Misnomers (3)

The congestion charge. Well, actually this is the first misnomer that arguably is correctly if literally named. The congestion charge is now a charge to allow you to drive from congested roads choked with traffic trying to avoid the charge to roads choked with the traffic that has either paid, is exempt or gets a special low rate. What it is not, of course, is a charge designed to discourage you from driving into London

In driving in town of course you now have to brave bendy buses, the odd cyclist who confuses you by actually stopping at a red traffic light and idiot pedestrians walking in the road or crossing in front of you, their noses in a magazine, ipod headphones in their ears oblivious to all and sundry. More than occasionally now, motor cyclists and motor scooter riders join in with the blithe law-breaking watched by our wonderful force of community support officers (police look-alikes with little training and few powers).

Road traffic law is rapidly and irredeemably falling into disrepute as people ignore it. Cyclists are jumping red lights, riding the wrong way up one way streets or the wrong way round roundabouts, ignoring cycle lanes and riding in the middle of the road, riding on the pavement, having no lights or high visibility clothing not even arm-bands at night. No care at all. Why have laws if the only people they are enforced against are the owners of cars because they are an easy target of cameras? 

Road rage nowadays is all too often some righteously angry cyclist banging his fist on your car without warning complaining about some trivial slight often imagined or the increasing number of people who assume they have the right to hoot and then scream abuse at you to stop you doing things they don't like, like reversing into a parking place when they want to drive past, like not letting them turn right in front of you rather than pass safely behind. I could go on and on but will finish here.

All of this is bound to lead to an increasingly angry, frustrated environment and I think it is only a matter of time before some uber-gridlock finally causes a car drivers' riot....

Gatwick North Terminal

Misnomers (2). Gatwick North Terminal. It's not one terminal at all. It's two.

Why do I say that? Well, going to the new gates, numbers 101 et seq in the North Terminal is not a light hearted last minute undertaking. It gets in the way of using all of BAA's lovingly fitted shops and restaurants. If you have lots of stuff to carry and arthritis of the knee, forget it. It's 10 minutes walk. 

So often, transport utilities define a 10 minute walk as one which would take an arthritic tortoise 10 minutes provided it didn't get lost en route.  This walk however is a real 10 minutes up hill and down dale. It's a bridge between terminals, the old North and the new North. You have to walk as the travelators don't always seem to be willing to travelate (if that is the correct new verb) and the man driving the battery powered cart won't give you a lift even though he has 6 seats spare as "you didn't book and you're not disabled".  Interesting judgement, the latter. To be disabled you clearly need outward signs of disablement, stick, dark glasses, hearing aid or similar. I don't consider myself disabled but I do have a bad knee and find it hard to walk far. Don't think that does it though for cart drivers.

So, the new gates are miles away in a new building. Its not the North terminal except for one thing. It's only got loos and gates. 

No shops. 

The fast bag drop

I am starting a new theme. misnomers of major proportions. The fast bag drop, a term unique to BA, I think, is number one. 

The miracle that is the internet allows you to check in on-line, print off your boarding pass and go to the airport to drop your bag off at the fast bag drop. It sounds wonderful. No queueing, no hassle while the people in front try to blag an upgrade only to discover their ticket is for yesterday or they've left their (expired) passports at home or their bag weighs 100 kilos and the don't want to pay the excess. 

No sirree, the system seductively offers you the chance to drop your bag off quickly and go painlessly through security to swoon in delight at all the wonderful shops BAA have provided to part you from your money.

Well, it's not true. The check in queue is now the fast bag drop queue. Check in staff are (largely) no more. Fewer people man fast bag drops (they are fast after all) and so the queues are longer. Cheaper for the airline in labour costs, but longer. Add to that the length of the security queues and the inevitable person in front who thinks the tiny bottles in one plastic bag rule only applies to others and its easier than ever to miss out on all that lovely shopping. Or the coffee in the lounge to prove you have a gold card or the flight.........

Trinidad (more 1)

It's hard getting around here. Surprisingly taxis are cheap to take. That is providing you can get them to turn up at any time near that promised. This is definitely a country where manana is a concept implying undue haste and rush. Food orders are much the same. 20 minutes is an expression of optimistic hope, not any form of forecast that whatever has been promised and paid for is shortly to arrive, intact and hot. 

Trinidad

Well, it's hot and humid and different. Add to that the Hilton Hotel in Port of Spain experience, a hotel I have now abandoned. It's a building site. Most of it is closed for refurbishment. I had two nights there which were memorable only for how awful they were. The electronic keys didn't work to persuade the lifts to let me out on my floor. Then the replacement didn't work my door, requiring a trek back to the reception desk to get yet another. I don't mind a hotel refurbishing itself but I do object to them not telling me that almost all of the facilities that they continue to advertise aren't actually available to the unfortunate paying public.

Trinidad

Tomorrow I am continuing my researches into food in the vicinity of industrial operations. A strange place to have industry you may comment. Not if it's oil and gas. 67% of the Trinidad and Tobago economy to be precise.

I shall also be interested to see how BA fare on a near 12 hour flight? Will they have any decent films I have not already watched shuttling back and forth to Chicago in the last month or two. Will it be the crab salad and the beef again or will they have the green salad followed by the shepherd's pie? Will the seat work? The last two have not, electronics, electrics and entertainment all being up the proverbial creek.

The answer - part 1 (of many?)

Lies in the fact that all of the leaders I cited apart from poor Gordon Brown were hugely successful and had begun to believe in their own omnipotence. Gordon Brown may have believed in his omnipotence but he had no actual track record as a successful leader - ie the others flew too close to the sun and Gordon was and may still be on the ground waiting for clearance from ATC.