The Irish Rover

For the sensitive minds, skip this blog article NOW. Do not play this video.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

The video from is a German press interview with Micheal O'Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair. For those of you who may not know, Ryanair are a successful budget airline in Europe, based in Ireland. Mr. O'Leary has a uhm, very interesting take on Business class benefits versus economy.


http://view.break.com/527054 - Watch more free videos

O'Leary is infamous in European airline circles. To quote from Wikepedia

O'Leary has a somewhat fiery reputation among both his competitors in the airline industry and regulators. He has been described in many press articles as arrogant and has on numerous occasions stooped to gratuitous rudeness and foul language in his public statements. His no-nonsense management style, extreme cost-cutting and meanness towards staff, provocative advertising, and his deliberate targeting and scathing criticisms of competitors, airport authorities, governments, and unions have become a hallmark. He has been reported to have been aggressive and hostile in dealings with a woman who was awarded free flights for life in 1988 and abusive and prone to outbursts when dealing with staff and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Recently he was forced to retract a claim that Ryanair had cut emissions of carbon dioxide by half over the past five years. O'Leary has been reported to have impersonated a journalist in an attempt to find out what information an airport authority had passed on to a newspaper following a safety incident on a Ryanair flight.

In 2004 he purchased a hackney plate for his Mercedes-Benz to enable it to be classified as a taxi so that he could legally make use of Dublin's bus lanes to speed his car journeys around the city. A press report suggested that he was stopped driving his own taxi. In 2005 the transport minister of the Republic of Ireland expressed concern at this abuse by O'Leary and others.

Wow. Can you imagine this colorful behaviour from a CEO in US ? Nope, too polished, too busy backdating options and sweet dealing Congress.

Time to rewrite that old Irish classic song: "When Irish eyes are smiling, Sure, 'tis like flying business class in Spring...."

Phileas Fogg,
Houston, Texas.
28th June 2008.

Row Row Row your boat..

Browsing the web today, I came across an'in joke' on Google maps. Type in driving instructions from Sydney, Australia to Houston, Texas and you'll get maps shown left. Look closely at the Driving instructions in steps 6:-:

Kayak across the Pacific Ocean
Entering United States (Washington)
12,724 km 40 days 19 hours

Don't believe me? Click on this link.

Ah, Blessed are the Geeks: for they shall inherit the (Google) Earth.

Phileas Fogg,
Houston Texas nowhere near Sydney Australia,
28th June 2008.

Twinkle Twinkle little Star

It looks as if Continental and United have agreed to link their networks and services. This will eventually lead to Continental joining the Star Alliance.

Currently Continental is part of the SkyTeam members who include Aeroflot, AeroMéxico,Air France, Alitalia, China Southern, Czech Airlines, Delta, KLM, Korean, Northwest. Without Continental, there are some dogs left with Alitalia leading the pack.

From my perspective, this is a good move for Continental in that the partners in Star Alliance are more attractive as they include Lufthansa and one of my favorite airlines, Singapore.

This will present me with a bit of a dilema now: Which airline do I accumalate rewards on? Houston is hub for Continental but I don't particularly like flying with them. However, if I can use Continental for some of the other airlines, things look better already. I also have a Lufthasa 'Miles and More' account with some milage on it though not as much as Continental.

The other major airline consortium that I fly with and like is 'oneworld' which features British Airways, American, Cathay Pacific, JAL and Qantas amongst their membership. I've flow with
Cathay and that are not quite Singapore standard but good nevertheless.

Is this an opening shot for the battle of the skys? There is too much capacity at the price bracket we all pay where all airlines are hurting with high price of fuel. (There I go again bloging on about energy..)

CodeShare is one way to reduce capacity - airlines agree this to keep their financial interest in ticketing of a route but not necessarily fly it. It may also portend takeover paths for stronger airlines to absorb a weaker partner. Witness KLM being taken over by Air France though things aren't going so well on Air France taking over Alitalia. Alitalia is a basket case.

One thing hampering the merging of the airline industry is yes, you've guessed it : Politics. Policians of all countries whether left or right are stuck in the mode that their country must have a national airline. Their argument is that it 'flies the flag' when abroad.

What a sock of crock. Why should a country run an airline? It is as stupid as each country have their own cola company. This is legacy from days of old when air travel was in its infancy and air fares we high.

It is good to see companies like EasyJet run across Europe that runs its flight like a bus route as in not just direct but a round trip. Same with Southwest in the US.

Whilst US doesn't have 1 national airline, it does have barriers to stop foreign companies from flying within it's borders. They can fly into the county but not continue to fly within in it such as a bus. So much for free trade.

For the mess that politicians create inside air travel, you just need to look at European Union and US 'open skies' agreement. In the US, look at the Wright Amendment.

It seems to this blogger that the cost of fuel may accelerate the merging of many airlines companies so we have a few strong players. Bad news for the traveler but realistically, I don't see the status quo surviving.

I just hope that it bring a merge of the best attributes. Ideally we have a Singapore airlines standard across them all but I doubt it.

For SkyTeam what I fear we will end up with opposite and a lowest common demoninator approach: an Aeroflot safety record, an Airitalia business sense, any American carrier attitude to food, and an AirFrance record of loosing my luggage.

Ah, the romance of travel.

Philea Fogg,
Houston, Texas
21st June 2008.

Here comes the sun

21st June is the summer solstice. There is no better place to celebrate this than Stonehenge, England. Sunrise here is the party place to be.

According to the police, an estimated 28,000 people turned out. This was a fair mix of Druids, New Age travellers, party people and the curious.

This is also the one time of the year when you can get access to the stone circle albeit under the watch of the custodians. This is to prevent some wanker adding deep thoughtful graffiti such as "Knobby was here".

The henge has been a source for traditional British ways of life for a number of years. I don't mean the 1000's years tradition of druids worshipping the great celestial being but another British tradition: an excuse for a good old Fight. From an AP article:-

A clash between police and revellers at the solstice celebration in 1985 led to closure of the monument for the solstice for 15 years. During those years riot police and people determined to celebrate the solstice often clashed.

But in 2000, English Heritage reopened Stonehenge for the solstice, and celebrations since have been peaceful, with only a few arrests for minor offences each year.

"People generally respect the stones and we don't have a problem," English Heritage spokeswoman Rebecca Milton said.

I have been to Stonehenge once before and was disappointed that you couldn't access the stones. I think I will add a summer solstice visit to my future trips to make.

My overall impression on Stonehenge was that it is worth a visit. It will look very nice when it is finished.

Phileas Fogg,
Hiding indoors from the summer Houston sun,
21st June 2008

Dumb and Dumber

A colleague and I arrived at the Dallas Love Field AVIS airport depot to pick up our rental. As our plane had a trip of severe turbulence no refreshments were served, we dropped out hand luggage in the car and ran inside the AVIS office to get some free coffee. It was now raining heavily.

About 4 minutes later, We had our take away coffees and ran back to our car. We jumped inside, and to our horror, our laptops we gone.

Panicking, we went back inside and told them desk staff our story. After "Are we sure we didn't leave them on the bus" type questions, My colleague went with the station manager to look at video tapes.

I went back outside with another AVIS employee. "What was you bay number?" "Number 27".

Together we go to "27" and look inside and see our laptops still inside the car.

A MAJOR DUH MOMENT !!!

In our haste to get our of the rain, we had ran back to the car in bay #26 instead.

Panic over. Colleague come out of managers office and we made our apologies and made a very sheepish exit.

Phileas Fogg,
Dallas, Texas
19th June 2008.

A Rosetta Stone gathers no moss

Have you seen a commercial for Rosetta Stone language CDs? I caught one today whilst watching Bloomberg and part of the pitch, is that NASA uses them.

Why on earth (or any other planet) would NASA wish to be learning languages since they are North American Space Agency that is focused on exploring the heavens?Perhaps they've taken the term 'illegal aliens' to be literal and all Astronauts need to be speaking Spanish just in case 'natural aliens' also speak the same lingo as 'illegals'. On the other hand with area 64 consiracy theories (I reach for my tin foil hat here) Maybe they are secretly learning Martian or Klingon just in case. Perhaps the CD has "Repeat after me : Greeting. Take me to you leader and can I exchange $1000 for Martian zonks?..."

Don't laugh too hard on the Klingon part as there are a bunch of sad individuals who actually do learn this language. See http://www.kli.org/ if you think I jest. Not only that, but the site has 2.7 million hits. (I can think of a few hits I like to give them but it would involve a baseball bat but I am not being a caring/sharing blogger to even think that.) What's more, the site is a freaking charity. Geeks 1: US taxpayers 0.

Speaking of Geeks, I once worked with an engineering manager who visited Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. I asked how it went. He said it was great and I listened anticipating an interesting debacauched yarn or two. "Yes it was excellent, there happened to be a Star Trek convention there at the same time". I almost let out a belly aching guffaw but kept it to a smirk instead. If this is what happens in Vegas, they can bloody well keep it in Vegas.

I've always wanted to learn different languages but realized I have fundamental character flaw: I am lazy. I've bought multiple language tapes and CDs over the years but my linguistic skills are confined to English, conversational German, some french and how order in Spanish.

Even though I lived in Germany for 3 years, I never mastered it. I guess, it was having so many people switch to English whenever I attempted to speak my hesitant German, that I didn't invest time to learn it properly. It didn't help that the crowd I hung out with were predominantly expats. Whilst I could remember the words, I couldn't absorb the genders of the nouns. As such knowing whether it der, die or das impacted my confidence. (For example I know "Tisch" = table but today, can't tell you if it is male, female of neutral).

Having visited Germany and Austria since, I resigned myself never to know the genders, so I just speak in Pidgeon German. I no longer care if I make a mistake and found that I was still understood. As such, this has improved my confidence. I will make an effort to have a conversation in German whenever I hear it being spoken and probably along the lines, repeat some key phrases that I have learned the correct gender such as "Ich wohne in Den USA". I've even been complemented on fact that I speak good German! One of my Polyglot Irish friends commented after a Dallas 'Stamtisch' that he'd heard me speak more German in one night that what I'd spoken in entire time in Munich.

Which brings me on to how much language do you need to know to get by? I've found that I don't bother learning for situations where people probably speak English: At the airport, Hotels, car rentals etc and instead concentrate on situation such as restuarants, shops and getting directions. There are also some countries that English is not widely spoken. For example, Italy so you'll need to make an extra effort. The same with South America in that some degree of spanish fluency is required.

In Japan, English is tought to younger generation but my experience is that spoken english is not at a good level although written english is better understood. I guess it is the confidence thing.

Go to Philippines and English is widely spoken. A Filipino senior manager once told me that English is used as the language to bridge all the local dialects.

I was also found out that when I visited Central Europe, that if English wasn't understood, I could often get by in German.

So is my mission to learn more languages? Yes, but only to the point of getting by. It is not that I am an little Englander )I am a welshman afterall) or an English language supremist but realize that I already speak the second language of the world. The dilema of the English speaker is that if I am to specialize in a second language, what would that be : Mandarin, Hindu, Spanish?

Modern English itself is a pidgeon language developed in older days from when the top half of England needed to speak to bottom half. It has been basterdized from french, latin, german, norse and celtic and other influences. "Ich sprache, du spricht etc" has been simplified to 'I speak, you speak etc" and genderization of nouns has been jetisoned. Even the formal "you" (of du or tu) has been au revoir'ed. (Impressed with my french !)

Still there is a linguistic battleground going on even in English: American English vs. British English. They have gone their own ways over the years. In most cases it is is minor spelling (eg/ color vs. colour) but in other instances it can lead to interesting situations over colloquialisms.

'Fag' is British English refers to a cigarette so saying "I am dying for a fag" (as a Brit friend on mine once said innocently in California) can lead to a few eyebrows being raised.

The opposite of this dual language was an American collegue who on a trip to London, didn't quite understand why everyone burst of laughing when he said that he needed to sit down as his 'fanny' was hurting after a long days walking. (Explanation: "Fannie" in UK is slang for a certain part of the female anatomy a but further to the front of the American version).

English is not the only language to present such linguistic misunderstandings. It took me a few weeks on Germany to realize that "I am hot" should not be literaly translated to German as "Ich Bin Heiss". The sniggers after I said it gave it away and I later found out that "Ich Bin Heiss" was slang for "I am horny" and that I should in fact be saying "Es ist mir Heiss" (Literally 'It is to me hot') ! To my dismay, I also realized that in my prior usage of "Ich Bin Warm" and "Ich bin Kalt", had inavertantly described myself as "I am gay" and "I am frigid".

Oh well. C'est la vie.

Phileas Fogg,
Houston, Texas
June 18th 2008

Postscript: Since most business trips are dealing with engineers, perhaps I should swallow my pride and learn Klingon instead!

It's all Water under the Bridge

Go to LakeDelton.org website and you'll see the following

Welcome to Lake Delton!

More than a million come to visit.

The lucky ones already live here.

1.5 million visitors come to the Wisconsin Dells-Lake Delton area each year.

And more and more of them choose to stay each year in the area blessed with scenic beauty and a wide range of man-made recreational opportunities for year-round enjoyment making it the Midwest's most popular vacation area.

Uhm, that was until last week this is. Last monday, Lake Delton emptied after one of it's sides breached, sending water into the Wisconsin river and in the process wiped out the County A road together with a few houses.

The good news is that nobody lost their lives when it happened. The bad news is the existance of the lake was THE attraction here. People will be wiped out in the economic sense. Imagine owning a Marina and lake side accomodation with no lake. Whilst some have business insurance, I don't think it would apply to this scenario. The same applies to unfortunate house owners who couldn't get an flood insurance.

See Chicago Tribune for more details. Note the appeal for previous Chicago visitors to come. I doubt many people will take them up on the offer.

The factor that stimulated this was the very wet weather that is impacting the wider region causing floods all over. Iowa is particularly hard hit with flooding in Cedar Falls and Many of the Great Rivers forecasting surges that will creast anyday now.

The flooding in Iowa will impact us all. 'Why do you say that - I'm nowhere near Iowa'. The reason is that region is a big supplier of corn and the floods have drowned the corn crop. 'But I don't buy much corn', you may say. Indirectly you do: It is key contributor for Ethanol which makes up 10% of gasoline (('oh no, there he goes again harping on about energy' I hear you say. Yes but only briefly) but it suppliers the farmers growing meat. Prices will go up and as direct result, corn hit record prices per bushel.

At this same time, Southern China is experiencing a major flood. Imagine 1 million people having to evacuate. (see BBC news). When it rains in Asia, it can have some spectacular results. I once visited Philippines in rainy season and had to go up the mountain area. It was not something I'd care to repeat and seeing the rivers now in torrents sweeping bolders like balls and the landslides, I can understand why the Filipinos are so religious: you could be very dead, very soon.

In nature, Glacial melt lakes have always been prone to bursting.In 1995,the Nepal Village of Ghat was destroyed.

Nawa Jigtar was working in the village of Ghat, in Nepal, when the sound of crashing sent him rushing out of his home. He emerged to see his herd of cattle being swept away by a wall of water.

Jigtar and his fellow villagers were able to scramble to safety. They were lucky: 'If it had come at night, none of us would have survived.'

Ghat was destroyed when a lake, high in the Himalayas, burst its banks. Swollen with glacier meltwaters, its walls of rock and ice had suddenly disintegrated. Several million cubic metres of water crashed down the mountain.

The same Guardian article that mentioned above says that in addition to the floods, there is a flip side to the glacial melt. Eventually less water leading to a drying up of the rivers leading to drought.

Lakes bursting and causing time major upheaval are not new. However, from the New Scientist was one that still blows my mind:-

Just over 8000 years ago, a huge glacial lake in Canada burst, and an estimated 100,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water rushed into the North Atlantic.

Researchers now say they know for sure that this catastrophic event shut down the Gulf Stream and cooled parts of the northern hemisphere by several degrees for more than a hundred years.

Is Gaia reseting herself? "It hot in here, lets puts on the air conditioning".

A bit more recent in that man supposidly witnessed it, the ultimate flood event has to be the Biblical flood. I'm not a theologian but the Black Sea deluge theory is supportive that this flood was the Black sea being formed by Meditterranean Sea spilling over at the Bosphorous. It would also explain why people seeking Noah's Ark are looking at Mount Ararat in Turkey.

I just did a Google Search and would you believe that 1st site it pulled up was "Noah's Ark Wisconsin Dells". The Address, 1410 Wisconsin Dells Pkwy N, Lake Delton, WI. !!!

YIKES: I've just found a Biblical link from the Lake Delton flood to Noah's Ark and I wasn't looking too hard for it! Maybe I am a prophet and should start up my own cult. Just need some gullible people now.

If this is the trend of Biblical history repeating itself can't say I am looking forward the modern day version of the 10 plagues. Water turned red, stinking rotting fish and all that. Wait a minute. It sounds a bit like California's Salton Sea.

Phileas Fogg,
Humid Houston (originally a swamp and was flooded in Tropical storm Allison), Texas.
15th June 2008.

Running on empty

I'm not meaning to make this an energy blog but I noted the headlines in BBC news Fuel strike hits supply.

The twist here is that the gas truckers are the ones out on strike over wages. It affects a subcontractor firm who delivers for Shell. Shell account for 10% of UK's supply so concerns are there about shortages and panic buying.

Across the Channel to mainland Europe and add to this picture - truckers strikes in Spain which has resulted in no fresh food in the supermarkets.

Looks like the workers are having a grand old time going on in Europe. Vive la revolution and all that.

It's begining to look like the 70's all over again. Going back to this time period will be a disaster: The thought of "Disco music" is just too much for me to take at my age.

Phileas Fogg,
Houston, Texas
14th June 2008

I'd like to request a downgrade, PLEASE !!!

With the price of gasoline going up, the attraction of a free rental car upgrade go into reverse. If you book an economy car, then getting a gas guzzler SUV with satallite radio, DVD in every seat and the jacuzzi in the trunk, is going to hit you large in the pocket book.

Even if you do book such a compact car, you may find out that when you get to the airport late in the day, all they have available are the larger cars. This happened to me a few times but this has always been on business trips so didn't hit my pocket book. For my private trips abroad, I've got what I booked but European gas prices tend to be x4 US prices anyhow, so a compact there is already expensive.

Like airlines, rental companies are slowly altering their contracts to make more money. In feb, I rented a car from Indianapolis and returned it to Louisville, KY. I noticed of the contract that instead of a flat per day rental with unlimited milage, it was now a per milage charge.

I guess this is another symptom of 'peak travel'.

This week I read that GM intends to close 4 car assembly plants that make SUVs due to the change in the market. Ford are also cutting back in this market. As car rental companies are a significant purchaser of new auto's, will we see the paradoxical situation in the future of gas guzzlers bought from the car manufacturers dirt cheap where these end up being the low tarrif cars?

'Sir, You want the SMARTCAR instead of the Hummer? That will be an extra $50 per day.'

btw: related to car rentals, don't get me onto the stadium taxes surcharges that get tags onto the final car rental bills. You'll not like it when I'm angry. Pen mightier that the sword and all that.

That phrase sounds a bit old fashioned doesn't it? I mean who writes on paper anymore. However, the keyboard is mightier and the sword doesn't have same impact.

Phileas Fogg,
Houston, Texas
8th June 2008

Oil's well, ends not so well.

Matthew Simmons' book "Twilight in the Desert" discusses the concept of Peak oil. Basically, we have reached the economic sweet spot for getting oil out of the ground. No major oilfields are being discovered and older ones are getting depleted. Statistics on actual reserves of the biggest oilfield in the world, Ghawar, is a closely guarded secret. The second largest oilfield, Kuwait's Burgan field, is also past it's peak output and is in decline.

Whilst there may still be oil in the oilfield, it is getting more expensive to get remaining oil out. This will drive up prices and gone are the days of $10 per barrel.

Simmons book came out a few years ago. We are now > $130 per barrel and peak oil seems to be a reality each day. Not factored into this picture is the increased demand from China and India.

This high oil price - and it could go higher See Bloomberg's $200 projection - will decimate the travel industy. Already we are seeing airlines cut back flights, retiring aircraft and increasing ticket prices. Last week, British Airways announced a $109 surcharge for long haul flights. I still remember the days of getting a ticket from US to London for around $600.

This surcharge, was not a surprise to me. I flew to London last month and flight was ~40% full in both directions and I was wondering how long airlines can continue absorbing this without passing it on. AA are now charging you just to check in a bag.

Even industry insiders expect more blood to happen. To quote BA CEO, "I suspect that many airlines out there that struggled when fuel was less than $100 a barrel are not going to be able to take the required actions and we will see further failures," said Willie Walsh.

The list of bankrupt airlines continues. This week SilverJet - a business class only flight - went under leaving many people stranded.

In this environment, I can see no other scenario but a drop in air travel - both leisure and business. This will further add, excuse the pun, fuel to the fire.

High oil price is not only impacting air travel but road and sea travel also. In Europe, there has been protests over high diesel costs and in US, discontent on the ever increasing fuel prices become noisier. Also last week, Disney became the last cruise company to throw in the towel and add a fuel surcharge.

Add to this a totering US ecomomy, the housing bubble deflating and it's removal of one of the biggest ATM's - the Home Equity loans and Mortgage refi's - and the low value of the US dollar and we have a right old storm about to hit the travel market.

I wonder if what we have here is not just Peak oil, but Peak Travel. Gone are the days of easy travel. I wonder how industry will look in the future : Who will be around and what ticket prices will be.

There is one silver lining in this that may make Al Gore happy. A reduction in fuel consumed may be one way to the cut back on greenhouse gases.

Phileas Fogg,

Houston, Texas

June 1st 2008