I’ll be heading off to London in an hour or so. I’m flying to Helsinki on Wednesday, where I’ll meet up with M. John Harrison and Finncon chair Marianna Leikomaa for a press conference on Thursday. We get to Tampere Thursday evening, and then it is Finncon and sauna for three days. Then I have to fly to San Francisco. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get online each day while I’m on the road, though blogging may be sparse. I am, however, hoping to record a podcast or two while I’m in Finland. And there will be photos. I’m apparently judging both cos-play competitions in addition to giving a presentation on masquerades. Expect to be costumed out over the next few days.
Travel
Famous Eating
Over lunch this week I have been watching Gary Rhodes TV series, Rhodes Across India. Rhodes is one of my favorite TV chefs, because he’s a lot more interested in the food than in being a celebrity (and if I want a celebrity chef I want Keith Floyd, thank you). He does a pretty good job in this series of showing Indian food as it should be done, rather than as it is all too often served in British restaurants. But today’s episode was from Delhi, and the guest expert was the head chef from Bukhara, the excellent restaurant in the Delhi Sheraton.
Why yes, I have eaten there. How did you guess? Looking back at my report of my India trip, I remember that I was disappointed with the accompaniments – particularly the naan which I found thin and crispy. However, the kebabs were every bit as good as Gary (and apparently Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin) say they are. Thoroughly recommended.
I miss India. I wish I could afford to go back, preferably with Kevin during the IPL season.
Newpaper Silliness
“Another US obstacle on Britons crossing Atlantic” screams the headline in The Independent. Except that this is not a new story. I reported on it over a month ago. And, as the article goes on to explain, the new regulations are actually going to make it easier for many British travelers, myself included. Still, in the absence of sex scandals involving members of the establishment, headlines about Evil Americans can always be relied upon to catch the eye.
If The Independent really wanted to talk about obstacles to visiting America, it might want to talk about the Mickey Tax instead.
More Travel
I’m off to London for Pride in an hour or so. If you are at the parade tomorrow I may see you there. Failing that I’ll be about Sunday and Monday morning. Internet access may be patchy due to the flakiness of the T-Mobile mobile broadband system. But as all of the US is on vacation this weekend I don’t think I’ll be missing much.
An Ideal Bookstore?
Glenda Larke may have found one, in Como. And what is so good about it? The building in which it is located has been around since the 6th Century. That’s the sort of building that ought to be selling books.
More On Mickey
Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber has decided to make a campaign of opposing the Mickey Tax. More power to him. Here’s his latest post.
I can see an argument for using the government to impose a general obligation on industry members to solve collective action and free rider problems (there may be problems with this too – but that’s a different debate). But I can’t see any good reason for imposing the Mickey Tax on unwitting visitors to the country other than (a) the big players in the travel industry wanted to foot as little of the bill as possible themselves, and (b) given the politics of the issue, they didn’t have any other easily available group that they could fob the costs off on.
Quite. Still, Henry does say that the airlines are strongly opposed to the proposal, so perhaps we’ll get some sanity yet.
Travel Plans
As I have tickets and accommodation all booked I can now confirm that I will be in London for Pride weekend. Anyone else planning to be at/in the parade?
Mickey Watching
The pork sniffers in Washington appear to have noticed the Mickey Tax and are blogging about it. Crooked Timber has an update.
A Small Piece of Sanity
Good news for rail passengers in the UK. The British government has finally admitted that installing airport-style security screening at railway stations is “currently not feasible”. Well, yes.
Or, as The Guardian put it: “A trial found that introducing airport-style checks would be impractical and antagonise the public.”
Now if only someone would wake up to the fact that the security theater in airports also antagonizes the public.
Mouse Tastes of Pork
I’m back in Darkest Somerset and slowly catching up with the email and the blogosphere. One thing that caught my eye was this post on Crooked Timber about a proposal to “promote” tourism to the US by imposing a tax of $25/head on all visitors to the US. Of course it isn’t really about promoting tourism – it is about providing subsidies to Disney and similar companies without having to tax US citizens. And as we visitors to the US have no say in US politics, there’s nothing much we can do about it except stop visiting.
We Have the Technology
While I might be on the road, I do have rather better communications abilities these days. I have signed up for T-Mobile’s Web ‘n’ Walk service, which is a pay-as-you-go wireless broadband system. As with anything, it has good points and bad points. Here’s a brief survey of my experiences so far.
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Buying Train Tickets
These days if you want to buy an advance train ticket from thetrainline.com they will charge you £1 to mail the ticket to you and £2.50 to use a credit card. If you buy the same ticket from First Great Western neither of those charges will apply, even though FGW uses the thetrainline.com software and the credit card is charged to thetrainline.com.
US Visa Changes
I confess to a moment of panic when my news feeds threw up a headline of “US security clampdown” followed by suggestions of new and draconian restrictions for Britons traveling to the US. Having read the article, however, I’m not too worried. In fact it might even help.
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The Cat Has Landed
So, here I am back in Darkest Somerset. The weather is typical for April – brief periods of bright sunshine followed by short spells of torrential rain, on a permanent repeat loop. The summer country is mostly above water, although there are a lot of swans in the fields so it must be still quite damp. Also we have been invaded. There is a veritable army of rabbits camped in the fields between Taunton and Bridgwater.
The Asus did OK on the trip, and was a huge hit with both the TSA guys at SFO and the chap in the seat next to me. I think I need to be on commission. It does seem to leak power when on standby, which is irritating, but I need to do more tests to be sure.
I got back just in time to catch the tail end of today’s cricket on cricinfo.com, and what a match it was. Two wickets by Shaun Pollock in his first over disposed of the dangerous McCullum and Ganguly, and a masterful 3-14 by Jayasuriya held the rest of the Knight Riders batting to a lowly 137. Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa knocked the runs off with ease. So the Indians have a win at last, and the Knight Riders are in a slump. Guess who they have to play next. Yep, they are off to Jaipur. Here’s hoping they are still bruised and depressed on Thursday.
Dodged a Bullet
I’ve just been trying to book my flight to Finncon. The SAS web site came back with a message saying that the card purchase had not been approved. So I called Amex. That would be $280 for a plane ticket? Yep. And what about the other charge for $28,000 to the same company?
I’ve canceled both charges and will try again when I get to the UK. Thank goodness for Amex. This is why I use them.
(Gosh – Zemanta just came up with e photo of Joe Haldeman from last year’s FinnCon.)
Listen to the Band
OK, now I’m awake. Nothing like top class rock music to blow you through a workout. And I have the very best.
Which reminds me, if I haven’t been listing music very often while I’ve been in Orlando it is because I didn’t pack my travel speakers and the hotel doesn’t have an input jack on the radio. Really, every hotel should provide the means to route MP3 players to speakers.
Home At Last
Ah, it is good to be home. Whenever I’m in the UK I get cold and wet, and I miss Kevin dreadfully. And these days I also have to read Kameron Hurley blogging about Chipotle burritos all the time when I can’t buy one. This is so not fair.
However, I am not home, warm, cuddled, and fed. All is right with the world.
On the Road
Some good news from London. Thanks to major surgery performed on the Clute wi-fi system when Ellen Datlow was here, I am now able to get online using my own laptop. John, if you are reading this, thank you!
And yes this does mean that I have been spending half the evening answering technical questions from clients, but I spent the other half having dinner with Judith, Farah and Chaz Brenchley which is very good thing to do.
Traveling Again
I’m off to London today, and will be on a flight to San Francisco tomorrow. Don’t expect much blogging until Wednesday.
Getting On Board Quickly
There is an interesting article in today’s Guardian about a nuclear physicist who has developed an algorithm for getting passengers on board planes quickly. Essentially it is a “windows first” system, but with the added tweaks that you board from the front and you do all odd rows followed by all even rows. It might work. What little the article explains about the math seems sensible. But then again you have to enforce it. I can’t speak for all airlines, but it is rare that a United gate agent will be brave enough to enforce their boarding by seating area system when faced by an aggressive passenger who wants to be on the plane NOW!