Alder's Tone

As the chaos at Heathrow hits day 3 this morning, I can say I was one of those caught up in it all yesterday on the way home. The longest I'd been away from my boy since he arrived, and I was desperate to get home. So how did T5 and BA do?

I'm no real fan of BA, they are pretty hostile towards the customer as an organisation (though the front line staff are much better than the company projects itself), and we've seen that here. And it was one, well two really, of their staff that helped me out yesterday.

I'd been darrn sarrf on a training course for 4 days with my gaffer and two colleauges from the London office, in a small place not far from Windsor. Yes, we saw the flags flying for Queeny and some French geezer being in town, but didn't see them. The course finished early on Friday because we were so much faster at the labs than the muppets there a fortnight previous (the instructors words, not mine (honest [sic]). And so to T5, a little [lot] early.

We both pretty much ballsed up on the tickets, having got inflexible tickets - no changes permitted. We already knew our flight (1825) was going, but the flight to EDI in front (1715) had been cancelled first thing in the morning, The 1605 was still going, and we had a good couple of hours to get there for it.

On arrival we found (after asking) for the customer service desk. Not too long a queue, it was fairly quiet at this time. Almost at the front and we got one of the "queue-walkers". We explained our flight wasn't cancelled, we were early, could we change, yes we know the ticket doesn't allow it.

And then the ace came out from the sleeve.

But... we know the 1715 is cancelled, so you'll be desperate for seats on the 1825 to reschedule passengers from the 1715, we can offer two seats if you move us onto the 1605.

For some, but not for us todayShe rang through to try. Without actually playing the ace, the person at the other end must have spotted the ace anyway, and the feedback we got was "Flight BA1452, leave it 20 minutes for the system to update before checking-in". Job done.

After that it was a fairly normal Heathrow experience. The humourless security guy who didn't even crack when he asked me to take a cardigan off to go through the scanner as I responded "shirt as well?". The retail therapy airside, the delay to boarding, the wait for stragglers (OK, some got caught in gate security), the full lap of the airfield to get the the runway, the Heathrow tea-time queues for the runway...

I see it like this: BA were in a desperate situation, some of their passengers were in desperate situations, we knew and they knew we could take advantage which would be to their advantage also. I felt like we'd sort of done a sneaky, especially as we had a snowball's chance in hell of that working normally, but it was a win-win-win situation (we got home earlier, BA got two extra seats, two passengers for the 1715 got our seats rather than face a cancelled flight).

Take-off time noted by either BA or BAA (MOTS told me which, can't remember): 1652
Time revving the nuts out of the engine on the runway: 1732

And my lift from the train station is a whole new alloy story...

Posted by Alder at 29 March 2008 | Permalink

Many congratulations to Allan & Lynn on the birth of our latest neighbour, Jessica, on Friday!

A long slog, puts MOTS' 27 hour session to shame - and there let the trumps begin!

Posted by Alder at 11 March 2008 | Permalink

The performing seal is doing us proud, he's got a number of tricks that he performs on demand (most of the time). Some of which I've already covered as routine stuff, but here's the current run-down on the tricks.

"Where's Iain?"
/ Hides behind hands. Not a new one, but a really old favourite now performed on demand. A winner in the "bored in the car" category

"Where's your tummy"
/ Points to tummy. If in a joyful mood hears "Where's..." and pre-empts the hiding behind hands.

"What do we do with this"
/ Multiple reactions. Depends what "this" is. If it's a toilet handle, he flushes. If we're post-toilet and washing hands, up come his hands for a wash, followed by the towel. "This" is anything we give him, point to, or has in his hands. It does not get it's real noun, eg it really is "what do we do with this" and not "what do we do with the brush"

"Where does it go"
/ Again, "it" is the real word we use, not the noun for "it". He knows what component toys go with what, ie all his animls and Old Macdonald go with his tractor, the small balls go with the Pooh tree, his four little wooden cars are for his wooden track, caps go on bottles etc.

"Do we get a kiss"
/ Depends on mood. Could be a smacker or blowing a kiss with or without the hand motion.

And these are all demonstrable for a small fee. Kisses cost slightly more.

Posted by Alder at 05 March 2008 | Permalink