Zorac's LiveJournal

Well, I'm back.

Eventually. Flight out of Martinique delayed slightly (didn't matter as I had a long wait at Paris Orly anyway). Flight out of Paris taxied out, made strange whirring and clanking noises, taxied back for mechanics to poke with screwdrivers and hit with hammers, eventually cancelled so back into the airport. Rebooked on next flight, which is also delayed several times before being cancelled due to "mechanical difficulties". Rebooked on even later flight, which is also delayed but does eventually leave.

Catch DLR into London, miss change due to being confused where it is, then on spur of the moment take route from Bank involving two changes rather than one (despite heavy bag) thus miraculously taking the only tube lines which weren't suffering serious delays.

Naturally the railways have to make up for this. Hop on first fast train towards Oxford (already late to depart), eventually discover that we're going nowhere due to signalling problems, and later still the train is cancelled. Scoot across to earliest non-cancelled fast train for some more waiting. Eventually advised to go and find another train, then immediately told to get back on again for immediate departure (but with more delays to come as there's only temporary signalling in place).

Eventually get back to Oxford at around 00:20, but at least the night busses are still running - and on time at that. Total journey time: 25 hours, at least six more than expected. Most amusing aspect: none of the delays were caused by the snow and ice which usually bring the country to a stand-still...

ETA: It looks like I've got about 550 posts to catch up on, but first I've got 9 TV episodes to watch...

So, this weekend, I left the noble university town of Oxford to brave the home of the Fenland Poly¹. It didn't really get off to an inspiring start on Friday afternoon when the 3½ coach journey was further extended by a passenger swearing at the driver, then getting of and standing in front of the coach until he was dragged away kicking and screaming by the police². That, plus the fact that the toilet on the coach was out of order, meant that I made a rapid exit in search of a public convenience the moment we got to Cambridge.

Rather cleverly, this left me right next to the cinema, so rather than going in search of frayer, I hung around and waited for her. The movie was, of course, the newly-released Snakes on a Plane - a film which has no pretensions of doing anything more than living up to its title and being an absolutely first-class B-movie. What with considerable quantities of spirits added to the cinema-supplied cola, the "drink whenever you see a snake. Or a plane. Or..." game lead to rapid intoxication, so a walk back to the hotel seemed a wise plan. As did Burger King.

Our room at Sleeperz was impressively tiny - bunk beds on one side, the world's smallest en-suite on the other, and a space the width of a door in-between. I claimed the top bunk by virtue of being taller and somehow managed not to full out (although I didn't manage to get much sleep, so I suspect the the bed claims a moral victory).

1) OK, I should probably stop before I mortally offend every Cambridge person on my flist.
2) Actually, the moment the police turned up, he went over and started haranguing them, so there was no dragging.

So, apparently we aren't allowed to take any hand luggage onto 'planes on account of some bomb plot. Of course, this is just a cover-up. It's not really bombs they're worried about:

( Collapse )

I'm off to Chicago for a long weekend with hermorrine, so I'll be offline for the next 5 days or so. Due to the restriction brought on by not actually paying for my flights, I'll be taking a less optimal route than usual. This involves me getting up in about six hours time to do a whistlestop tour of no less than four airports (LHR--JFK--LGA--ORD), but hey - I get to see New York, if only in passing (waves to the NYC t00bs). I should be crawling back online sometime on Wednesday.

So, I spent last week chez mes parents in the south of France.

Short version: Heat. Books. Pool. Wine. Food.

( Collapse )

At airport. Was worried about the ATC delays. Have been called to the gate 20 minutes early. W00t!

Horrid keyboard on this internet kiosk, though...

As many of you have probably already read on hermorrine's journal, I was over in Chicago again last weekend. ( Collapse )

Thanks to the undocumented challenge, on this trip I achieved my AAdvantage Gold status - more miles and other benefits for me, huzzah!

In related news, I really ought to talk about what happened at New Year's. ( Collapse )

February the 14th is so much nicer when someone special to spend the day with.

( Collapse )

I really must write-up New Year's soon. Am bad boyfriend...

Short-haul flights are so much fun. Not. As mentioned earlier, my flight out was delayed a little. The one back was worse - pretty much as soon as I got to the gate, they flashed up "delayed 45 minutes...". Three quarters of an hour after the scheduled departure time, we were still sitting in the departure lounge, and the message said the same (and that pisses me off as much as the delay itself - I can understand how bad weather and striking baggage handlers can cause delays and there's not a huge amount that the airline can do about it, but how much effort does it take to update a sign or make an announcement so that we, the cattlepassengers know what's going on?). Eventually we were bussed out to the 'plane (propellers - how quaint!) and I noted its registration code was G-JEDL - certainly the force is not strong with this one. We finally arrived in Birmingham over an hour and a half late (and without so much as a complimentary drink), by which point it was too late to catch a train to anywhere useful (my admittedly poor initial planning did allow for up to an hour of delayage), and rather than trying to find a taxi willing to take me to Oxford (doubtless at vast expense) I ended up checking into a hotel for a few hours before catching an early train this morning. As I'm sure my fellow Brits have guessed, the railway companies jumped at this opportunity to prove that they can be every bit as useless as the airlines - the direct train to Oxford wasn't, and the one to Coventry was late, then later, finally arrived, sat around for a few minutes after I boarded before expiring completely. Fortunately the second attempt was more successful, and the second-leg train failed to deliver the coup-de-grace by being sufficiently late that I still managed to catch it.

( Collapse )

Yes, it's airport internet kiosk time again. They also have WiFi access, but that's £4 for half an hour, whereas using this is 10p per minute. Interestingly, it seems that the WiFi would happily allow me to send ping packets out - clearly I need an IP-over-ICMP tunnelling protocol which would allow me to cunningly get free internet access. Although possibly this is is of dubious legality.

Needless to say, they haven't actually announced the delay (despite the fact that we should have started boarding quarter of an hour ago), and merely put it up on the departure boards. On the bright side, if I was flying to Chicago today rather than Toulouse, I'd be delayed in excess of seven hours instead of just one.