Bits and pieces

Back from a week skiing – French Alps if your interested.  Seemed to have half a dozen different types of weather in one week: snow, rain, ice, sun, slush. 

Skiing is the perfect holiday for English people because of the weather.  There is no perfect weather for skiing: no snow is bad, too much snow is bad, wet snow is bad, sun is good, until it melts the snow when it creates slush which is bad, so too warm is bad but so is too cold because not only do you get physically cold but it also creates ice. 

Conclusion: an Englishman on a skiing holiday always has something to complain about and to talk about.

The other thing to talk about is flying.  As much as I like flying and airplanes (the kid in me) I know something is seriously wrong with the system.  Not only does it do serious damage to the environment but our airports are a mess (queue here, queue there, queue again.)  There is something seriously wrong with the world when we have to spend so much time queueing to get ourselves cleared through security.

Nowhere is this absurdity clearer than with liquids and water.  Security at Gatwick airport took my bottle of water off my so I had to spend £1 to buy another.  On the return Grenoble took my water off me forcing me to buy a another for €2.  Airlines never give you enough water once you are on-board but tell you to drink more water.

At the risk at getting myself banned from airplanes I’ll point out what I see as the big whole in airport security: The Duty Free shop.  What is to  stop anyone buying a nice bottle of wine, whisky or perfume, boarding the plane with the bottle.  Once airborne smash the bottle, you now have a handy weapon to threaten people with.

When I’m going through these check points I always think of the Bruce Schneier piece on the danger of liquids on planes.  (That isn’t sarcasm thats just me self-censoring so I don’t get caught on filters, paranoid?  Me?)  – And a note to myself: read more Schneier.

Anyway hardly had I left home than more thoughts on the Nurnberg funnel came to me.  Plus I got home to some mail on the subject to that will be the subject of the next blog entry.

Finally, during the holiday we thought of lots of people we haven’t seen for a while and should catch up with.  I know many of readers of this blog so if I don’t call you for a please call me.  Though don’t be put out if I don’t call, I have a lot of people to catchup with and some of them will get to me first!