Archive for oktober, 2008
So, yesterday, the Danish airline company Sterling went bankrupt. This was not totally unexpected, seeing as the ownership is Icelandic, but it still sucks when you’ve got tickets with them for going home in the Christmas break and coming back again in January.
This will probably give me a loss of about 60 pounds, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Especially since I was originally supposed to be in Copenhagen this week, coming home on a Sterling flight Sunday…
Funny thing is that today and yesterday, I received bank transfers (ok, technically not bank transfers, but returns on my credit-card) from Sterling giving me back the remaining taxes and fees on the tickets for this week, so it appears they can still disperse money 
(I had requested this before the bankruptcy though)
Long live Sterling. It shall be exciting to see whether we will face a time of increased competition as new competitors try and move in on the gap Sterling leaves behind (as suggested by one veteran in the industry), or whether SAS will be benefited by a near-monopoly situation on some of the routes. As it turns out though, Norwegian is already moving into the market, so things tend to point in the former direction. Hoping for cheaper plane-tickets in the coming season 
(and perhaps slightly more realistically priced tickets so we won’t have to endure another fall)
P.S. Hope I’m not breaking copyright with the image. However, if I was, who would there be to sue me anyways? :p
oktober 30th, 2008
Returning from Denmark last Monday, I had a short stop at London Waterloo, where I had the pleasure of paying 30p to use the bathroom, and there have an encounter with the so-called Dyson Airblade.
As I was drying my hands in it, I read something like ‘The Dyson Airblade uses up to 83% less energy than conventional warm air hand dryers…’ Smart. Apparently, it also burns your hands; or at least, that’s how it felt. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, but I could feel the evening and the next day that part of my hand had been exposed to a too high temperature.
This is how it works: Air flows horizontally like a ‘blade’ (hence the name), and beneath is a hollow space, so effectively, you dry your hands by moving them up and down, allowing the ‘air-blade’ to dry them. This worked fine. Until I thought ‘let’s try this again’, and suddenly my hand got pulled to the side of the ‘blade’ (where the air is coming out). A piece of advice when using the air-blade: Keep your hands firmly in the middle
oktober 25th, 2008
Before the weekend, I had the pleasure of travelling out from Gatwick airport. This is rapidly becoming my favourite airport in the London area. Not only is it easy to get to from Bracknell, but it has one truly amazing feature: The Café Est.
Here you get excellent Italian food with a great view over the runway. When you step into the café – which is really a restaurant – you suddenly loose the cheap feeling you usually get from airport places, but still retain the air travel goodness feeling.
My two favourites are the pizza with Goat’s cheese and various vegetables (for an amazing £8 at an airport), and the penne funghi. The last-mentioned is served in two sizes: Main course and starter. As it turns out, both times I’ve tried the starter size, I’ve had more than enough to eat. Have a look at my half-eaten plate:
Yes, this is the starter-size. Not only does it feature an amazing white wine cream sauce with aspargus and wild mushrooms (not only ‘champignon’, but real exciting mushroom-sorts), but it is served with (if you wish) gracious amounts of parmigiano on top, as well as freshly ground pepper. All for the price of a little over £5. This place is truly a find, and remain one of the reasons for which I treasure Gatwick airport so much.
oktober 22nd, 2008
It never fails to amaze me what warning labels they put on things in the UK. Case in point:
(The yellow sign [on the razor!] reads: ‘Security protected. Please remove prior to putting in microwave.’)
oktober 22nd, 2008
