In Case I Choke!

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One of the pleasures of the weekend is to settle with the newspaper travel supplements and think about planning a holiday break.

One of the nicest holidays I’ve had is a Nile cruise, and a number of them were on offer yesterday. The prices were at their lowest, doubtless because of the heat in Egypt at this time of year and, because of this, any thought of doing another one except in winter was quickly discarded.

The advertisements made me think of trips to Egypt, of the Nile, the pyramids and the many ancient temples. There were thoughts also of souks throbbing with merchants and people and also of hubble-bubble pipes and strong coffee taken in cool cafés where one had the chance to chatter with the locals. And there were wondrous occasions when I stood on the side of a ship watching the wide expanse of the desert pass by as we processed slowly through the Suez Canal.

I once had to join a ship in the Canal and was driven by car to where I would board the ship. Before I left, my boss called me in and wished me good luck. I asked why did I need good luck.

‘The last time I went that way,’ he said, ‘it was the middle of the night and I couldn’t see a bally thing. Even the road in those days seemed but a blur in the car’s headlights. At one point the driver stopped the car and took his false teeth out and put them in the glove compartment. ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked. ‘It’s just in case I fell asleep and we crashed,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to choke!’’

So, taking his advice, I watched the road very carefully but, since we did the drive in daylight, there were thankfully no problems.
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The Quicker, The Better

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For years now the appearance of Parliament Square has been ruined by the various protesters camped out on its lawns and creating a messy blot on would would otherwise be an impressive landscape.

I can’t think of any country I’ve visited that does not have superbly manicured and tidy grounds close to its principal buildings. And yet the Greater London Authority, who own the land, appears powerless to do anything about it. Nor, it seems, can Westminster City Council or the Metropolitan Police intervene.

It’s an extraordinary situation that these untidy and inconsiderate demonstrators are allowed to ruin this lovely spot, and it is good news that the GLA are now considering the options open to them.

Free speech and the right to demonstrate is one thing, but I can’t think of any reason why people should be allowed to make a complete shambles of an important tourist area adjacent to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

The quicker the GLA acts, the better in my view.
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Chits And Red Tape

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A Hong Kong based consultancy has discovered that, of twelve Asian countries, India has the worst levels of bureaucratic red tape. Any Indian businessman or person doing business in that lovely country could have told them that!

I like India and its people, and I much enjoyed my occasional visits there but even I had to gasp at the amount of bureaucracy involved sometimes. It was during my first visit there in the 70s that I saw for my own eyes, files in a Dickensian-type office bound up with the proverbial red tape.

I learned also that one sometimes needed a ‘chit’ for various activities. Indeed, there was one occasion when I found myself in a long queue of hot and tired folk just arrived in the country lining up to get a chit to enable us to get another chit to have our laptops examined. It was only after I left the airport that I found we had been scammed by a couple of crafty airport officials. But, at least, it was a gentle scam.

Indians are used to the bureaucracy and have ways, which we need not go into here, of getting round it. They do not usually complain, they just deal with it.

The sad truth is that it is the British that originally introduced bureaucracy and its associated chit system into India. An unfortunate legacy of the Raj.
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Unimaginable

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This morning’s media is dominated by the news of the taxi driver, Derrick Bird, who went on the rampage across Cumbria, killing twelve people and injuring twenty-five others in the process before committing suicide.

One cannot imagine what went through the mind of this man or others like him in the past who have gone berserk with guns. There is no rational explanation for such actions.

Unimaginable also is the misery now inflicted on a small area of north-west England by this man’s deadly actions. One cannot help but feel sympathy for all those caught up in this terrible tragedy.
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'Dog's Balls'

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Under EU compensation rules, airlines have to pay the food and accommodation costs for passengers whose flights have been cancelled such as occurred during the recent airspace closure due to the Icelandic volcano ash cloud.

The head of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, has been most outspoken about EU rules which he calls a ‘cheaters charter’ since there is no cap on what can be claimed. He says the airline will challenge up to twenty of the most contentious claims in local courts and then, if necessary, take them to the European court of first instance where it hopes that a favourable ruling will force the European parliament to put a cap on compensation.

There is no doubt that the EU rules are, as Mr O'Leary puts it, ‘ludicrous’ and they have cost Ryanair €40 millions. He cites claims coming from passengers who paid €30 for a ticket and are seeking compensation of €3,000.

Though I don’t always agree with Mr O'Leary’s ideas about maximising profit from passengers, I think he is right to seek a change in the EU rules on events out of the control of airlines and which ought more logically to be something to be covered by passenger travel insurance. Other airlines who have similarly had to face expensive compensation claims will be watching the situation very closely and I expect that others may follow suit.

Mr O'Leary is also spot on when he says that European regulators made a ‘complete dog’s balls’ by unnecessarily shutting European airspace in April

He got that right!
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Pitiful!

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The government has carried out its promise to publish a list of civil servants who earn more than the Prime Minister’s £142,500 annual salary.

There are 172 of them, with the top earner, the Chief Executive of the Office of Fair Trading, receiving a salary of £279,999.

It is for debate whether some of these top earners are worth the rewards they receive, though there is an argument that in order to attract the right sort of talent the government must pay the going rate in industry.

What is clear from publication of this list is that our Prime Minister is pitifully underpaid!
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Unacceptable

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The international community is right to condemn Israel for its military action against a flotilla of ships carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip in which a number of people were killed.

The Israeli Ambassador to Ireland repeatedly referred to the deadly shells which daily land in his country as some sort of justification for the act. Dreadful though this obviously is, it is no justification to board vessels sailing in international waters and by this act triggering the deaths of a number of people.

One has to look beyond the political and military differences between Israel and Palestine. Sure, there are the problems caused by the firing of missiles into Israel which, in any event, are aggressively countered by the Israelis.

It is the people of Palestine that are suffering from the Israeli blockade and to interfere with a ship that was carrying aid to them - assuming that this was aid and not munitions - is unacceptable.

The Israeli Defence Minister called the relief effort - largely organised by Turkey - a ‘political provocation’ by anti-Israeli forces. Relief aid has been called many things but not so far as I know as political provocation!

The ships have been escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod and the world waits to see what will happen to the aid that was carried by it.
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