Do airport managers spend so much time thinking of ways to make a journey through their fiefdom so unpleasant? I dislike intensely zigzag queuing but understand that it’s an efficient way to stack a lot of people in a confined space. However, when there are no queues, zigzagging like some demented pinball to achieve going forward twenty feet by a walk that would be an Olympic long distance event, is completely daft.
Are we obsessed with accessories? It doesn’t matter whether it’s macrame or motor cars, fishing or falconry, shooting or skateboarding, any hobby is really about the kit. I have been a scuba diver since before I got my driving license. I was actually taught to dive by the crew from Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso while on R & R anchored in Bandol in the South of France My equipment consisted of a horseshoe like vest that was the precursor to a BCD jacket. I had a depth gauge, mask, fins and a crude weight belt with a simple hook and eye clasp. Tank was hung over my back with a webbing like belt. Didn’t even have an air gauge. Just a coat hanger like lever to pull when air got tight and that was my safety reserve! I was diving here in Malta last week in balmy autumn weather with people looking like knights in suits of armour. Dry suits, rebreathers, knives, torches, compass, dive computer, electric dive scooter, emergency tank, booties, gloves, and I’m sure a couple of people added a kitchen sink to the dive bag attached to their waist. All this clobber was there for one reason. Kit. Every time a diver enters a dive shop there is always something there ready to separate you from hard earned cash. New kit is katnip. It can be as simple as a ball on a rubber ring that fits around your tank and you can flick to make a banging noise to attract attention right the way up to a full face mask with radio walky talky ability. I’m amazed that Deliveroo are not on speed dial to deliver extra goodies while hanging around at a decompression stop. The same endless list of goodies are available to snowboard and winter skiers, parachute jumpers, golfers, fishermen, classic car enthusiasts and cooks. I have drawers stuffed full of kitchen gadgets that at one time or another seemed essential but are now just future landfill.
Are people so keen to lie in 40c (110f) sun to turn their bodies the colour of condemned veal? Global warming is at last having a visible effect we rich westerners can relate to. Over-hot summers. We still flock to destinations that should only appear in Lucifer’s holiday brochures. But for how long?
Is 2024 such a smorgasbord of democratic voting? Nearly one third of the world will be voting this year. It is a massive list from the obvious; USA, UK, Russia, Taiwan, Mexico, India to UN Security Council and EU Parliamentary representatives. In fact, for change of Heads of State to General Elections, the list is 37 countries from Algeria to Venezuela.
My first reaction is where can you go to avoid endless advertising! Do these visual scattershots with earnest pleas for your vote actually work, or just irritate viewers?
In the USA the stories are legion of people pumping tens if not hundreds of millions into elections for Senator, Governor or Congressman that fail! The proliferation of online media means nowhere is safe now. Whether Russian interference actually had any effect in US elections is moot as far as I am concerned. These intrusive messages, that on the whole are toe curlingly condescending, would make zip difference to my choice.
Do we allow people who know so little about engines and power make policy to regulate them?
Please don’t take this blog as a peon to the internal combustion engine. I am as aware as anyone who either has a window or a TV of climate change. It’s just the hysteria don’t always match the facts!
I seem to remember the Blair Government in the UK going all lovey- dovey about diesel a few years ago. The fact that taxes were jacked up to make the fuel the same price as petrol and create a windfall of revenue to the Chancellor surely had nothing to do with it!
And now diesel is the ‘sperm of Satan’ after the fall out following the dodgy VW claims. It is banned forever from anyone’s list of power… despite the fact new diesel engines are remarkably clean. “No. Diesel was a bad mistake. It must be banished,” Politicians cry sincerely. Knee jerk reaction by populist short term thinkers.
Is looking forward to a holiday nearly as good as going on one?
We have not travelled outside of the U.K. and European time zones since December 2020! I don’t think I have spent two years in the same time zone since I was six!
However, we have taken the plunge and planning to go to Cambodia at the beginning of next year. It’s months away of course, but the mere fact we have an itinerary to exotic sounding places has lightened my footsteps and my spirits.
Would any sane married couple go through moving together? Let alone reassembling everything in a new location. When we actually move, my wife has banished me in case she decides to strangle me.
I have already been through a clear out of possessions that has been a mixture of surprise and horror. Surprise at the things I thought I had lost forever, and horror that I had paid for them to follow me like the rats and the Pied Piper of Hamlin from the UK to my two previous homes here in Malta.
I am sure there was a point in my life when a belly button cleaner, singing fish, cassettes, CDs and DVDs seemed essential, but those days are gone. Much as it pains me to see I once paid £17.50 for a CD, they now need to go to the big juke box in the sky. And no, please don’t tell me I can make a fortune on sites like Magpie. Living here in Malta exporting or importing anything is absurdly expensive. We have probably filled a couple of charity shops with enough things to keep them busy for months. Some stuff I could not believe they sold within days! Who goes to a charity shop looking for bongo drums, but a pair we donated were snapped up faster than a lock of Elvis’ hair!
Am I not dressed in grey leather shoes and polyester trousers?
One of the casualties of every generation since the Silent Generation (1935-1950), has been the demise of Middle Age.
Right now, the only limits to me behaving as I did in my youth are physical.
I do not own a tartan coloured shopping trolley with matching tartan booties. I don’t possess a cardigan, a pipe or a jacket with leather elbow pads. Nor, do I endlessly suck on a Werther's Original caramel or have a glass by my bedside for dentures.
Right now, if you take a photo of a group of a hundred people, they may display their own tribal colours but within that tribe, between the ages of 25-65, are actually pretty alike.
Yet when I look at photos of my salad days and at people now my age, they all appear distinctly different to the youth that’s with them. The women are all dressed in ‘A’ line skirts surrounded by Tupperware containers. The men either have a comb-over or a short back and sides haircut, and are in ties and lace up brogues, even on weekends. Folk barely fifteen years younger are in jeans, with varying lengths of hair and a perpetual grin on their faces.
All the middle aged were so different from the youth. They all respected the speed limit and positions of authority. The men shaved every day but the women never did. Married couples were rarely able to travel beyond home shores and certainly never ate food that was not either frozen or a domestic recipe. There was fear of the foreign rather than curiosity. And nearly all had the same job in the same firm all their lives. Sad.
My generation has actually found the secret to eternal youth. Act like you want, not how you should.
I may now wake up with a sixty-year old’s body, but my mind and mannerisms are distinctly those of a thirty-five year old. I ignore that old man as I get in my car for a blast down a country road, work out in a gym or cuddle my beloved wife.
Are people so keen to replace commercial airline pilots with computers?
If I remember correctly the ‘unfailable’ systems of SouthWest airlines failed in June 2021. It was Southwests turn again in December 2022. British Airways and numerous others have also had to severely restrict or halt services due to computer ‘glitches’. Even the rock solid computer system of the Federal Aviation Administration went tits up in January 2023.
So far I don’t recall a single pilot or co-pilot flopping over in the cockpit needing a reboot.
Now that isn’t to say I go all misty eyed about losing usherettes at the Cinema or bus conductors on the Number 72, but frankly I prefer a human being in charge of an aluminium bullet travelling at near 600 mph
At the beginning of each year, do we go through this ritual inspection of the chicken entrails to reveal the booby traps or goodies awaiting us in the New Year? If you are a sentient being with an IQ bigger than your shoe size, you already know the answer. In sport there will be a couple of upsets, otherwise the usual suspects clean up at everything. Politics and global warming will get hotter and a couple of natural disasters will blight lives. Mid-summer a silly story about some animal being able to perform open heart surgery, play a Beethoven sonata or predict the outcome of a football match will make worldwide headlines. A big rock star will fall off his perch as well as a past-it-sell-by-date TV show will get the ax. Two certainties are the winner of the Best Actress at the Oscars will cry, and then suggest the category is sexist and should just be for best actor.
Does the content mix of goods on display in some stores surprise me? I was recently in a small hillside village in the South of France when I stopped at the local gas station just outside town. It was a small family run business, not part of a major chain. When I went inside to pay, whilst I stood in the queue, I idly looked at the stuff on display. Oil, antifreeze, air freshener, alcohol (it’s France) then came across dildos, a massive butt plug and handcuffs. Enterprising as this may be, I just don’t see if you popped in for a few litres of fuel, you might suddenly decide… “Ah yes, I need a new butt plug.” Conversely, if you did need such toys, the last place I would think of to go and buy them would be my local garage. It’s not as if this was a major artery where long distance lorry drivers would pull in and buy themselves some personal amusement as they slept overnight in the car park. When it came to paying the elderly grey haired lady behind the till, I was so tempted to ask if she stocked any French ticklers. So now I have started to actively look for the unexpected in shops. Amazing. Dr. Scholl’s shoes in my greengrocer’s, rat poison in my office supply shop and ‘Jesus loves you’ ties and ‘Jesus saves’ Band-Aids at the local coffee shop.
Can I not turn on the news or pick up a paper without screaming about the weather? The UK news media liken what would be a warm day where I live as akin to the UK living in hail and brimstone. Beelzibub and his minions are stalking the hell-like streets. Pah! However, here in Malta this summer has been hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants. I like the beach as much as anyone but I cannot understand people flocking to be staked out on the sand with the sun hot enough to turn their bodies the colour of condemned veal. Certainly most locals shake their heads in disbelief at the tourists gently sizzling on the shoreline. So instead, my wife, the French bulldogs and I enjoy the view of the Mediterranean from the comfort of the air conditioning, with the occasional sprint into the pool. Even the dogs hop across the garden flagstones to jump into the flowerbed to pee. Forget booties for the snow, you need them to protect your tootsies from turning into ten chipolatas!
To add to the list of things you do on holiday and leave on holiday is dancing to disco music.
Are some airlines hellbent on pi##ing off their passengers, whilst some notable exceptions bend over backwards to be helpful? Let’s face it. Airports in certain cities are in chaos. I recently heard of a passenger checking into First Class on an international carrier asking for his bags to go to Rio as he went to New York. An exasperated check in staff called over the manager who explained this was simply impossible. Baggage had to accompany the passenger. “Well, you managed it last time I flew to New York”, came the response, to a ripple of applause from other passengers.
During two years of lockdown and feeling like Papillon on Devil’s Island, locked in and no way out, my wife and I took the sports car to Sicily then on to Calabria and Puglia in the boot of Italy. The problem was we did not want to come home. After being cooped up in Malta, an island so small you could carpet it in an afternoon, the sense of freedom was overwhelming. And just like a single Pringle, a short break is not nearly enough. Had we not had two pooches waiting for us, we would be in Croatia by now on the way to Istanbul!
Are we so desperate to buy Duty Free? The truth is duty free is daft. I mean who said… “I know. Let’s fill all departing aircraft with more weight to burn more fuel. In addition, let’s fill the passenger compartment with a bunch of combustibles; booze, perfume, tobacco and raffia or plastic tat.” The truth is airports don’t give a fig about passengers so long as they can claw money off you in the two hours they hold you captive. The logical thing to do of course is to buy items to be collected when you land, thus avoiding transport cost and safety issues. That means all the crap you buy at the airport for friends and relatives because you forgot to buy on holiday will fall by the wayside. And no more local hootch that most of the time is used as paint thinner anyway. If you are desperate to buy a diamond encrusted watch or unobtainium rings because they are massively cheaper than at home, then search them out and buy them when you land. Makes the custom clearance queues shorter for the rest of us.
Is the term Christmas offensive to some but if I suggested to my Muslim mates that they renamed Hadj or Jewish friends came up with a more inclusive term for Yom Kippur or Sikhs and Hindus festival of Diwali should be changed to ‘fancy dress day’, I would quite rightly be told to sod off.
I am confused as to what is wrong with cultural identity. It’s not offensive to others, just saying:
“Hi there, this is our excuse to let our hair down. Join in if you like, but these are the rules of the game!”
And to be honest a huge number do join in.People of all faiths pull crackers and put on silly hats on December 25th and I don’t hear many objecting to getting the day off.
Is wind about to destroy life on earth?
At the recent COP 26 (have there really been 25 others) there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am by no means a climate denier but I am also a realist. Much as Greta and co would like, I am not reverting to eating mung beans nor limiting my travel to bicycle or Ox and cart.
In terms of transport, Genies once out of bottles are impossible to put back in. You have to replace them with a better one. Horses for steam train, steam train for car, car for plane… etc, etc. So, if fossil fuel must pass, it will only be because we have something as good, if not better. To me that does not mean running around in cars fired by a battalion of AAA batteries. I am quite prepared to wager major sums of money on two things.
Trains will doubtless move from polluting generated electricity to magnetised super trains and planes will get faster as our insatiable appetite to travel and save time continues to grow. I suspect jet technology will be around for at least another half century unless a real Scottie can be found with Star Trek’s dilithium crystals.
In any event, blocking motorways or just shouting in a march resolves nothing. We need brainpower to solve our current problems, not the boos and hisses usually the preserve of pantomime audiences.
So it’s really power stations, insulation and packaging that need the wake up call. Which brings us to wind. The kind cows emit.
Do policemen look like they have been shrink-wrapped?
Maybe it’s rose-tinted spectacles but back in the day when all policemen looked older than me, I don’t recall them being shoehorned into clothing three sizes too small for them.
Nowadays they all seem to be trying to burst out of their uniforms. I understand the theory is… it makes them look intimidating and gives you less to hang onto in case you get into a scuffle. Quite how clothing tighter than a sausage skin is meant to be intimidating, I am not sure. However, judging by the actual size of many policemen, I reckon I could hop faster than they could run. Why scuffle if a brisk walk will leave a Bobby panting like a pug in the Sahara?
Is it ‘time’s up’ on the I.S.S.?
I understand that the space equivalent of Honest Jo’s Car Lot Jamboree have given the space station the once over as NASA struggle to keep it running.
“Hmmm. Well now. The grobulators are worn out and your doo-hickeys are in pieces. These parts are very difficult to track down, you know? They just don’t make ‘em anymore. Huge mileage. Needs a new paint job, a few dents whilst docking I see”. No doubt at this point whilst space walking, Jo gives the tyres a kick.
“Trouble is no one really wants these old fashioned ones anymore. Me, I love all that classic silver and chrome and a really good jet propulsion… but young people nowadays… they want the latest and it has to be green. I could take it off your hands but sorry £1b is as far as I can go. Even then I will probably make a loss”. Selling a used vehicle was ever thus.