Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[bolt pp]

Dewi

copied from pm.....

get over to tikay's diary thread and nab yourself a shirt, muppet!

I know that - It's Dewi - going to post now - ship the shirt!  Cheers Claire

  lol @ timings, blot would have got in by a second if he posted here first.

well I'm hardly going to make it look like it was a second later than Jizzem's post am I...?  

sorry bolty - I tried!

So, you admit the timings were "Edited" to suit bolty?

I was just about to change my mind & give it to him, but not now. That's terrible.

I feel so dirty.  I hope you can forgive me.  Nothing was edited; my whole post was a work of fiction.  I will do 10 hail marys.  please bear in mind that i was just trying to help a friend and very decent man in his time of need.

Tikay got whooshed and he knows it!

lol ficticious pm-aments!

that deserves t-shirts all round i think!

[tikay]

Ryanair are absolutely coining it, & good luck to them, successful businesses who innovate & embrace change deserve to.

I got to the EMA Ryanair check-in desk at 0500 (jeez...) on Saturday morning, & the curt lady said to me "are you taking that suitcase?".

Well, how do you answer that? It is the general idea, I'd have thought, to take it with me.

On nodding agreement to her, she said it'd cost £20, & she sent me across to the Ryanair "Kiosk". I queued up again there, & proferred a £20 note.

"Were you planning to bring the suitcase back home with you Sir?" said Mr Statement of the Bloody Obvious. I sighed & gave him another £20 note.

It's a terrific idea, & all Airlines will do it soon. (Some already do).

I got to thinking about where Ryanair make their money. Of course, they boast that they do not, & never will, chqarge "Fuel Surcharges". They don't need to......

So, lets fly Ryanair. We Book Online - well in advance (giving them use of our cash which their Treasury Department place on high-interest overnight rates), & they also charge about a fiver for the right to pay by plastic.

We can also pay a fee - £7 I think - to check in Online.

Then we pay for our baggage, £20 a pop. Each way.

Then there's "Priority Boarding", at £5 a head. This one I love. At Dublin, returning home, the "priority Boarding" queue was almost everybody. (Not me, I add).  Think about that, & where it ends up - everyone pays the £5 & therefore nobody benefits! So next will be "Golden Boarding Priority", or "Super Priority Boarding", at £10 or £20 a head. Marvellous revenue generation, every penny of which goes straight to the bottom-line as there are no added prime costs. Even the Baggage Lockers & Seat-Backs in the 'plane are plastered with adverts.

Ryanair's fleet is "single make", all of them the latest model Boeing 737-800, with the Mega-Big Fuel-Saving Winglets, & it's by far the youngest fleet of any major carrier - and Ryanair ARE major, they carry more passengers these days than even BA these days.

So a big up to Mr O'Leary, & Ryanair, it's one of the biggest success stories in Europe of the last 10 years, & it's changed short-haul travel for so many of us. (They plan to start a cross-Atlantic service once the market collapses - therefore buying planes when nobody else wants them, & thus at rock-botom prices). They've not missed a trick, & I think they are just terrific.

The only thing which exercises me with all this - & this is all Airlines, not just Ryanair - is the fact that Airlines don't pay tax on Aviation Fuel. (Petrol).  Why not? Because that's the way it works, world-wide, Airlines don't pay fuel tax.

Which is just ridiculous, when our oil supplies are running out, when we are supposed to worry about green issues & carbon footprints, Governments around the world are encouraging Airlines to grow by not taxing their fuel. How daft is that?

20 years ago, it cost £200 to fly to Glasgow or Paris from London, now it's damn near free. We can fly to Vegas for £350, when the "true value", taking everything into account, must be nearer £2,000.

It makes no sense at all. Imagine the easing of the taxation burden if Airline fuel were taxed! If it were, Ryanair would survive, don't worry about that. Very few other Airlines would though. And the world's fuel supplies might last significantly longer.

It's all gonna end in tears. I sometimes muse about what will happen when fuel really does get into under-supply, in 10 or 20 or 30 years. Women & children first? I think not. The Military & Governments will hoard it all for themselves, & sod everyone else. It will happen, it's nailed on.

[tikay]

Dewi

copied from pm.....

get over to tikay's diary thread and nab yourself a shirt, muppet!

I know that - It's Dewi - going to post now - ship the shirt!  Cheers Claire

  lol @ timings, blot would have got in by a second if he posted here first.

well I'm hardly going to make it look like it was a second later than Jizzem's post am I...?  

sorry bolty - I tried!

So, you admit the timings were "Edited" to suit bolty?

I was just about to change my mind & give it to him, but not now. That's terrible.

I feel so dirty.  I hope you can forgive me.  Nothing was edited; my whole post was a work of fiction.  I will do 10 hail marys.  please bear in mind that i was just trying to help a friend and very decent man in his time of need.

Tikay got whooshed and he knows it!

lol ficticious pm-aments!

that deserves t-shirts all round i think!

I did, I did. I was softening up towards you, the T-Shirt was (almost) in the Post, but now I've been whooshed, forget it.

As for Claire, well, she's exposed herself.

[Laxie]

Dewi

copied from pm.....

get over to tikay's diary thread and nab yourself a shirt, muppet!

I know that - It's Dewi - going to post now - ship the shirt!  Cheers Claire

  lol @ timings, blot would have got in by a second if he posted here first.

well I'm hardly going to make it look like it was a second later than Jizzem's post am I...?   

sorry bolty - I tried!

So, you admit the timings were "Edited" to suit bolty?

I was just about to change my mind & give it to him, but not now. That's terrible.

I feel so dirty.  I hope you can forgive me.  Nothing was edited; my whole post was a work of fiction.  I will do 10 hail marys.  please bear in mind that i was just trying to help a friend and very decent man in his time of need.

Tikay got whooshed and he knows it!

lol ficticious pm-aments!

that deserves t-shirts all round i think!

I did, I did. I was softening up towards you, the T-Shirt was (almost) in the Post, but now I've been whooshed, forget it.

As for Claire, well, she's exposed herself.

That shouldn't be held against her as it's nothing new...she does it all the time.

[AndrewT]

Then there's "Priority Boarding", at £5 a head. This one I love. At Dublin, returning home, the "priority Boarding" queue was almost everybody. (Not me, I add).  Think about that, & where it ends up - everyone pays the £5 & therefore nobody benefits! So next will be "Golden Boarding Priority", or "Super Priority Boarding", at £10 or £20 a head. Marvellous revenue generation, every penny of which goes straight to the bottom-line as there are no added prime costs. Even the Baggage Lockers & Seat-Backs in the 'plane are plastered with adverts.

I've never understood the rush to get on a plane. As soon as the announcement is made that boarding is starting people immediately jump up out of their seats and start queueing up. Why? The plane's not going anywhere till everyone's on board. You don't have to rush to get a seat, as everyone has a seat allocated. The seats in the terminal building have more legroom than the ones on the plane.

At Dublin airport, the plane back to London was announced as boarding, and the queue started forming. However, there was then some sort of delay which meant that boarding didn't actually start for the best part of half an hour. And people were in that queue the whole time. People who were previously sitting on seats. And yet the queue continued to grow, snaking its way around the gate, with no one actually getting onto the plane.

[rex008]

It's all gonna end in tears. I sometimes muse about what will happen when fuel really does get into under-supply, in 10 or 20 or 30 years. Women & children first? I think not. The Military & Governments will hoard it all for themselves, & sod everyone else. It will happen, it's nailed on.

We're under-supplied now - 50% price increase in 1 year is definitely a sign of low supply. And it's been said we're going to run out in 30 years since about 1910. It'll be market driven, like everything else. For example, the Canadian Oil Sands, which have been known about for a long time, costs about $50/bl to extract crude from. Up until 2 years ago, it was totally uneconomical to do. Now very profitable. And there is more oil there than in the entire middle east. Which is a lot. The Canadian oil industry is having a massive ramp up at the moment.

Market forces ftw .

Talking of flights, my boss flew up to Aberdeen last week, from EMA. Cost him £315 for a day trip as it was booked quite late. He's doing Venezuela next month (oil sand stuff, funnily enough) and the flights are £316. It's a strange market.

[Claw75]

Dewi

copied from pm.....

get over to tikay's diary thread and nab yourself a shirt, muppet!

I know that - It's Dewi - going to post now - ship the shirt!  Cheers Claire

  lol @ timings, blot would have got in by a second if he posted here first.

well I'm hardly going to make it look like it was a second later than Jizzem's post am I...?   

sorry bolty - I tried!

So, you admit the timings were "Edited" to suit bolty?

I was just about to change my mind & give it to him, but not now. That's terrible.

I feel so dirty.  I hope you can forgive me.  Nothing was edited; my whole post was a work of fiction.  I will do 10 hail marys.  please bear in mind that i was just trying to help a friend and very decent man in his time of need.

Tikay got whooshed and he knows it!

lol ficticious pm-aments!

that deserves t-shirts all round i think!

I did, I did. I was softening up towards you, the T-Shirt was (almost) in the Post, but now I've been whooshed, forget it.

As for Claire, well, she's exposed herself.

That shouldn't be held against her as it's nothing new...she does it all the time.

I wish I could deny it..........

[tikay]

Then there's "Priority Boarding", at £5 a head. This one I love. At Dublin, returning home, the "priority Boarding" queue was almost everybody. (Not me, I add).  Think about that, & where it ends up - everyone pays the £5 & therefore nobody benefits! So next will be "Golden Boarding Priority", or "Super Priority Boarding", at £10 or £20 a head. Marvellous revenue generation, every penny of which goes straight to the bottom-line as there are no added prime costs. Even the Baggage Lockers & Seat-Backs in the 'plane are plastered with adverts.

I've never understood the rush to get on a plane. As soon as the announcement is made that boarding is starting people immediately jump up out of their seats and start queueing up. Why? The plane's not going anywhere till everyone's on board. You don't have to rush to get a seat, as everyone has a seat allocated. The seats in the terminal building have more legroom than the ones on the plane.

At Dublin airport, the plane back to London was announced as boarding, and the queue started forming. However, there was then some sort of delay which meant that boarding didn't actually start for the best part of half an hour. And people were in that queue the whole time. People who were previously sitting on seats. And yet the queue continued to grow, snaking its way around the gate, with no one actually getting onto the plane.

Yes, it's the weirdest thing this queueing to get on the 'plane, it must be a psychological thing, & fair play to Rynair for exploiting it.

It's the same when the 'plane lands - the moment it stops, eveybody stands up, but they all meet up again at the Baggage Carousel. I wonder how long it will be before Ryanir exploit this oddity, & charge for "Priority Disembarking"?

[tikay]

It's all gonna end in tears. I sometimes muse about what will happen when fuel really does get into under-supply, in 10 or 20 or 30 years. Women & children first? I think not. The Military & Governments will hoard it all for themselves, & sod everyone else. It will happen, it's nailed on.

We're under-supplied now - 50% price increase in 1 year is definitely a sign of low supply. And it's been said we're going to run out in 30 years since about 1910. It'll be market driven, like everything else. For example, the Canadian Oil Sands, which have been known about for a long time, costs about $50/bl to extract crude from. Up until 2 years ago, it was totally uneconomical to do. Now very profitable. And there is more oil there than in the entire middle east. Which is a lot. The Canadian oil industry is having a massive ramp up at the moment.

Market forces ftw .
Talking of flights, my boss flew up to Aberdeen last week, from EMA. Cost him £315 for a day trip as it was booked quite late. He's doing Venezuela next month (oil sand stuff, funnily enough) and the flights are £316. It's a strange market.

Well yes, but we are using it faster than it was made, & we'll run out sooner or later, for absolute certain.

7 aircraft were queued up on the Dublin Airport Taxiway waiting to take off, multiply that by a dozen airports in the UK, 200 in Europe, 1,000 worldwide, & that's a lot of gas being guzzled - all untaxed.

When the Inter-Universe Council of Planets meet to review how all the Planets are managing, & looking after their domain, they are gonna be well cross with Planet Earth.

"So, in 50 years, you've reduced the ozone layer by 30%, the polar ice-caps by 25%, the glacial flows by 15%, used up 80% of all the oil reserves which took 3 zillion years to lay down, destroyed 70% of the world's rainforests, eradicated hundreds of bird & animal species by hunting or toxic contamination, overfished the seas until fish stocks have fallen 80%, & you show no concern that you are wilfully wasting the world's natural resources. OK, here's your penalty. You will not be allowed to extract or refine any oil for the first 3 months of 2009, that'll give you a wake-up call, & show you how life is going to be for your grandchildren unless you buck your ideas up & start looking after your property". (All figures fictional, but you get the drift).

For Ding - there is not really a Inter-Universe Council of Planets, I made that up.

[tikay]

I gather that Steve Holden won himself  a Vegas Main Event Seat last weekend in that monster 'Stars Vegas Super Sat. It made a whopping 226 seats, & there were over 8,000 runners!

Well done Steve.

[tikay]

Compo has a new nickname.

He turned up at Luton on Monday - looking like a tramp, I might add - & in the 4k chip £50 + £50 + £50 affair he got lucky early.

It was a corking table, with Simon Galloway & himself sat side by side & the unpredictable Hamid on Sentry Duty behind Compo.

There's a Raise to 200 at 25-50, it gets to Compo, who shoves all-in for 4,000+...!

Hamid, behind him, beats him into the pot.

Compo, utterly predictably, tables A-K. Hamid? A-6......

So, Compo (who turned the Broadway straight), had a mountain of chips, & managed to stay in the Tourney until halfway through, err, Level 2.

Some comedian then re-christened him - DC no longer stands for "Dave Compton", he's now to be known as "Distribution Centre".

[tikay]

On my list of "unticked" items to do before Mr GR eventually turns up is to hire a bicycle at 4am on a summer's morning & cycle around Central London looking at all the amazing sights, little"secrets", London has to offer. Do it during the day & there are people everywhere, but at first light, London is so peaceful & the air smells so fresh.

I cannot help but ooh & ahh at the lovely curiosities London has to offer, & I find myself asking myself all sorts of "why, what, when" sort of questions.

Today, I spotted this rather curious church in Curzon Street.

Why are Churches always so architecturally eccentric? None of them are space-efficient, but they are rather grand to admire.

This one goes by the moniker "Third Church of Christ Scientist".

What happened to the First & the Second?

Since when was Christ a Scientist?

What exactly has Science got to do with the Church?

[tikay]

A closer view of the Arched "Inset" shows this, set in stone.

"CLEANSE THE LEPER".

"HEAL THE SICK"

"RAISE THE DEAD".

I'm all in favour of the first two, but raising the dead seems a bit extreme, we'd all live for ever. And you know what a pain old folks are, just imagine if they all lived for 800 years, or really came back from the dead, after the Kids have just divvied up their Estate - "oh shit, Gran's come back from the dead, does she want her money back?".

[tikay]

I spotted this in Clarges Street, which links Curzon Street to the road which runs alongside Green Park.

It seems so incongrous there, for some reason it seems odd to have them in the middle of Mayfair in a Shiny Signwritten steel & glass-fronted building. Why don't they relocate to Swindon, or Newcastle, Milton Keynes, or even Slough, where the rent wold be about a tenth of the Mayfair rents? What do they actully do there?

[RED-DOG]

"CLEANSE THE LEPER".

"HEAL THE SICK"

"RAISE THE DEAD".

Wow! What do they do in the first two churches?