Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

I thought that you were off to gay Paris for a few days Tony, what happened ?

I am way too dis-organized Ralph, & it was Monday before I eventually got round to booking it.

The Hotels were horrendouisly expensive, & I don't wanno go to Paris & stay in a dosshouse, so eventually I gave best & decided to keep my powder dry for a bit later in the year, or early in '08, when the Diary is a bit easier.

I have to go to Cornwall on Friday, by car (because I have to get back in a hurry on Saturday), so I'd have flown back from Paris Friday morning & then immediately driven all the way to Cornwall, & all the way back on Saturday. So, for once, I did the sensible thing.

OK, gotta go, I'm off to Luton, via the clogged up M1. At least I know there'll be a reasonable field there, unlike last night in Notts!

[M3boy]

WE will see you there Tony

[tikay]

WE will see you there Tony

The Royal "WE"? M3Girl too? Wonderful!

[Rookie (Rodney)]

WE will see you there Tony

The Royal "WE"? M3Girl too? Wonderful!

He has to bring M3Girl, he's under the thumb tikay

[Colchester Kev]

WE will see you there Tony

The Royal "WE"? M3Girl too? Wonderful!

No when he says "WE" , he means him and his split personalities

[tikay]

WE will see you there Tony

The Royal "WE"? M3Girl too? Wonderful!

He has to bring M3Girl, he's under the thumb tikay

As much as you?

[Rookie (Rodney)]

WE will see you there Tony

The Royal "WE"? M3Girl too? Wonderful!

He has to bring M3Girl, he's under the thumb tikay

As much as you?

More so..

[M3boy]

Huh !!!! , in my dreams 

[charmaine]

Oops , used his again 

[tikay]

Into each life, a little rain must fall.

Never got home from Luton until 7am, slept in until 2pm. Awoke to find an e-Mail saying I needed to be at an urgent meeting in South-West London at 6pm.

Just about managed to get to Derby Station in time to catch the 15.04 to St Pancras, then via Jubilee & Victoria Lines to Waterloo, & South West Trains to Richmond. Almost got arrested at Richmond because my ticket (which cost £157 return) was allegedly invalid at Richmond, as I should have used the Tube, not South West Trains. Got uppity with Ticket Inspector, who used to work for the Gestapo. Freed eventually, after Gestapo Man agreed he was "possibly" wrong.

Arrived breathless & in a lather, but bang on time, for the Meeting, & waited an hour for two of those attending, 1 of whom lived round the corner, to show up.

Was a good Meeting. Had myself a new anal orifice ripped, was told I have the business acumen of next door's tortoise, & that I'm a piece of shit because I try to be nice to people. But some of the Meeting was quite bad.

Took 4 hours to get back home, & was back indoors by 0100am. 

There, that feels better.

OK, "Into each life, a little rain must fall". Who wrote that? And complete the full wordiness. Prize, a wet snog from me.

[Ginger]

The Rainy Day

Written at the old home in Portland

THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
  And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
  And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
  Some days must be dark and dreary.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[tikay]

The Rainy Day

Written at the old home in Portland

THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
  And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
  And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
  Some days must be dark and dreary.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And Ginger wins the Wet Snog. Lucky her.

[Ginger]

 

[tikay]

Greatest Living Irishman Dies?

Well not quite, but the death yesterday, after a long battle against cancer, of Dr Tony Ryan, is a sad day indeed. Tony Ryan changed many of our lives so much - for better or worse, who can say?, but change them he did.

He began business by founding Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), who were big-time Aircraft Leasers in the 70's & 80's, based in Shannon. They were buyers for over 10% of the entire Civil Aviation aircraft industry production for several years. The plan was to float the company for £800 million, but they over-egged the price, fell out with the City Institutions, & it all went tits up. The company was eventually sold for a much lesser sum to General Electric. To this day, Shannon remains the World for Aircraft Leasing Companies, & more than 20 of them are based there.

But by the time of the aborted GPA float, Tony Ryan had a new toy - Ryanair. Beginning with 1 x 15 seat aircraft shuttling between Waterford & Herathrow, it has grown to become, astonishingly in so short a time, the world's largest airline measured by passengers carried per annum. The appointment of the abrasive & acerbic Michael O'Leary was a stroke of genius, two great minds with a common idea. And from that stemmed EasyJet, BMI Baby, & scores of other Low-Cost Airlines. As a result, we can now fly all over Europe for less than the cost of a basket of shopping at Tesco's.

Ryanair is modelled on Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, & it's iconic founder, Herb Kelleher, who's the Warren Buffett of Civil Aviation. Tony Ryan told Michael O'Leary to go take a look at Southwest Airlines, & spend some time with Herb. Michael did just that, & Ryanair as we know it was the result. Ironically, Southwest is the world's 2nd largest airline (by passenger numbers) now after Ryanair ousted it from top spot, a clear case of pupil beating teacher.

Tony Ryan became a multi-millionaire, owning Racehorse Studs, Fine Art & many palatial homes.

He changed the world, by making it cheaper & affordable to travel, & now it's a much smaller place. And a sadder place without Dr Ryan. May the great man Rest in Peace.

[tikay]

So, I got my Tom-Tom at last, wow, what a piece of kit!

I was on the train to London this afternoon, so decided to have a play with it, find out how it worked. It shows the Stations & everything, amazing. But I could not find how to turn off the sound, & I only have one address in it so far - my home, (and as it happens, I know how to get there) - so it kept saying "make a U-turn", "take the next left turn", and I started getting funny looks from the other Passengers. I think they thouight I was a bit doo-lally. And maybe they were right, but jeez, how can we take such amazing bits of kit for granted? It has a map of every road in the UK, knows precisely where we are at any given moment, where all the Speed Cameras are, da de da. All on a 3D moving Map. I suppose it works by sending signals to & from Geo-Satellites parked in space. Who'd have imagined that was remotely possible 20 years ago?

Ditto Mobile Phones. No wires, no (visible) aerial, & we can speak to anyone, anywhere in the world, 24/7, by pressing a few buttons. And they are smaller than a fag packet. Wherever we are, callers find us, & almost everyone has one, & folks would rather leave home naked than go without their Moby. There are some things in modern life almost everyone has, (like, for example, Jeans, Cars, TV's & Fridges) & Mobile Phones are now on that list, yet they never existed 20 years ago, & we were all queueing at red telephone boxes.

i-pods are another. When I was a lad, we had "Music Centres", about the size of a small barge, and we thought we were cool if we had  reel-to-reel tape-recorders. Now you can get x-hundred songs or "talking books" on a small thing which fits in our pockets. Modern Technology is a thing of awe to me, & yet so many folks take them for granted.

Ever watch Satellite TV, Sky for example? A camera views a football match, sends the signal up to a satellite parked over West Africa, & back to our homes in the blink of a nanaseciond. Extraordinary. Look Mum, no wires.

I look at all of these things in an oddly fascinated way, & yet many of us take them for granted. What was it Tommy Trinder used to say?