Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

are you going to the APAT Euro in brighton

No, I am in Feltham on Saturday, see my previous Post.

[The-Crow]

OK have a good week end

[action man]

yeah, the 100k garantee was the big puller. Shows that casino's need to offer a bit more than just "£500 fo"  to fill. look at the broadway figures from last week

[tikay]

star city

Thanks Rick. I'm not actually a big fan of Star-City, organisationally, but good luck to you, & all blondes, who play that Event.

My "where to play this weekend?" dilemma was neatly solved - nowhere, as it transpires!

I was also supposed to be at Brighton, for the APAT Team Challenge, & was dithering between my obligation to be there, against wanting to play the DTD £300. I spoke to Des, & he was fine with me missing Brighton, but I was still torn betwixt & between, but then I got a call from the Studio, & all the problems were neatly solved immediately - I'll do the Studio gig, because work comes first, I don't have any scruples with that, even as to APAT, so it's case closed. Perfect.

it seems to be that you may enjoy work more than poker? nice place to be in.

I enjoy both, equally, but Sky work comes when it comes, so I made a "policy decision" when I first landed the role to give it my best shot, as there are always other Tourneys I can play at other times, on free days. Basically, I want the best of both worlds, & I'm not far off achieving that, life is good.

Please remember also my age - I won't get another job, after Sky, so I may as well give my all in this "last proper job". Things do look very different at my age, trust me!

I have always enjoyed my work, since I started work at 17, & generally worked 7 days a week, & never had a days sick leave in my whole life. I just try & enjoy whatever I do, try to do it to the best of my ability, (I'm more of a grafter than a thinker, my results come from stamina & workload rather than nous)  & if I don't enjoy it, I don't do it.

I think my "problem" is that I become obsessed with whatever I do. Which is part good, & part bad.

[tikay]

OK have a good week end

I will, thank you, you too.

[tikay]

I see i nthe news today that Tikay was spot on with his "bmi look ripe for take-over" prediction a few months back.

For once, yes, but it was a shoe-in, really.

Sir Michael Bishop (bmi Big Suit) cut a great deal with Lufthansa a very long time ago, & basically he agreed a deal whereby whenever Sir Michael was ready, Lufthansa were obliged to buy a 51% stake in bmi, for which an "option" existed. This is an odd deal, in that it's win-win for both parties.

bmi itself, as an Airline, is of no import or value at all, it's fleet is ageing & fuel inefficient. It's a nightmare of an Airline, really, with a poor route balance.

But now look at these stats, which are accurate. Remember first that there are NO spare "slots" at Heathrow.

Here's the top Ten owners of Heathrow slots.

BA                   41.5%

bmi                  11.4%

Lufthansa          4.3%

Virgin                3.4%

Aer Lingus         3.2%

SAS                  3.1%

American Airlines 2.6%

Iberia (soon to be BA) 2.1%

KLM                 2.1%

Air Canada        1.8%

Which says it all - it's a massively good deal for Lufthansa, & bmi get a whopping price for a crappy Airline. How on earth they garmered 11% of Heathrow's slots is a mystery to me, but Sir Michael is nobody's fool,  he had this exit strategy in place many years ago. He's seriously cute.

[NoflopsHomer]

Pic of the day. Love to hear your thoughts...

[Rookie (Rodney)]

Ok, I wasnt going to post this but it's funny, and I know how much you love planes TK..

Trip Home from Florida.

Begins with us going to check in online. We try and try and it keeps coming up with flight full online please check in at airport. Thats strange, but we will try once more before we go. So we try again. Still same message, but somehow I manage to check Ling in and not me. So now she has been assigned seat 33D and I am nowhere and not possible to check in online. So Ling rings upto see whats going on. They say that it has been filled up online for whatever reason, so we get her to guarentee two seats next to each other and take her name and ext number for reference if there was going to be any problem (of course there was going to be problems!).

So we arrive at airport nice and early. Get to check in desk, and just mention to the guy that online check in was not working for the flight and that we have been promised seats next to each other. He then takes Ling's bag, 26kg (1kg overweight), but he doesnt say anything, and sends it through. During this whole time he has been on phone and not saying alot. He puts phone down....

Him :"Sorry but no seats next to each other, theres no point in arguing or wasting your breath coz the flights full and we have overbooked so we had to ask some passangers to stay another day"

Me : "But, we rung earlier and have..."

Him : "No No No, as I said, dont waste your breath, the only way you sit next to each other is by paying $150 for Fire Exit seats which also have more leg room"

Me : "We spoke to somebody earlier.."

Him : "This is the only way"

Me : "So is $150 a reduced rate because of the Virgin cock up?"

Him : "Yes"

Me : "So how much is it normally?"

Him : "$150, the price doesnt change."

Me : "So you are telling me that you cannot offer us seats next to each other despite being guarenteed those seats this afternoon and because of your own error you cannot make a good will gesture?"

Him : "Nope"

Me : "Ok, can I speak to whoever was on your phone please, your manager I guess, down here if possible please."

He then gets on the phone and doesnt do alot. He puts the phone down, says nothing but walks over to a lady the other side of the check in desk. She comes back over with him. She remembers us and immediately says there are two seats here for you reserved. TYVM and In Your Eye Mr Check in man.

So he gets us typed into those seats, and takes my bag. 28kg (Uh oh, I know whats coming now..).

Him : "Do you know your bag is overweight sir?"

Me : "I do now"

Him : "That'll be $70 for the overweight charge otherwise you have to lose 3kg"

Me : "You enjoy this dont you?"

Him : "Just doing my jub sir."


FML, 1-1 with that dickhead at check in.

That wasn't the worst of the journey either...........

[Rookie (Rodney)]

So we have gone through check in, security etc etc. And we are finally on the plane, all in good time, too.

We get seated, really bad seats, they are right at the back where the legroom is in shortest supply of the whole of economy. We sit about for a bit wondering when we are going to move and we finally do. Good News. We start the taxi round. When the captain comes on the speakers..

"Ladies and Gentlemen we have a slight problem. We are going to have to go back to the gate to get ground staff in so they can sort out the current problem. We have oversold on seats and there is currently a passenger standing, obviously for safety reasons we cannot take off like this so we will have to return."

SIGH. The Cock up continues. It takes 15 minutes before ground staff can get on and sort it and I don't know what happened to the guy but I think he got taken off. Captain then tells us we are putting more fuel in so we can make up for lost time. We finally taxi round and take off - 45 minutes late already............

[tikay]

Lol at that rooks. Virgin Airlines have made rudeness & poor customer service an art-form.

But, in fairness, here speaks a BA Shareholder.

[RED-DOG]

Ralph and I had similar problems on our flight home. We checked in online and were allocated separate seats. When we get to the airport a  frozen faced old minge on check in desk says "Sorry, flight full, nothing I can do"

Arguing with this bint is obv not going to work, so we resort to flattery and lies. 10 min later we are sitting together in the extra leg room seats.

You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.

[Rookie (Rodney)]

(I just wrote out the next part but my computer decided to restart so I have just put it in short below..)

We are away and gone, or so we think.

We are woke by a captains announcement.

"Sorry Ladies & Gentlemen but we are going to have to take a detour and land in Gander. A cabin member has become ill and our medical team on the ground have advised us to turn around and head back to Gander Airport, Canada, so she can get medical attention. To be able to land we will have to dump some fuel now and then reload when we get on the ground again."

FFS, now its all going wrong! Ok, she can't help it, but we have already gone past this place, and now we are having to turn back!! When we get there the St Johns aren't waiting for us so we have to wait for them to arrive, then the fueling takes place and by the time we are in the air we have lost loads of time. We finally arrived in Heathrow 4 hours later than stated time and having had our breakfast meal actually being offered to us whilst we were making dissent into heathrow! LOL.

An utter shambles.

[tikay]

And as you mentioned 'planes - you, not me, take note - here's some Pics I took on Monday morning by the roadside at Heathrow. Big buggers, them 747's, eh?

I'd love to get close up to the new Airbus. They must be huge.

[Rookie (Rodney)]

Ralph and I had similar problems on our flight home. We checked in online and were allocated separate seats. When we get to the airport a  frozen faced old minge on check in desk says "Sorry, flight full, nothing I can do"

Arguing with this bint is obv not going to work, so we resort to flattery and lies. 10 min later we are sitting together in the extra leg room seats.

You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.

You must be better than us then. FWIW - When you check in online you could have chosen your seats. The problem we had was not being able to actually check in online.

If I could have got a word in edgeways I might have been able to tell him he has a nice arse or something.

[tikay]

(I just wrote out the next part but my computer decided to restart so I have just put it in short below..)

We are away and gone, or so we think.

We are woke by a captains announcement.

"Sorry Ladies & Gentlemen but we are going to have to take a detour and land in Gander. A cabin member has become ill and our medical team on the ground have advised us to turn around and head back to Gander Airport, Canada, so she can get medical attention. To be able to land we will have to dump some fuel now and then reload when we get on the ground again."

FFS, now its all going wrong! Ok, she can't help it, but we have already gone past this place, and now we are having to turn back!! When we get there the St Johns aren't waiting for us so we have to wait for them to arrive, then the fueling takes place and by the time we are in the air we have lost loads of time. We finally arrived in Heathrow 4 hours later than stated time and having had our breakfast meal actually being offered to us whilst we were making dissent into heathrow! LOL.

An utter shambles.

Yikes.

As an aside, did you see any geese in Gander?