Come Fly With Me

It’s holiday time, and as I’m due to depart from Stansted Airport on Tuesday, I have just been online to check-in for my flight to Krakow in Poland. Actually, I’m flying Ryanair, so I’m not sure how close to Krakow we’re going to land, but I’ve got guidebooks for Lithuania and Estonia to hand so it should be okay. The fare was a very reasonable £14, although Gordon’s ‘Green Tax’ bumped this up considerably; however, we need a ‘Green Tax’ so that Gordy and Cabinet Ministers can ride around London in 6 litre V12 Jaguars, whilst telling us to use our cars less and downsize to driving around on Flymos. Hey, as long as they’re not being hypocritical about it, then that’s fine by me.

I avoided as many of Ryanair’s scams – sorry, optional extras – as possible during the booking process, although I’m sure that I’ll pay, and pay dearly, for this later on. Firstly, check-in. Yes, they now charge for this if you have the temerity to check-in at the airport, even though the plane lives there. Checking in from home, or even McDonalds if you’ve got wi-fi, is free. Would you like fries with your ticket? I’ve just done this, and it seems to work well. So far. I’ve decided to take hand baggage only, basically because not only do they lose checked bags, they now charge you for the privilege of losing them. At first I thought this would mean cutting down a bit. Now that I’ve actually measured the sort of bag that they define as hand baggage, I’m down to one shirt, change of underwear, my guidebooks of Estonia and Lithuania plus a pack of condoms. Well, that’s the essentials catered for, plus something to aspire to.

Ryanair soon discovered that the Tommy Cooper look
was never going to be a commercial success.

I actually have a great hand-baggage-wheeled-mini-suitcase type of thing, which is perfect. Well, perfect for Easyjet, Wizz!, Aerosvit, British Airways and National Express. Not so perfect if you’re going Ryanair. The case itself is almost regulation size, but the wheels and handle give it a height of 60 cm, which is 5 cm higher than the limit. Most sensible people overlook this extra length, which is why they are employed by Easyjet, Wizz!, Aerosvit, British Airways and National Express – although not for much longer in the case of the latter. Ryanair, however, see things differently – and they’ve sent me 3 e-mails this week telling me that because I’m such a tight arse and only taking hand baggage, then they’ll be making damn sure it’s the right size – and if it’s as much a frog’s eyebrow too large, then it’ll be 30 Euros on the day plus a hard stare from the girl on the desk. Consequently, I’m now taking a smallish backpack with wheels – rather a contradiction in terms, but it’s just great – that will definitely fit, because I will make it fit. My clothes may suffer, and people in Krakow may well come up and ask for a copy Big Issue, but yes, it will fit.

"No, dear, he's not a tramp - he's just got off a Ryanair flight."

They also want me to purchase what they call ‘Priority Boarding.’ This means you may board the plane before anybody else, including the cabin crew, except for the 150 other people who also purchased Priority Boarding. It seems to me that irrespective of when you board the plane, there’s a reasonable chance that everybody will depart and arrive at around about the same time. So that is why I’m not shelling out £15. On a more prosaic note, I would rather be boarding the flight after most of the other passengers have boarded, so that I can see exactly where the shell-suited McMunchers are sitting - and avoid them. I’d be seriously annoyed to pay for Priority Boarding, and get the best seat on the plane (it’s on the black box if you’re wondering), only to get Vicky Pollard and family decamping next to me for a 3-hour flight. Yes, had it all before.

"Just find my mum and she'll pay the extra, mister, pleeeeeease!!!"

The airline never seems to be short of dreaming up new and ingenious ideas to squeeze passengers for cash in evermore imaginative ways. Based on the success of London Underground, they’ve now figured that you can get twice as many people aboard by making them stand up. This is true; it’s been on the news during the week. That’s really going to get your day off to a good start, isn’t it? Bad enough on the daily Peterborough to Kings Cross commute, but when you’re on holiday? And if you have to stand up, where, exactly, are you supposed to put all the crap, sorry, selection of gifts and merchandise, that they constantly try to sell during the flight – not to mention the overpriced cups of froth (cappuccino) plus cheese butties (ciabattas) that pass for in flight catering? I don’t fancy handling that lot while clinging to the ceiling mounted grab rail during bouts of turbulence …

They also don’t seem to have factored in that twice as many passengers on a 737 means twice as much weight (or four times if there’s a hen party from Romford aboard), plus twice as much baggage. Even allowing for Ryanair’s punitive idea of hand-baggage, there isn’t enough space in the overhead lockers for everybody’s bags, coats, laptops, jackets, duty-frees and children as things are now. So where will all this additional clobber go? Tied to the undercarriage? I’m no aviation expert, but I understand a thing or two about loading. Extra weight obviously means that the plane needs plenty of additional fuel, which is going to cost a lot more come filling up time. So who’s going to pay for that? Ryanair – or us? Answers on a postcard to Michael O’Leary, please.

"... oh, and George, don't forget to collect the nectar points."

On the flip side of this, however, twice as many passengers drinking cups of froth and eating cheese butties will double the uptake at the toilets – £1 for Trap 1; £2 for Trap 2 and a fiver if you had an Indian and a Guinness last night.

Come fly with me – but bring your wallet.

Ice Cold in Essex

This weekend I have spent an undue amount of time with the car. Saturday was a trip to Stansted Airport, taking the Polish gang down to catch their flight to ….. you’re way ahead of me again – Poland. Krakow, in fact – where I’m heading off to next week to join them. But, true to form, the convoluted travel plans didn’t go entirely to plan ….

The flight, with good old charge-you-for-every-conceivable-extra Ryanair, was at 6 a.m. so we’d leave Grantham at 1:30 a.m. to allow for any roadworks, accidents, diversions and still have time to turnaround at Peterborough in order to return home to check that the iron had been unplugged. It had. But you can’t be too careful. I also suggested that they leave time at the airport to visit the toilets, and thus avoid Ryanair charging them to use the onboard facilities.

Slightly complicating the issue was that Dave and Val were travelling from Edinburgh to the Norfolk Broads, stopping overnight with me to break the journey – good plan. We’d have an Indian (meal, not a guest from Mumbai), drink and a chat, then I’d go chauffeuring while they went to bed. In theory, I’d be back in time to put the kettle on for a rise-and-shine cuppa – how perfect a host am I?

Around 10, I had a phone call asking about a computer problem. Why the hell are you doing that when you should be packing, rather sprang to my mind. Well, it turned out that there had been something of a misunderstanding with the times; yes, the old a.m. / p.m. confusion. That’s why I always work in 24 hour clock mode. Oh goody. So you don’t need me till lunchtime, then? Great; I cracked open a bottle of 2001 Castillo de la Cruz Valdepenas that I had been saving for a special occasion ever since Dave had brought it in a few hours previously.

So, after a night of socialising, Dave and Val duly set off for their week at the Norfolk Broads on a bling-bling boat. Inspired by the Somali pirate operations, the idea is to sail it down to Felixstowe Docks and hijack a container ship loaded with imported Samsung plasma televisions and sell them on Ebay. Yes, I’ll keep you posted …

“For the last time, Val, I am not going back to see if they've got
a container full of Clairol hair straighteners. Get over it."

Once they’d gone I had a quick clean up, picked up the Poles and set off for Stansted. It was very hot and humid, and as regular readers will know, my aircon has packed up and I have no stereo either. It’s a wonderful car. On the way back, I was on my own as all the nice pretty girls at Stansted didn’t seem to require a lift – at least, not in a car without aircon or a stereo that could play wagglemytitsandbum music. Axe wielding mass murderers who want to listen to Barry Manilow are inevitably attracted to my car. But a miniskirted sociology student? Not a chance.

The dream

The reality - welcome to my world

Enough is enough! So, on Sunday I decided to bite the bullet, dig deep and get these issues sorted out. Halfords first, for a stereo. By stereo, I mean a device that will play CD’s and pick up Radio 2. That all. But they don’t make ‘em like that anymore, because that’s too easy.

Now that’s what I call music!

Eventually, I saw one that I liked – it’s got MP3 capability, 50w sub woofers, 4 megapixel lens, manual choke, PC adapter card, SC-FX025A with 6 preset EQ modes, a docking station (for what? The QE2?) It also makes coffee. So, now you understand that I know nothing about car stereos – I actually picked one based on price, a brand I’ve heard of (Sony) that offered half price fitting and was actually compatible with something – I don’t know what, exactly, I just like the word ‘compatible’ in this day and age of non-standardisation. It was passed to the fitter, or audio automotive technician as they call themselves these days, to fit. "Oh, dear me no. The Toyota Avensis has an integral centrifugal nosepicker Mk4 console, and to fit the stereo you have to remove the dashboard, console and gearbox, you see. And then you need – bits."
"What sort of bits?"
"Expensive bits."
"Naturally. Have you got them in stock?"
"Don’t be so stupid."
"Well, can you get them?"
"Er ... um ... we’ll have a look in our stockroom and cupboard under the stairs, and if there’s no luck we’ll pootle about on Ebay. Then call you back in a month or so."
"I’ll get back to you."

“No mate, nothing wrong with that, bit of polish and she’ll be as good as new.”

I decided at that point not to mention air conditioning, as they’d probably fix that by cutting off the roof. So I went instead to Kwikfit.
"Can you sort out my aircon?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"It doesn't."
"Okay, yes, forty five quid, come back in an hour."

How cool is that, eh (did you see what I did there?) I walked home – yeah, remember doing that? One foot in front of the other, repeat procedure until you reach a pub, turn left and enter. Not that you can do that anymore. The pubs in Grantham aren’t pubs anymore, they're basically a crèche serving alcopops and Croatian Kerosene to 15 year olds who dance to wigglemytitsandbum or dikka-dooka-dikka-dooka ‘music’. All of which sounds like a collection of car horns and burglar alarms overlaid on a backing track of a plane crashing into a mountain. The Rose & Crown and The Cross Keys are now called things like Offmaface or Smashyerskull, and have happy hours that last 6 hours, where you can have a Drambuie & Domestos Marguerita followed by a pint of Castrol GTX for a quid. That’s why you see kids nagging their parents in Asda to buy some Cillit Bang. They think that it’s a cocktail.

With everyone drinking Vodka & Windolene, Gerald decided to play some
Vomit & The Gonads to get everyone really raving.

But I digress. Time for a quick cuppa and then walk back – I could have stayed in town, but the entertainment in Grantham on a Sunday is limited to watching the 234 sets of unsynchronised traffic lights change colour (slowly).
Back at Kwikfit, my car was ready, and I shelled out the agreed £45. I got in, turned up the aircon to full, and within minutes the interior was full of lovely cold, dry air – it was so good I had to put my coat and gloves on to warm up. On the way home, I pulled into the Hand Carwash place and treated the car to a good wash and polish – those guys are excellent, always do a fantastic job and they’re very personable too. A showroom finish for a fiver - it even includes shiny tyre paint as a finishing touch!

Well, my aircon problem seems to be solved. As for the stereo? Well, I’ve just sent a text to Captain Dave on the ‘Broads, and ordered a Panasonic BH89/6b with extra mufflers and cruise control, from whichever Korean container ship he happens to run across. Or, knowing Dave, run into. Bon Voyage!