cockpit and talk to the people in the front row if the stewardess hasn't deployed her chair.
We rearrange our seats with some poor understanding soul and the bummble bee takes us into the air and on our way to W. You know you are flying slow and low when there is no talk about the masks dropping from the ceiling for pressure loss and the brace position for a crash is don't worry about it. Announcements from the captain can't be heard over the engines. It is a Saab by the way with ashtrays in the arm rests. Fun to play with when you are a kid annoying your parents, but worrying when I can barely remember when they stopped putting them in airplanes. Your butt and body get a free complimentary upgrade vibration massage though and a selection of water, three juices and mini cans of coke. Oh, the life of luxury.
The pilot had a sense of humor though. Everytime he made an announcement involving our one stewardess, he referred to the "entire cabin crew." Even the stewardess laughed.
We eventually landed in W. tired and well shaken.
It was only a few days until the traditional Christmas would exact its toll. Walking away from the bummble bee plane, "Yep, your governement must have really upset the Czechs." Ok, maybe a little bit stupid, definitely crazy.

Taxes from heaven

February 05, 2010

Well, the great snow storms of 2009 have passed into the repository of history for England. The complications and lessons continue to be learned from the ability of English way of doing things. Most people will remember the rallying cry of the American colonies during the Revolution. This should be remembered as freedom from the English way of doing things. Well, who can forget the catchy slogan of no taxation without representation. It is not for me to complain abot the Chancellor being able to adjust taxes for the entire country on a whim. How about we raise the tax on everything because we can't manage to run our expenses in Parliament and we have a shortfall in our budget. I won't claim to understand how they can have a national sales tax of 17.5% and everybody accepts this as ok. Actually, the Chancellor lowered it to 15% for a few months to help get the economy started again, but since Jan 1, it is back to 17.5%.
Nope, here is what I can not simply understand. The local councils have now come out saying they are going to have to raise the council (property) tax in order to pay for the snow removal which occurred. There is no appeal as they will simply hike the tax rate up by 3% to pay for this extrodinary circumstance.
Wait, weren't these the councils who failed to have enough salt and sand to actually keep roads open? Or were these the councils who had only a few trucks actually in operation to even attempt to keep the main streets clear. Perhaps these are the councils who state in the newspapers they have millions in surplus, but they can not dip into those reserves in case of emergency. I seem to be slightly confused by the response.
It makes one wonder why America strove for its independence a couple hundred years ago with a simple rally cry.

Slight Flurries leading to accumulation of stupidity

January 15, 2010

It may strike any sane person as a slightly odd situation. A front page newspaper article involving a small front end loader, the local council and a guy trying to do snow removal. This however sums up the situation in large parts of England over the past week. Being an island in the northern Atlantic, you would think England and its people would be well suited to dealing with all sorts of weather. I would learn the hard way once again how wrong a person can be.
The English weather service predicted a heavy snowfall for large parts of England. The warning is stated by the Met office website as "light flurries leading in some areas to accumulations" This warning had been going out for days. At around five o'clock Tuesday afternoon, the first flurries began to make their descent to the ground along with several million of their friends. Growing up in Minnesota, I know when a heavy snow is coming down. This was a heavy snow with nice big fat flakes coming down at a quick pace.
Leaving work at nine thirty, I would catch the 9:37pm train to go back to Reading. Now this train ride should take thirty minutes and pass through Ascot, Wokingham and even a town called Early. Nope, I can't even make stuff like these town names up.
At the stop in Ascot, the guard on the train walks through to tell all the passengers they are holding the train in Ascot until they can decide what they should do. Apparently, the people who run the trains could not decide whether the train should terminate in Ascot or continue its run to Reading and wouldn't tell the train crew until they made the decision.
Fifteen minutes later, they made the decision to push on to the next station. Crawling along at about ten miles an hour, the train would reach Reading just shy of midnight.
The next morning, England wakes up to four inches of snow on the ground and in some places up to eight inches with more falling slowly. The rapid response to the situation? Schools and airports close, buses and trains are cancelled, shops shut. The local councils begin to tackle to problem with roads. In Reading, a city of 100,000 plus, they proceed to salt the main roads only. Secondary roads are unimportant and will be left as is. Four trucks would take care of the "gritting" the entire city.
Well the chaos would continue for days as more scattered snow showers dropped dustings across the town and country. The councils would be forced to cut their salting efforts by twenty five percent as the supplies began to run low. Then they cut the efforts to fifty percent as they had only enough stocks to last for another two days.
Now a question you may ask, is what does this have to do with the man and his digger?
A man who's brother owned an excavation company borrowed one of the loaders and proceeded to dig out the school where his children went. Asking no money, the good samaratian then dug out another nearby school. He proceeded to clear the road he was living on and helped to dig out his neighbors. His neighbors were exalting their good samariatian as he would not accept any payment for his efforts. He stated he was simply tying to help out.
While he was about digging out his neighbors a local official from the city council stopped him and told him he must desist from his efforts. If he continued, he would face a hefty fine. Asking the reason, the city council member told him he might "damage the road." Remember this is one of the roads the city decided was going to be left because they have insufficient salt to actually "grit" the road.
The city council published a statement a few days later which states, "While we appreciate people trying to help with the situation, they should only do so after contacting the offices on 08........" Wait, those offices were closed because they couldn't make it in because of the snowfall.
A week and half later and temperatures have been above freezing with rain showers. The snow has gone and the country of England pats itself on the back for how well they handled the crisis. Rail got back on line after a week, airports only closed for a few days and people emptying groccery stores in panic buying because they feared they would run out of essentials.
Yep, flurries of stupidity.