Archives for March 2008
Murder on the dancefloor
I stopped in at Madrid on the way to Jerez for a few days of flying, , sunshine and rest. Alex kindly took me to Space, "one of Europe’s best mixed/gay clubs" for his bottle of birthday Cava. Thanks, Alex – it was a blast!
Madrid Airport
It’s very curvy with beautiful wood ceilings. Odd, though, that one half of the terminal is about three kilometres from the other, which makes getting to the plane rather tiresome. As was waiting thirty minutes for bags.
At least I had my bags.
Pimp my Dubai Ride
Each watertaxi driver had taken the effort to personalise his boat in little ways: custom paint jobs, various styles of lino and a second-hand car seat for comfort whilst steering with the feet. Every boat was unique. If only London Buses did the same.
Dubai
Is an exceedingly dull place, in my opinion. On a twelve hour stopover there’s little of interest to do except go to the mall, catch a movie, spend a few moments in the souks and await the flight home.
I did take in the Dubai Museum this time (to the confusion of the taxi driver who had trouble finding it). The tale of the Emirate’s development is undeniably fascinating, growing from a small trading post to economic powerhouse in a matter of decades. The CCTV attached to the museum’s mud wall sums up this dichotomy.
By the way, wind towers were an excellent innovation and surely a sensible alternative to air conditioning.
Eee
Geekily I’ve been using this tiny laptop on some of my recent travels. It weighs under a kilo, is the size of a hardback book, is quite hard to type on at first and is relatively easy to hack with an XP installation.
It’s not Macbook Air, but it’s also a sixth of the price. The screen’s too small for working on longer documents and spreadsheets, but it’s an excellent travel device. Once the 10″ version comes out I’d definitely consider it over my Mac for longer travels too.
Dirty as it feels to return to XP…
Trente ans en les cartes postale
Recently my naughty little sister turned thirty. Rather than buy some naff and expensive gift, she received a wheelbarrow and these thirty individual postcards.
Created in photoshop and printed via the slightly over-priced moo.com, I think the results are rather neat. You can see the originals here.
IKEA Croydon Customer Services Manager
I toyed with the idea of letting you read the entire letter sent to IKEA regarding their atrocious delivery service and how they lost my kitchen, but it would be a waste of five minutes of your life. Instead, here’s information for the greater good of the world.
If you are having trouble with customer service issues at the Croydon branch, you might be interested to know that the Customer Service Manager’s name is Martin Keay. And that you can email him at MARTIN.KEAY@memo.ikea.com . And that you can telephone him on the store’s directline, 020 8781 5000.
I also have his mobile number but, well, it’d be wrong to publish that here. Wouldn’t it?
Once you reach dire straits and find that only a fax to the UK MD will get things sorted, why not give Martin a call… don’t tell him you found his details here! But I’d be interested to know if they’re helpful.
Good luck.
