Archives for March 2006
Don’t drink and fly!
This caught my eye because it’s an unusual place to see this brand name: India’s Kingfisher Airlines is taking delivery of new aircraft. Cue puns about in-flight service etc, although Branson has been there first with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Vodka.
At least neither of these airlines land at the wrong airfield unlike Ryanair. Bugger.
Blind leading the blind
Saw this next to the dartboard in my ancient local, the Three Chimneys. There’s something inappropriate about it that I can’t quite put my finger on…
Nerd or not?
A geek is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination.
Nerd, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to somebody who pursues personal interests at the expense of skills that are useful in a social setting, such as communication, fashion, or physical fitness.
I dress well, can run a mile and communicate with others, so gladly adopt the geek tag and look down on nerds. Losers!
Ephemera
So, pleasant days in the Weald of Kent and time to ponder the imponderables. Here are three things I’d like to share with you.
Washing-up liquid is not a suitable alternative for dishwasher tablets. I had my own Ibiza foam party in the kitchen this weekend when trying to clean the dishes. Thank the Heavens it’s a wooden floor. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Digital cinema is the way of the future. A new cinema opened a couple of weeks ago in a village about eight miles from here. Rather than invest in a 35mm projector, the owners of the Hawkhurst Kino Cinema have taken advantage of a UK Film Council initiative and installed a digital projector. I’ve been three times in the past week and am very impressed by the standards of digital.
Firstly I saw Caché. Perhaps not the best example since videotape forms an important element of the story (that includes one of the most explosive and unexpected scenes I have ever seen in a movie – highly recommended), but after the first few minutes I’d forgotten it wasn’t celluloid. At the weekend we saw The World’s Fastest Indian (again), a rip roaring Boy’s Own movie, and I didn’t even think about how it was shown. The same with the odder but enjoyable A Cock and Bull Story. My only complaints are that the image is sometimes too bright, and big blocks of colour can appear unnatural, but these really are minor gripes; this projector has a resolution of 2000 lines, twice as many as High Definition TV, and once 4000 line screens come on-line the quality will probably kick 35mm out of the ring. For me, just seeing a movie in focus is a rare treat. Why do so many cinemas not even bother to keep the image clear and crisp?
One of the best things about the initiative is that, in return for subsidised equipment, cinemas are obliged to show a certain number of non-mainstream flicks. For a film geek-snob such as myself, this is exciting news.
Lastly, I have realised that I know nothing about where food comes from. Frying up a stir for dinner I read the cover of my Waitrose noodles. These were, it claims, free range egg noodles.
Are there factories in China where noodles are allowed to run free and play with other noodles, getting tied in knots and slithering around, before being tenderly packed into comfortable plastic trays from whence they are dropped into boiling oil? Obviously no, but it showed that not only do I have no idea of how to cook much of anything, but that I’d never paid attention to how food is made and from whence it comes. I can’t debone a chicken without instructions, I have no idea how to make cheese sauce, pulses are a mystery and it’s only through my Belgian ancestry that I know Brussels sprouts grow on stalky things.
Like most men, the only thing I can make is bread.
Something else to add to the to-do list: identify vegetables, learn to cook fresh ingredients, wean self off supermarket fresh sauces.
Cracking the Oyster
Mr Grumpy writes:
The Oyster card is a wonderful innovation, reaching London just a decade after its implementation elsewhere in the world. It’s quick and easy to use, indeed it’s so successful that Underground ticket office staff face being moved to other duties, as if they needed an excuse to strike. Fares with an Oyster card are also significantly cheaper, which has been a catalyst for its widespread uptake. Data from the omniscient cards have also helped catch criminals.
When travelling abroad I always like trying to learn to navigate a new city using public transport. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s a good way to see more of the place. If there’s a regular user card, I’ll probably take it – such as the Suica card in Tokyo or the Octopus card in Hong Kong. It’s simple: in Hong Kong, for example, I pay the 50HKD deposit for a card, use that card for the week I’m there, then return the card at the end of the trip and get my 50HKD back. No problem.
So why should it be so frickin’ difficult to return an Oyster card and get my money back in London? Why? Bloody why? I’ll explain.
In the past couple of years I have collected three cards. One is registered to my London address and had my season ticket on it; but that was packed away when I came back last year, so I got a pre-pay card (with a £3 deposit for the card), and did the same again when I got back a few weeks ago. These things get lost from time to time, and I knew I could get the money back, so not a problem.
Once I’d unpacked and got sorted out I decided to get rid of the two pre-pay cards and keep my original one. I popped over to the ticket office in Charing Cross station and asked for my refund.
“Are the cards registered, Sir?”
“No. I tried to register them on the internet but it said I could only do this at a station”
“That’s right. I need you to fill out these forms and bring them back to me when you’re done”
Now, these forms asked for a lot of information, indeed I’ve filled in less to apply for a credit card. It even asked for my mother’s family name for ’security purposes’. All I want is the money back! Why I couldn’t do this on the website was unclear.
So I put the forms in the bag and decided to finish things another day.
On a quiet Tuesday afternoon I stopped at Victoria Station to process the refunds. I made sure it was in the afternoon lull as it was going to take a few minutes.
“Will you ever be returning to London again?”
“Yes, of course, but I don’t need three Oyster cards”
“Why do you have three cards?”
I felt like I was being interrogated. “Because I couldn’t find the other ones”
“Well you should have reported them lost”
“Reported? To who?”
“To London Transport. Then they’d process a refund and bar the card”
“But I hadn’t lost the card, I just couldn’t find it”. (I’m sure there’s a semantic difference there.) “I just want the money back”
There was sucking of teeth. “You really should have reported them lost. We’ll have to register the cards but I can probably only do one. The system doesn’t like having more than one card for the same person at the same address. And you already have the third card registered.”
I didn’t bother asking why. “Well this is a different address to my season ticket (it was my parent’s address). It should go through”.
So firstly, money – but not the deposit – is refunded from the two cards. Since one was paid for on plastic, I have to find the right card for the refund of £1.20. Then the agent manually enters the information from my registration form – yes, even email address and my mother’s maiden name – into the ticketing computer. And he waits. And waits, until finally the card is registered, he can take my first Oyster card, and send that off for processing.
And then a cheque for £3 will arrive in the post. Eventually. Probably.
By this stage I had been at the window for ten minutes – no kidding – and there was a queue of a dozen other grumpy people behind me. I felt bad, they looked annoyed, the agent was only ‘following orders’. His advice was to register the other card another day, ideally to a different address. I nodded and left before things got any more confusing.
This raises plenty of questions:
» Why is London doing this differently to so many other cities?
» Why do I have to register the card to get a refund?
» Why can’t I register the card on the internet?
» If registration is to help catch criminals (which I doubt), wouldn’t they just avoid registering?
» Why is so much information required to register the card?
» Why is the system suspicious of a customer having more than one card?
» Why do I have to lie, potentially, about names and addresses to register more than one card?
» Why can’t I get the refund there and then?
If Transport for London is pushing use of the Oyster card through large fare differentials, it should also make obtaining, using and returning a card as simple as possible. I imagine there are a lot of £3 deposits left under beds or in desk drawers around London, indeed around the world, that TfL are happy to retain.
I plan to write to Mr Hendy and friends to see if he can explain it all to me. As you probably know my close brushes with Mr Livingstone and his henchmen have made me deeply cynical of getting a straight answer from that part of La La Land.
Mr Grumpy says goodbye, for now.
Welcome to… Biddenden
You may (or may not) be interested to see where I’ve set up camp for a couple of months. Welcome to Biddenden. The village is most famous for its siamese twin sisters: they were born more than 900 years ago and some would say little of note has happened since, but it’s a very pleasant place with a real ‘middle England’ character.
Here’s one of the typical local properties:
Note that this shop, which dates back to the 1400s, sells mostly crap like this. It’s a wonder it survives, although there’s obviously a market for it.
The view from the shed in which I’m staying looks like this on a good day:
That’s the village church in the distance, with horses frollicking in the middle field. There are genuine problems with the drainage in the bottom field which tickles my Fast Show sense of humour.
The local shop always has a copy of The Guardian in stock, the butcher sells good cheese and fresh bread, the pub has plenty of low beams on which to hit one’s head and I believe Ian Hislop lives round the corner. All in all, a good place to reacclimatise to life in Blighty.
Well that’s the plan
As seen in Calcutta, September 2004.
Fake Tilt/Shift Photography
It didn’t take too long to find out how to fake those model worlds. More of mine on Flickr.
The Battle of Britain Suite
Now back on British soil, I’m working on converting my New Zealand licence to a European one – not that it’s mandatory, but it will make navigation in England a lot easier (no mountains to help me find my way here), and will allow me to fly to France and beyond. As well as more flying, I need to sit a couple of exams. Yesterday was Air Law, a nasty little paper that threw me in several places.
This is all taking place at Headcorn (Lashenden) Aerodrome, a friendly place full of character just a couple of miles from my country retreat. It was one of many sites in the region used in WWII, by British, Canadian and American forces. Yesterday’s exam was held in the old Battle of Britain briefing rooms which absolutely drip with history, even if some of the artefacts are not quite period. It was quite stirring to think of the events that took place in those very rooms.
The Pub Landlord, who always wanted to have a Battle of Britain Suite in his Carvery, would be proud. As was I, scraping the exam with an 80% mark. Phew.
Model Worlds
These images have popped up in a few places in recent weeks, but are so intriguing that they bear repetition.
When I first saw photographer Olivo Barbieri’s pictures I assumed they were models of remarkable detail; however, they are genuine aerial shots taken with a tilt/shift lens. It’s unclear how these work; if anyone can enlighten me, please do.
