ignorati
Occasionally, I commute into London on South West Trains. I normally listen to music or podcasts during the half hour commute into Waterloo.
Whenever I buy a ticket at the station, I always pause the music and remove my earphones. This is for two reasons:
- I need to be able to communicate with the person to purchase my ticket.
- People behind me in the queue may not want to hear 'Serve the Servants' by Nirvana.
Last Monday morning, I joined a short queue to buy my Travelcard and removed my earphones as usual.
The lady immediately in front of me was talking on a mobile phone and moved forward to the ticket booth. Much to my surprise, she continued her obviously unimportant conversation with a friend while conducting the entire transaction.
'Yeah so then we went on to the Slug - weekly Travelcard, zones 1-5 - No, no, he wasn't there - he was drinking in Putney with his mates...''£41.40 please.'
'...but we met them later - Sorry - what did you say - someone just interrupted me - Anyway, what about tonight ?
'Please can you enter your PIN ?'
'Sorry - she just interrupted me again - What ? - there you go - Yeah - well I'll get back about half-six - then we can go for a drink and then get - sorry what - oh my ticket.'
I then approached the ticket desk, waited for the young lady to move out of earshot and said:
'Honestly, I can't believe what she just did. I think that is incredibly rude and disrespectful.'
The lady smiled ruefully: 'Yes. We used to have a polite notice but most people simply ignored it.'
So, if and when Jonathan Beckett secures the domain name 'ignorati.com', I'll be an avid reader.
London omnibus bell hell
Last night, I took a number 521, red, bendy bus from St. Paul's to Waterloo station.
As the journey progressed, someone insistently and repeatedly pressed the bell to indicate they wished to disembark at the next stop. Nothing too unusual in that.
At the next stop, again the bell was sounded early and rang repeatedly. I assumed the 'Bus stopping' sign didn't light up as the individual concerned continued to sporadically, but repeatedly and insistently, press the bell.
All of this got too much for the South African lady sitting directly opposite me, who was simply trying to ask her partner: 'Why don't you tell me all about your day, darling ?'
I was forced to avert my gaze because the couple were now holding hands and I am British. So I carefully and intensely scrutinised an advert for London South Bank University.
The lady said, to no-one in particular, in quite a loud and very un-British voice:
'For God's sake, who the f**k keeps pressing that damned bell ?'The bus stopped. The bell stopped. We all looked inwardly into our free copies of 'The London Paper'.
The bus set off again and so did the bell. This time, the South African lady unlinked hands from her loving partner and erupted:
Oh, for f**k's sake, the bus is stopping ! Will you stop pressing that bloody bell, already !'
As I was sitting directly opposite the disgruntled lady, I was forced to avert my gaze in a very British way and, to my horror, immediately identified the root cause of the problem. I don't have the word 'consultant' on my business card for nothing.
A young man was standing in the aisle chatting to his friend. He was leaning on a pole. Every time he leaned back, the bell rang. When he stood upright, the bell stopped. When he rested on the pole, the bell rang. Continuously.I averted my gaze. Again. By now, I was nervously staring at my feet.
Thankfully, an Australian woman ended my discomfort by politely interjecting
'Excuse me, mate. You keep leaning on the buzzer and it's actually quite irritating.'
The South African lady looked around with a look of disbelief and complete disdain - if looks could kill, the young man would have spontaneously combusted there and then.
My immediate neighbour started smiling inanely and the gentleman concerned reddened and immediately apologised to the front half of the bus:
'Oh I am awfully sorry and thank you. I was just starting to wonder what that irritating noise was.'
And with that, normal service (and near silence) on the 521 was resumed.
Venetian philosophy
Holidays are a time blissfully free of the modern distractions of computers, mobile phones, games consoles, televisions and a time for the family to spend some quality time together and eventually fall out.
Inevitaby, this leads to varied, interesting, thought provoking discussions. During the Brightside annual vacation in Venice, the following thorny questions were posed:
- If you immersed yourself in a foreign country, how long would it take for you to become proficient in the language ?
- If there was a 15 km stretch of beach resort including hundreds of young people, bars and restaurants in England, how many riot police would be required ?
- If soldier ants are so damn clever, how come they didn't land on the moon first ?
- When the bus was forced into that emergency stop, was it the German tourist or the Italian bus driver who screamed 'BASTARD' ?
- What's the Italian for 'Cornetto' ?
- If mosquitoes could be trained to attack people with the same blood group, would the bites be rendered harmless ?
BRU-LHR
On Friday I returned from a very enjoyable week in Brussels. Hard work, challenging customer and miscellaneous technical issues. However, unusually, I had the pleasure of the company of a few of colleagues so we were able to have a chat over a meal and share a few excellent beers together.
Over the past five years, I have visited so many European airports, that they all tend to blur into one. However, certain key characteristics soon reminded me that I was indeed back in Brussels.
The lenghty queue for the 123 taxis to pass the roadworks to reach the set down area. The massive queue to clear passport control. The cursory glance at your passport from the policeman followed by a grunt. The long and winding road to security. The same officious, self-satisfied, arrogant security staff. Unfortunately, this queue doesn't actually move as crew (acceptable) and security staff, cleaners, shop assistants (less so) keep jumping the queue because they are so important.
The short flight itself is uneventful enough although there is a little turbulence on the descent into London. Then, as I fold my tray and return my seat to the upright position, fear is struck into the very core of my heart as I witness something no-one should ever have to witness on an aircraft.
My immediate neighbour reaches into here rucksack for a bottle of orange Powerade. She stands up and screams 'For the glory of Allah !' and switches her digital watch to UK time. No, no - only joking.
Suddenly and without any warning, the young lady next to me reaches for the 'Call' button with her left hand while simultaneously extracting the 'Sick Bag, unfolding it and skillfully placing it under her mouth.
I respond by edging away, averting my gaze and covering my knees and expensive Pierre Cardin suit with various sections of the Daily Mail. I note an interesting story about fashions for the summer on my right thigh.
The BA stewardess comes promptly and is kind and reassuring. A glass of iced water arrives and she dispenses some magnificent advice on coping with motion sickness: 'Take your jacket off to stay cool, keeping sipping the water and oh - don't forget to breathe.'
Once we clear the cloud cover, the flight is smooth once again and the potential crisis is averted.
We land at Terminal 5 and park on a remote stand. Unfortunately, the young lady is unable to disembark, get some fresh air and rush to the nearest lavatory. After 10 minutes, the smooth, well-spoken co-pilot announces the bad news:
'I'm awfully sorry, ladies and gentlemen but there will be a slight delay. We are just waiting for some steps and buses to be brought to the aircraft but BAA groundstaff have been practising for the tomorrow's arrival of George W. Bush and there are now significant delays as a result.'
After 15 minutes, no-one screams with delight or initiates mock applause at the sight of a single bus. We are British, you see. The steps arrive 5 minutes later so half the passengers are free to disembark. But not us, sitting in rows 15-28.
I contemplate brandishing a bottle of Lemon Powerade and and screaming 'Take me out of here to the land of Heinz 57 vestal virgins. Now.' While this might accelerate my exit from my plane, it might leave me with some explaining to do.
Finally, after 35 mins, we descend the steps. The co-pilot was indeed correct. BAA have been busy practising for Bush's arrival. There are eggs, rotten tomatoes and discarded placards strewn across the tarmac. I pause briefly to kiss the ground before boarding the bus. I am left with the pungent after-taste of rotten egg in my mouth.
How ironic, given his record, that the outgoing President refuses to enter the UK at a military base and instead chooses to bring chaos to Heathrow just to get his ego stroked.
We now enter the Stargate style timewarp in order to enter the main Terminal 5 building. Well, it must be a timewarp because on my outbound journey, I noticed mutiple signs containing the dire warning: 'Please do not enter Satellite B unless your flight departs from 'B' gate. It will take (at least) 40 mins to return.'
Which is weird as it took me just 5 minutes, using the timewarp.
London Heathrow incident
Last Thursday, 152 people (16 crew and 136 passengers), in addition to a significant number of people living in Hounslow, narrowly escaped death when a British Airways flight from Beijing (BA038) was forced into an emergency landing at Heathrow airport. Several things struck me about this incident and the aftermath:- After a phone call to update me on all the domestic news and gossip, my wife somehow negated to impart this tidbit of useful and relevant information. I hung up and turned on the TV news to be staggered by images of the wrecked fuselage of a British Airways jumbo jet lying of the fringes of the runway, 15 miles from my house, surrounded by foam, slides deployed with 18 fire appliances surrounding the scene.
- As I was flying from Belfast into Heathrow the following day, I consulted the BMI website which curiously maintained flights would be subject to delays and cancellation following, in a slight understatement, the 'incident at Heathrow'. Funnily, enough, the AAIB agrees with me and defines an accident as 'an occurrence during the period of operation of an aircraft where the aircraft incurs damage'.
- A man from Oxford who walked away with his life would have quite liked British Airways to provide him with a cup of tea followed by some counselling.
- Another couple thought they had just had 'a bumpy landing' and therefore didn't require any tea and biscuits. In fact, these Aussie backpackers were just delighted to get their baggage back without queuing at the carousel and to receive a complimentary return ticket for the Heathrow Express.
- A surreal moment boarding the flight at Belfast, picking up a newspaper with the stricken 777 plastered all over the front page.
- British Airways' decision to parade the pilot, co-pilot and Julie, your cabin service director, before the world's press. The BA crew all looked shell-shocked and distinctly uncomfortable. Mind you, so would I, if I was slowly starting to assimilate the events and trying to recover from a near death experience (without a cup of tea). This implied to me that BA were either very keen to get the media off their backs and leave them alone and/or BA are already absolutely certain of the circumstances of the accident and knew for a fact, pilot error was not a possible contributory factor.