Come fly with me..

According to Wikipedia (never wrong..), the first fixed wing airline was formed in 1916 by a chap called George Holt Thomas.  He modified military aircraft so they could carry two - yes, two - passengers between Folkestone and Ghent, in Belgium.  It goes on to say that these were 'relief' flights but doesn't clarify who was relieved, the pilots who were responsible, the passengers or maybe both?  It wasn't until 1919 that passengers started paying for a service, £21 to go from Hendon to Paris.  Either way you look at it, it's less than 100 years since people have had the choice to complete their journeys by air and I don't think any of those pioneers would recognise the industry now.

'First class Madam?  You get to sit inside..'.

There are a plethora of little vignettes in any flight, from check in to collecting your suitcase on the carousel, but if you take the time to do some people watching and keep a smile on your face in the mini adversities that it presents, it can be entertaining.

With so many to choose from, which scenario do I write about today:  having to re-pack your suitcase at check-in as it's 2kg overweight when the guy behind is clearly heavier than you by at least 20kg (don't ask me to re-pack, ask him to run round the airport perimeter..), people rushing the gate when they've already been told it's not their time to board, the Herculean efforts to lift a carry on bag in to the overhead locker when it weighs more than a Volkswagen Beetle, people still texting when the plane is taking off even though they've been told 3 times to switch their phones off, the list goes on.  What makes me chuckle is the in-flight meal.

When you're on a plane for longer than maybe 3 hours, I fully appreciate that you may get a bit peckish and the airlines (non-budget types) are keen to show you how well they cater at 35,000 feet.  The trouble is that in an effort to outdo the competition they maybe try a little too hard.  I need to add at this juncture that we tend to fly economy class, like most people probably, so space is at a wee bit of a premium.  The airline would like to cram in as many people as possible to maximise their efficiency and profit, the public would like enough space for luxuries like breathing, moving your toes a bit, not having to link arms Auld Lang Syne style just to open a packet of pretzels.  Certainly if you are fond of your personal space, economy is not for you.

Economy, everybody inhale, now exhale, easier if we do it at the same time.

So it comes to lunch/dinner/breakfast time.  You've read the menu, decided what you'd like and the smell of freshly warmed up ready meals comes wafting down the aisle, where the flight attendants are passing out the trays.  Their trolley is completely blocking the pathway of course, which means they have the usual queue of passengers either side of them trying to get to/from the toilet.  They reach the row of seats in front of you, you're now pretty hungry and eager to see what your fare looks like but wait, the person in front ordered a vegan nut and squash roly-poly and the crew are trying to serve them a vegetarian tofu and lettuce mélange, it's tantamount to Armageddon.  Some bloke in 12B is already half way through the nut and squash offering and is now considering eating the cardboard lid instead, so it's too late to change.  I can read the steward's mind 'really, is it that different?  What do you want me to do, pop out and get another?  Serves you right for having a fussy diet..'.  But he remains calm and professional and the problem is solved with some cream crackers and a yoghurt.  It's your turn.

First class, a bit awkward if you drool or talk in your sleep, 'of course I'll respect you in the morning Brad..'.

You drop down the little table attached to the seat in front of you, which is probably in the reclined position, restricting your elbow room even more (is it not good etiquette to ask before reclining your seat?  Just asking..) and it's then you realise the food tray is the same size as the little table, so whatever you do everything has to stay on the platter unless you're fortunate and have no-one sitting next to you.  It's an impressive array of dishes, a veritable feast, a marvel of culinary expertise and spacial design as everything is arranged like a edible jigsaw with not a micron of space to spare.  

Therein lies a problem because the food is packed in containers with lids and once you've uncovered your lunch all this packaging has to be put somewhere.  So you commence the game I call 'Aircraft Eating Jenga' (pat and trademark pending) and start to skill fully move items around so that you can get at the meal one bit at a time without causing a catastrophic collapse of the pile.  Smoked salmon salad to start, followed by chicken with potatoes and veg, then a chocolate dessert, then cheese and biscuits, then bread (should I have eaten that first?  Too late.), a drink, a cup for your tea, a tiny chocolate, cutlery, a napkin, a refreshing hand wipe (lemon scented), a cuddly toy, a Teasmaid. The list goes on and I finally realise that with this mental ability and hand eye dexterity I would be quite good at doing a Rubrics Cube if I applied myself to the task. Then when something falls on the floor it's like playing Kim's Game by yourself and in an extraordinarily confined space.

Bon appétit, elbows in please.

Often it's when you're mid way through this trauma that the person sitting next to you asks if you could move so they can get out to use the facilities.  'Move?' you ask, 'I've suspended my heart beat while I do this as it was taking up too much room..'.  The relief when the attendant comes along to take away the remains is wonderful, like the feeling when you have the inset of your shoe scrunched up under the sole of your foot all day and then you finally get to sort it out.  You can now relax to watch the movie, on a screen which is closer to your eye ball that your eye lid, with the headset kindly provided by the airline (has this really been sterilised?) because for an unknown reason it is the only place on the planet where you need twin plugs on your ear wear?

Suffice to say I'm saving up my airline loyalty points for an upgrade to first class, by my reckoning I should achieve this goal in about 20 years, it's good to have a dream.

In search of the elusive unicorn..

We've just got back from a visit to a zoo, which is quite a common occurrence in our household.  Our five year old is animal crazy, so a visit to see some in a zoo is always high on her 'to do' list, which leaves me with a dilemma.  I've always been a bit of a conservationist so zoos give me a conundrum.  Having said that I can't claim to have any detailed knowledge of conservation.  For example it's beyond me how a country (no names, no pack drill) can have a whole fleet of ships for whaling, purely for scientific research?  What are they researching?  Other than '101 uses for blubber' it's difficult for an ignoramus like me to comprehend the scope of their studies?  If they want to find out how whales communicate or navigate the oceans with such accuracy I would have thought it best to do that while they're alive?  Ah, my naivety..

Giraffes, nature's way of pruning the top half of a tree.

Most zoos these days will have part of their website dedicated to telling you how much of a conscience they have, how they are the guardians of the world's species and the fact that the public is admitted to have a peek at the animals under their protection is a positive educational side effect on their conservation.  I see their point, there is no doubt that since mankind came to dominate the globe its ceaseless persecution of every other species has been shocking.  So much so that the only way to preserve some animals is to take them in to protective custody as such.  We have visited some zoos that do this very well and create an environment that is as near as realistically possible to the breed's natural habitat.  I say 'as near as possible' because there is only so much you can do to twin Cheshire with the jungles of Borneo.

However we have also visited some which fell more toward the cash cow option rather than towards the preservation aspect.  Rows of small cages containing primates that would far rather be swinging from tree to tree and terrariums that are devoid of any greenery, and in fact are of lesser length than the snake they contain, are not an edifying sight.  It's more reminiscent of Stalag Luft III from The Great Escape rather than the plains of the Serengeti from Born Free.  From the point of view of the customer, I can appreciate that if you've paid to see animals it's animals you want to see, not areas of greenery with rustling leaves where they move around freely out of your line of sight.  But small cages and the absence of any aspect of a habitat that facilitates natural behaviour seems so, well I guess Victorian.  Showing us a cheetah and saying how it can run at speeds up to 75mph is great, but they forget to add that in its compound, which is 20 meters square, it can only get to 15mph.  I would far rather they built it a home in the shape of a greyhound track and feed it by attaching lunch to the electric hare, now that would pull in a crowd. Ah, there speaks the Victorian in me.

Steve McQueen escaping from Stalag Luft III circa 1945, dressed as a resident from Malibu beach and riding a bike that wasn't built until 16 years after the event.  Still, accuracy isn't everything.  (I'm being sarcastic, obviously it is..)

But there are other dilemmas that visits to the zoo bring.  Our daughter's favourite animal is a unicorn, so we get the inevitable question while we are walking round, 'where are the unicorns'?  Naturally we do what any good parent does when confronted with a tricky question, we work out which lie is going to give us the least amount of grief later (after all good parenting is all about sincerity, if you can fake that you've got it made).  For example if we respond 'they have the day off',  then she'll suggest we come back tomorrow.  So rather than tell the truth and rain on her parade, we just explain that they don't like living in zoos.  She looks at the other animals and you can tell she's thinking 'I don't blame them'..

Eid mubarak.

I was going to write a light hearted piece about shopping, but events in the news made this seem very light-hearted and trivial, so I'm changing tack.

We are fortunate to live in a very interesting place among people from a variety of nations and with an indigenous population who seem happy to share their space with the world.  I understand that there is a quid pro quo, but on the whole it seems to work, a win-win situation.  

However if an alien were to land and read the paper or watch the news they may think that the majority of the world is not like that.  They could think that most people are doing their utmost to ruin the lives of anybody who doesn't see things the same way as them and that it is the norm to act with great savagery and prejudice.  But to go away with that impression would be shame, as I believe the opposite is true.

I'm currently struggling to come up with one word to describe a group of people who are smaller than the smallest of minorities, is microcosm sufficient?  A group whose actions push them to the forefront of the news ahead of any features which concern work which is for the general good of mankind or encourages bonhomie, two areas that encapsulate the vast majority of human endeavour.

So my good news report is about a day of joy, as today is one of the Eid celebrations.  I'm not going to explain in detail the origins of the festival, mainly because I don't know much about it and I'm not about to re-cycle a load of information from Wikipedia, that you can look up yourself if you feel so inclined.  All I'm going to do is outline what I've gleaned from discussing it with people who celebrate the occasion.

In that respect it seems the same format as special days throughout the world, including time spent with family, special food and a day off work/school.  More recently it would appear that consumerism has begun to creep in but that is inevitable I guess?  If the big loser at Christmas time is the humble turkey, an animal that is left alone by the majority of people for the rest of the year yet eaten with abandon for one day only, the beast of choice over Eid is the sheep or goat, depending on who you ask.  As we live in a rural area, many local families still raise and despatch their own animals so there is still a direct connection with the source of their meal.

The turkey, in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Big, slow and tasty, it's never forgiven the Founding Fathers or whoever it was who first sought out a regular supply of meat for a celebration in North America.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on looking good at the family gathering so new clothes are an important part of the preparation.  Elaborate collections of sweets are prepared by the local stores, sometimes to be given as gifts but always it seems shared with family and friends. Street decorations are evident but subtle and there are no noisy outdoor manifestations of celebration like we see on National Day.

It seems like an understated day of private gathering, sharing and of goodwill, messages which in my opinion should be on the front page of every newspaper and on every TV station.

I finish with a profound reflection from one of my students who is of the wise old age of 12 years:

Me:  'What do you think of Eid'?

Him:  'I don't like it, lots of old ladies come round the house and talk all day.  I have no-where to sit as they take all the chairs'.

Me:  'Who are these old ladies'?

Him:  'I have no idea'..

Well everyone is entitled to their opinion.

It's all a question of perspective.

Please forgive me repeatedly writing about similar subjects, but sometimes you find such a rich vein of interesting material you can't help but mine it again and again!  And so it is that I once more report on driving in the Middle East!  I say Middle East but to be fair I've not carried out an exhaustive survey and when we discuss this topic with colleagues from all over the world they say 'if you think it's bad here, you should see they way they drive in ...(insert name here, you could choose from, Egypt, Jordan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, England, France..)'.  That's my  point really, we think it's a crazy place to drive, but maybe there is another perspective and maybe it's not that unusual?


We live in the northern Emirates which are a lot more tranquil than the throbbing metropolis that is Dubai or Abu Dhabi.  I was reading another blog, written by someone who was living in Dubai at the time and who had started carrying around a camera so he/she could photograph misdemeanours when they saw them happen.  The photos included snaps of the usual things we see on a daily basis;  cars going the wrong way round a roundabout to queue jump, people driving at breakneck speed along the hard shoulder of a motorway as the other lanes are moving slowly, cars cutting across four lanes of traffic to make an exit they had suddenly remembered they needed to take, no-one using indicators, drivers drinking coffee or on the mobile phone, or maybe doing both at the same time, all of the usual suspects.

Dubai traffic, no cycle lanes yet..

The bee in his/her bonnet (no pun etc..) was the hard shoulder racers.  When the motorways  grind to a halt in Dubai, the hard shoulder becomes the lane de choix for the driver in a hurry.  But instead of driving cautiously, giving them time to react to any unexpected intrusions in to the lane, they go at Formula 1 speed.  The local papers often have reports from horrific accidents where someone has ploughed in to the back of a broken down car they simply didn't see when carrying out this hard shoulder game of chicken.  The blogger was saying how irresponsible it was and how you wouldn't see it in Australia, where they were from, and I was quietly agreeing with this view when I started to read some of the comments made by other readers.

On the whole it seemed that his expat community agreed, but there was a diametrically opposite response from other writers.  They were incensed that he (we'll assume it was a bloke) had the temerity to criticize their actions.  In fact they called him a downright sissy as he didn't have, and I quote, 'the courage or the skill to drive they they do'..  You see, just when you think there couldn't possibly be a reasonable explanation, there it is. So if you happened to get a puncture and needed to pull on to the hard shoulder, only to get tail ended by a bloke using it as a short cut and exceeding the speed limit while talking on the phone, it's clearly your fault for not being skilful enough..  Silly you.

There is another regular topic in the letters page of the local newspapers.  A correspondent had written how she had the wing of her car taken off by someone doing a three lane sideways dive in theirs as they needed to turn left but somehow had managed to be in the right hand lane.  The aggressor's first instinct (in fact only instinct)  was to blame the person who got hit for not allowing him to cut across, even though he was coming from her blind side.  Thankfully the police sympathised with her view.

This is a very common occurrence.  If you're used to driving in much of the world, including the UK, when you approach a three lane traffic light junction you normally make you choice of position based on which was you want to go.  The left lane if you're going left, middle for straight on etc.  Here there are some drivers with a different view, they always choose the lane that has the least amount of cars in it, It's how water would drive, always following the line of least resistance.  Then when the lights turn to green they make their move, hence it is an everyday sight to see a car aggressively carving across the traffic causing chaos and anger, which you're not allowed to vent as any sort of road rage is verboten.

As it gets warmer, other letters to the editor ask whether it's the adverse effect that the heat has on tyres and brakes that is causing accidents.  No-one asks if it's the 'drive it like it's stolen' Grand Theft Auto style of driving that may possibly at the root?  The old adage that 'I must be a great driver as I never have accidents, see a lot in my rear view mirror though..' springs to mind.

If you're thinking of driving in the area there is another thing you need to look out for, the red light crashers.  For some, traffic lights are just there for advice, so it's not uncommon to find yourself moving forward as the ones facing you have changed to green only to find a car crossing the junction in front of you like a meteor having just ignored their red.  It certainly makes you pay attention when behind the wheel.

Then there is tailgating.  Another letter in a local paper asked what readers' thought was the correct distance to be following someone on the free-way.  One response was 'close enough so you can't see the number plate of the car in front'..  They were being serious. Think about it, not only did they consider themselves correct, they were so convinced about the sensibility of their actions that they emailed their thoughts in to a newspaper. Another said 'drive as near to me as you like, if I think you're too close I'll slam on the brakes and you'll drive in to my reinforced tow bar', touché..

Abu Dhabi seem to be making inroads (no pun blah, blah, blah..)  in to traffic management.  They have far more cameras and seem to enforce the data they get from them so generally speeds seem to be lower and the standard of driving higher.  Although I do love the signs on their motorways which tell you the maximum speed is 120 kph but you can go up to 140 kph if you like.

Having said all of this, I don't mind driving here.  There is a predictability in the mayhem, if you assume everyone is going to lane change without indicating, when they do it's no surprise.  I think there is an organic, shoal like quality to the experience.  When was the last time you saw two herring collide?  Outside of the main cities it's not unusual to find yourself alone on the motorway, a driving experience of extremes.

A shoal of herring, compare and contrast with the picture above of traffic.

Finally, a true story.  On the way to visit a friend who lives on the 25th floor of a block of flats in a busy part of Dubai, we ring to get directions.  'Turn left now', he said 'I can see you'.  'How do you know it's us amongst the thousands of cars on the intersection?' we replied, 'you're the only car using indicators, figured it must be an Englishman'...

Hit the road Jack.

Once again I doff my cap to Tim Berners-Lee, thanks to whom we can read the abridged internet version of what was our local paper in the UK, the Littlehampton Gazette.  Amongst the usual headlines of 'multiple electric shopper cart pile up in high street' and 'cat found in take away freezer', it was refreshing to see that local politicians are once again lobbying the government to find a solution to the A27 between Worthing and Arundel.  Whilst I admit that at first glance this will be of no interest to anyone who doesn't live or pass through West Sussex, bear with me, I have more international offerings later and I do believe that the traffic problems there are the same as those everywhere else, it's the solutions that change.

So look at the map.  Worthing hugs the South-East coast of England twixt Brighton and Portsmouth, but not quite making it on to this cartography.  Motorways in that region tend to service the needs of London and everywhere else has to put up with it.  So you arrive at Dover and want to get to Brighton.  Head along the coast hugging A259 obviously, past Hastings, Eastbourne and on to Brighton.  That's a good plan, just so long as you have a couple of days to do the 80 miles or so, due to the mix of single and dual carriageway.  Plan B is to take the motorways, the first heading towards London, the second heading away from it towards Brighton, a longer but ultimately quicker route.  Having arrived through one circuitous route, you now want to continue West to Portsmouth, bonne chance.

Again no motorway connects Brighton and all points West.  So you have a mixture of dual and single carriageway, which works like a series of bottlenecks, speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down.  Then in rush hours, Saturdays, bank holidays, summer time periods, speed up, stop, repeat until exasperated.  When we first moved to Worthing in '72, that's 1972 not 1872 they were talking about building bypasses to make the whole route dual carriageway, and they are still talking, and talking, and talking...

As always there are two options, the route through the town and the route through the countryside.  The former means compulsory purchase of properties and re-routing of urban throughways, the countryside route involves digging up the green and pleasant land, including voles, butterflies, rabid and tuberculosis ridden Badgers etc.  Naturally there are people who object to one or the other, or both.  A mantra and truism of the anti countryside route campaign is that once a by-pass is built, the green bit in-between the new road and the town is then infilled by houses and supermarkets.  This does give the impression that planners do a squiggle then colour in the gaps in Tesco blue or Asda green, which is what children used to consider entertaining before the ipad came along.  See, I told you four years of doing a degree in planning was unnecessary.

The last plans for the A27 were ditched following a government review of road projects, but rest assured millions, in fact many millions of pounds had been spent over the forty years or so of thinking about it, probably enough to build a few miles of road.  But it seems that the scheme is being resurrected, and I am sure it will be thoroughly researched, then consigned to the file marked 'bin'.  In the meantime the traffic queues, fuel is burned, tempers fray and the environment suffers.  But even now I hear locals saying 'but if you sort out Worthing and Arundel, what happens when you get to Chichester', you get stuck again is the answer..

No such problem in the Middle East, where the space vs people ratio favours a speedy decision.  Take a ruler (the drawing type, not a monarch), draw a line, build the road.  Need three lanes?  Not a problem, build seven so we have some spare capacity.  Which is why when you drive to Abu Dhabi from Dubai on the 611 you are often the only car on the road, for mile, after mile, after mile, and that's during the day.  Sure there is congestion down town but forty years ago, when the A27 was being considered for expansion, Dubai was a small town, 'Baby take a look at me now'..  Is our problem at home caused by politicians who make every decision with an eye on the ballot box?  If so there is not much danger in one being made before the next election, methinks?

I have a new addition to my list of 'Things I wished I'd been told beforehand as it would have avoided me getting stressed', I must think of a punchier title..  We needed to send a passport to the UK for renewal however the old one had a residence visa in it.  Now, losing official paperwork like that is a real headache so suffice to say I was on tenterhooks for the whole time it was in transit lest it got lost.  We also put in a special request saying we needed the old one back as it contained the visa, surely a common situation?

Six nail biting weeks later, the new one arrives, all on it's lonesome, where is the old one with the visa?!  Naturally we both looked at each other and sighed, envisioning numerous phone calls.  You see calling a local rate number from the UK is not a big deal, doing it from a mobile out here is slightly more expensive, especially when you're on hold for long periods.  Then we were told by numerous people 'oh don't worry, they always send them back separately, it'll turn up', and it did, woo hoo!  But why don't the Passport Office tell you that on their website?  I searched it again today and there is no reference to the practice at all?  So you heard it here first, 'don't panic Captain Manwaring'..

Footnote:  although when the roads are empty, it does encourage 'creative' driving...

A big mosque, Ikea and a rant about queues.

We're enjoying two weeks off school as a spring break at the moment and we've taken the opportunity to go and see Abu Dhabi.  It is always easy to generalise about any country or region and when you talk about the UAE people generally associate the area with: A) being hot, B) oil and C) desert.  Like most stereotypes there is an element of truth, it is warm in the summer, there is desert and some of the Emirates have oil, mainly in Abu Dhabi with much smaller reserves in Dubai and Sharjah.

However, scratch just below the surface and you find that the seven Emirates that make it up are very different.  The fact they are unified is a great compliment to the diplomacy and vision of the Sheikhs that put it together and those that have worked in the last forty-two years to make it a success.  This diversity is what motivates us to spend some time travelling around and hence our trip to Abu Dhabi.

We took the opportunity to go and see the Sheikh Zayed Mosque (Tripadvisor:  #1 attraction in Abu Dhabi, that's 19 places above Ferrari world and not a roller coaster in sight..) and we were very impressed.  I have to admit we do like to visit large places of worship wherever we go, partly because they are normally very impressive pieces of architecture and also because I think it tells you a lot about the people who built them and what life was like at the time of construction.  Let me give you an example.  Avignon is a medium size, very attractive Medieval town in Provence.  But for a short while in the XIV century it was the centre of the Catholic world as Rome was in upheaval.  Thus in the middle of this quaint place you find an enormous and striking Papal Palace, fascinating, or as my children would have said 'you're kidding, we're not walking round this are we?', oh how we'd have laughed...  Suffice to say we also visited the pont, but I didn't dance.

One of the Palais, sure it's big but think of the heating bills...

Everest were always coming round trying to flog them a new door.

So having established we have previous for this sort of visit, we went to the Grand Mosque.  First impressions are that it is aptly named, it is grand and it's definitely a Mosque so no trouble with the Estate Agents' description.  Secondly, entry is free as is a guided tour or an audio guide and all are welcome.

Now I am a sucker for an audio guide, as my wife will tell you.  One sure way of getting me to shut up and wander off for an hour is to give me something that looks like an iPhone with a cheap headset then point me towards 'information point 1'.  Although the award for the most frustrating audio guide goes to the Bayeux Tapestry.  In an effort to keep you moving it doesn't give you an option to re-listen to any of the descriptions and accidentally I skipped one. With my OCD for this sort of thing (I am a 'completer/finisher', I have to watch a TV series from the start and in chronological order, can't dip in half way through)  I wanted to hear the bit I'd missed but the only way to do it was to go all the way round and start again.  Damn you Normans, you weren't even French..

Back to the Mosque, it is an awe inspiring place.  Pure white marble, tranquil pools of blue, cool shady walkways and a cavernous interior.  You have to be impressed with the attention to detail and the commitment to produce a unique building that will stand out amongst the thousands of others built for the same purpose throughout the world.

The hundreds of pillars are in the style of a date palm and inlaid by hand with semi precious stones and mother of pearl in a floral design.  The main chandelier weighs 10 tons and was constructed in Germany, everywhere you look the attention to detail, the quality of the products used and the craftsmanship is amazing.  Yet it doesn't feel ostentatious, the mission statement for the project was 'unite the world' and the various places that they sourced material from and the artisans they used echoed this vision.

Whereas most big cathedrals in Europe are old buildings, this place was built between 1996 - 2007 so is very much a modern statement.

Following our morning of culture, in the afternoon we visited another place of global wonderment and pilgrimage, Ikea.  Like other places of interest, we have visited Ikea stores in several countries and you will be relieved to hear that the one in Abu Dhabi is much the same as the ones in St. Etienne and  Southampton.  You don't see many reviews on TripAdvisor for them but to summarise:  entry is free, they are air conditioned/heated depending on the exterior environment, the canteen has a predictable and reasonably priced selection, and if you need to stock up on stubby HB pencils or paper tape measures these are free and readily available.  Just like the stores in Europe, only 4 of the 30 tills were open so you had to queue up to leave, I will ask my 'go to' Ikea insiders why that is always the case, but that's not a phenomenon that you only find in this shop.  Our Carrefour here suffers from the same problem, as do many immigration passport control areas in airports and sometimes worst of all,  Eurotunnel.  I never got that.

Gatwick last week, suffice to say, some people had been in the queue at passport control for some time..

 

I can appreciate how a shop can get caught out by a sudden influx of customers at a normally quiet time of day, maybe four coach loads of tourists stop off for a toilet break and decide to stock up on water, travel sweets in tins and 'buy one get one free' Coco Pops.  But at peak times airports and other travel hubs are often fully booked so the number of passengers passing through is entirely predictable, why not staff up accordingly? (This is now the rant section of the blog, our friend Elaine's favourite bit..) 

It's the same when you ring a call centre.  When was the last time you heard 'thank you for calling, we'll be dealing with your inquiry quickly and efficiently as we have accurately estimated the volume of calls that we'll be receiving today', never I bet?  But you have heard 'due to an unexpectedly high volume of calls you are in a queue,  there are 56 people ahead of you, as an alternative you can call back' quite often I reckon?  So they had time to make a special recording informing me of their inefficiency but not enough time to ring up some extra staff to come in and do some overtime?

If they were really honest what they should say is 'we know that all our competitors are rubbish at answering the phone too so what are you going to do?  I'll tell you what, nothing.  Oh and don't bother with Uswitch it's a complete con, we all know what the competition charges and it works out the same at the end of the year'.

I thought that IT was supposed to iron out all these kinks by giving the decision makers the management information they need to predict call levels?  Maybe it does, maybe they ignore it to save money?

At least over here we don't have that dilemma, there is normally only one choice for a service, maybe two at a push so there is no switching, but the companies involved don't make you wait any longer for an answer than the ones in a free market.