Heathrow airport should forget about running airports and should instead do children’s parties because the place is run by clowns.
Good morning and here I am once again doing what I hate most……flying. If you are new to the blog and don’t know how much I hate flying …..well……..I would rather go swimming in a lake full of Piranhas with a sirloin steak tied round my thingy than face this 11 hours stuck in a metal tube filled with air as fresh as a Frenchman’s armpits.
Heathrow needs help and I highly suggest that when you depart from this airport that you give yourself extra time to check in. The staff needs a trip to one of our ships to see how to organize a line and please …….. please ……. we know we have to take our shoes off at security but you have to provide some chairs for the folks to sit on to put them back on again………I watched a little old man trying to do so………he should have had a seat ……….. oh …….. and by the way………..can we have a separate take your shoes off line for anyone…….from Paris.
I am now in the American Airlines business class lounge waiting for the flight to be called. Behind me are a group of Americans who all work for Microsoft. One guy called Rick is making sure that everyone knows he works for Microsoft and is talking so loudly everyone is looking at him which is I think exactly what he wants. He is on the phone right now talking about “overwhelming Yahoo” and his voice is now bellowing as he tells whoever he is on the phone with that he and his team are preparing a “two pronged attack”…………as I am I…….prong one will be shoving his Nokia up his bottom and prong two will be shoving one of my socks in his mouth.
I wish Heidi was here with me. I hate flying but I hate flying alone even more.
Ok, it’s nearly boarding time so I will switch off.
Look out for another mini blog soon ……….Rick is still on the phone talking louder than ever……whoever he is talking to may have problems hearing Rick in a moment as reception is about to become crap.
Can you hear me now?
See you in LA
Your friend
John
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I would rather go swimming in a lake full of Piranhas with a sirloin steak tied round my thingy .
Get the point although its a little extreme. LOL Ay John! The airplanes are the means to get to places that I love so i love them also.If given the chance I would jump into one of them in a minute. I get a little scare sometimes but I can deal with it. I also prefere not to be alone. Have fun in LA!!
Nanni
WHY OH WHY!
John, I’ve no idea why people when talking on a cell phone feel like they have to yell into it to make it work. The thing works just like a normal land-line phone. Sometimes they have the volume turned up so load you can even hear the in-coming side of the conversation.
John I will never see Europe if I keep reading your blog. I don’t fly now and after reading all your misadventures I don’t plan to ever fly. So I sure hope the Carnival Corp takes my idea and starts linking all the brands together so you can transfer from one CCL brand ship to another CCL brand ship.
BIG ED
Flyless for ever
Have the baggage handlers gotten up to speed at Heathrow yet? We are cruising with you in July and we don’t want to spend the 10 days in the same underwear (we are not French).
John, I see your wishful thinking again; “I would rather go swimming in a lake full of Piranhas with a sirloin steak tied round my thingy”. A sirloin steak NOT maybe a White Castle burger(for us in the north) or a Crystal’s Burger( for those from the south) would be more like it. You know those one bite size hamburgers.
“BIG” ED
I am with Nanni….planes take me places, so I love them! Of course, I am old enough to remember a time when airports and flying, itself, was part of the joy of traveling. Of course, now, security necessities have diminished some of that, but it’s a price I’m still willing to pay to be able to see parts of the world that, as a young girl, I only read about.
Any place you have a few hundred people, or more, in a relatively confined space, you are going to come across some that cause eyes to roll. But look at it this way….if SOMEONE is going to cause people to roll their eyes, isn’t it better than it’s Mr. Look-at-Me-Microsoft than you??
Terri
Why is it that people talk so loud into a cell phone? Reminds me of my Grandfather…when I was little long distance calling was expensive & so the calls were rare. He would SHOUT into the phone as if he was trying to get them to hear far away. Used to just make us kids laugh so hard. Hope your flight is a good one.
Jan
dude! does this mean you are in business class and not coach??? way to go carnival! nice…
smiles, bonnie and prince charlie
Q: Why do people have to talk so loud into a cell phone?
Isn’t yelling and cursing the only way to get some Microsoft products to work?
Some people are just very, very important and part of being important seems to be letting everyone know your important…
I’m glad I’m not important. My voice doesn’t carry well at all…
GregB
What a vivid picture that was, John! You swimming in a lake of pirannas with a steak tied around your thingy!! I can’t get it out of my head. You are toooooo funny!
Cindy Bruce from Buffalo
Flying is not my favorite thing in the world but I surely don’t hate it the way you do.
But, I HATE, HATE, HATE cell phones and HATE, HATE, HATE (yes my mother taught me never to use that word but none other will do here) people who talk loudly into them in public places. It is the heigth of rudeness and those of us who are more considerate ought to be allowed to shoot (to kill) them! There have been times like the one you just described with Rick that I’ve not been sure there was anyone on the other end and that instead it was just a “show” to impress those of us within hearing distance which sometimes is a mile or two! Maybe you should report to Mr. Gates that Rich is giving away trade secrets.
I loathe self absorbed loud obnoxious cell phone talkers…. I not only roll my eyes but want to rip the thing out of their grubby paws and inform the person with whom they were communicating that due to lack of social consciousness….the conversion has been terminated…..
I would not just turn the blasted thing off….. I would throw the phone at a wall smashing it to pieces all the while the other party hears the destruction.
Rick from MicroShaft….. go climb one …..shaft that is….they put hideous resin wall devices next to them on some ships…once you get to the top of the resin thingy…..keep climbing !!!
http://www.cruisereviews.com/RoyalCaribbean/Explorer128Pics/RockWall.jpg
Hi John. You’re right, I think that Heathrow is being run, not by the BAA, but by BSC – Billy Smart’s Circus!
In the gents toilets, BA domestic departures lounge, Terminal 1, Heathrow, I observed the following:
January 2008. One hand dryer faulty. A sign saying “We are working hard to fix this quickly” stuck to the wall above the hand dryer.
February 2008. The same hand dryer still faulty. The same sign saying “We are working hard to fix this quickly” still stuck to the wall above the hand dryer.
March 2008. Both hand driers now faulty. The same sign saying “We are working hard to fix this quickly” now moved and stuck to the wall between the hand driers.
In the lounge itself, I observed new waste bins, colour coded, to seperate items for recycling. The bins were, however, being emptied into the same garbage bag!
I just hope that the guys who fix the planes aren’t as useless…..
Hi John/Heidi:
Getting to fly across the pond with the microsoftees? I am so jealous.
They can definitely teach you a thing or 2 about technology.
Hope things improved once you got over here.
Looking forward to chatting soon.
Thanks again,
David
Ah yes, the old shoe removal torture. Just because some guy tried to put a bomb in his shoe. Heaven forbid some one puts a bomb in his pants. We’ll all have to drop ‘em then. EEK!