trip to the US

Manic Trip to Houston and San Antonio lasting 10 days - here are a few travel observations:

1. Normal BA inconsistency - Crew Gat-Hou were crap, no service ethic and they even ran out salads. Crew back Hou -> Lhr first class - served everything promptly and regularly -supplied coffee and Port throughout the night trip back to LHR.
2. Recommend the martinis at Timpano
3. If you drive from Houston to San Antonio you must stop off in Luling at Luling Bar-B-Q, 709 E. Davis St.Luling, Texas.
4. Fly Continental back into Houston - it makes transfer across to international flights very easy across George Bush inetrnational airport
5. Flew back into LHR terminal 4 - Bags only took 15 mins (yes 15 mins and BA didn't lose anything) but BE WARNED - Heathrow Express doss not run to terminal 4, so it's some other service about once very 25 mins back to the main station at Terminals 1,2 &3
6. Terminal 1 is now bearable now BA has left it. BMI tried losing my bag on the last leg back to Leeds thanks to "stuck baggage belts"

Loved this quote from Castro supporting UK MP

hattip the BBC

Different rules for Passport control officers

Regular readers or should that be reader of this blog will know Passport control officers are not my favourite people. They now have smart uniforms and outwardly remain as petty and hostile as ever.
At manchester yeterday, there was a growing queue of people off my flight from frankfurt and other european locations with 2 desk officers on + a guy from security staff, making sure we queued correctly and switched our mobiles off as per the copious signage.
Suddenly a loud phone rings, everybody looks guiltly around to see one of the Passport officeers take the call, leave his desk and wander around in the space behind passport control taking I guess a personal call.
How come they don't have to turn their mobiles off ?

savings at British airways

Travelled BA on Thursday - the cuts are getting serious: Lunch last year in economy class was a wrap filled with chicken, salad etc. cut into two. This year it's half a feta cheese wrap....my guess is soon they will follow BMI, Flybe, Ryanair and sell you sandwiches.
However I am glad to report they did not lose my bag, although I had to change terminals from 1 to 4, and they had only 70 minutes to get transfer bag - had to admit I was surprised it appeared in Brussels - expectations are so low of Britain's favourite airline !

Rugby post not travel

As per my profile, I managed to get to a Jason Robinson Benefit dinner tonight in Newcastle. Apart from the man himself (modest & generous with his time, autographs etc), Toby Flood, Matthew Tait and Jamie Noon were at the dinner with of course one J Wilkinson esq.
Despite his new "relaxed image", JW still looked nervous because as ever he attracted his biggest cheers of the night. His recent interview on BBC's Inside Sport did show the new JW is different but you felt the old , slightly obessesive JW was just below the surface during the Q&A session with John Inverdale.
Meanwhile Messrs Tait and Flood come across as modest, yet great role models, I am sure they do not realise the influence they have young 14 year old rugby players like my son.
However Jamie Noon stood out for me - he again does not realise how junior rugby players across the nation, idolise his defensive strengths, went out on Sunday morning (and Sunday mornings to follow) to try and do " a Noonie" on the nearest opposition full back or 3/4 in honour of the tackle on Cedric Heymans in the 4th minute of the England v France game, last Saturday night.
Let's hope they can can kick on and beat Scotland a week on Saturday.

new passport

Those of you have read this blog will know my old passport I felt was bita of a liability with all its "dodgy" stamps.
Well it finally got worn out and a passport officer at Heathrow suggested I procured a new one. So I now have a new passport with a microchip and a shiny cover. It now takes me twice as long as it used to ( well it seems that way) to get through passport controls; because it appears 95% of UK border officials believe it's fake ( it's not folks !) because it is so shiny and has no stamps (yet !).
Finally I was stopped by a plain clothes officer on the way to Brussels this week who asked on inspecting my virgin passport: "Do you not travel very often sir !"?

sorry i have been away

I realise I have done a lot recently but none of it was really world shattering or reportable; but it must have been time consuming since my last entry into this blog was August 2007. I will try and renew my efforts to record my travels in 2008 starting with a great comment from the Captain of the VLM flight into Manchester from Antwerp this morning:

"The weather in Manchester is rainy like it always is"

Give the man a job with BBC weather team !

Gossip

Had one of those "people watching" or should it be "listening" experiences at the Brussels airport sheraton this week. 3 middle aged ladies - they all tend to be of a "certain age" on Amercian airlines long haul spent 90 mins gossiping about all their crew mates and Pilots. My favourite comment was:

" Last week I went to Mexico with a Captain who had never been there and neither had the co-pilot... I would never fly with captain, as a passenger, if he didn't know where he was going"


mmmh How as a passenger are you going to find out - "good morning ladies & gentleman this is your captain speaking for your flight to London, unfortunately I have no idea where I am going............ ?

It's those middle east stamps again

Well I had my second dodgy passport check today - coming off a Leeds Bradford to Southampton flight i.e. domestic, I was asked by a zealous immigration control officer to show my passport. His hair nearly stood on end when he saw my 25+ UAE (various)/Oman stamps in my passport + 2 chinese visas (expired) + assorted SE asian stamps + 1 from Canada and 1 from US. Demanded immediately to know what my job was (still not plucked up the courage to say more than Chemicals), who I worked for, where their head office was and why was I travelling.
of course when you say travelling to our HQ in Lyndhurst (the truth).....he gets really suspicious.......but then just waves you on your way !
they really amuse me..........................you could see him itching to stop me.....but then the story was so incredible it had to be the truth! They're going to be far worse when they all get uniforms !

Where have people been ?

As the nation heads to the airport for the annual summer exodus, it still stuns me the amount of hand luggage and "banned" articles people still try and take on planes. It's over a year since the 1 hand bag + plastic bags of liquids & gel came in yet it seems so many people have not learnt the rules. yes your water bottles, coke bottles, bottles of perfume, flasks of tea, picnic cutlery,suncream etc etc will be taken off you Culminated tonight with some reporter on BBC tv tonight explaining the rules again.
please can everyone wake up - last year's regulations have not gone away and still apply and now following the latest attacks, you will need to park your car a long way from the terminal.
OK so please concentrate, so us regular travellers can try and get our flights ! Sorry for being so grumpy !