Airline Taking The Piss

The list of things that are a pain in the arse when flying is a long one, made ever longer by the almost unbelievable arrogance of semi-literate so-called security personnel, who have barely graduated from flipping burgers but now have a bright blue TSA uniform, which apparently comes complete with a lobotomy and a massive ego infusion. It's a pain in the arse getting to the airport, parking at the airport, checking in, shuffling through the security lines, being ordered to perform completely different but equally useless routines in the interests of "security", traipsing through crappy lounges, consuming overpriced and shitty food and eventually boarding an outdated plane, staffed by surly and ancient flight attendants, determined to get through the flight with the minimum of actual effort, on the basis that they are there "primarily for your security", i.e. to order you around rather than serve you.

That said, airlines are constantly on the lookout for new ways to fuck with you in-flight, hence the much-heralded decision by All Nippon Airlines to introduce women-only toilets on their planes. It's bad enough already trying to take a piss on a plane. For a start they don't want you getting up until well after take-off and they make you sit down more than half an hour before landing, for no fucking good reason. In between time, if you're not in an aisle seat, good fucking luck getting up, crawling over your corpulent seatmate, getting past the cart in the aisle and getting through the line at the toilet before the seatbelt sign comes on and some miserable flight attendant bitch, made bitter by getting fucked all ways by pilots for forty years and never marrying one, orders you back to your seat.

There are never enough toilets on planes, largely because seats can be sold, whereas toilets are a non-revenue generating waste of space. (Unless you're that Ryanair wanker who wants to charge for their use.) Taking one of these rare and sacred appliances and turning it over for the exclusive use of women makes no fucking sense.

Apparently the airline did a survey, and women identified dedicated toilets as their number two need (number two - geddit?) right after desserts. (Here's a thought ladies - if you spent a little less time hitting the desserts you might not have to spend quite so much time in the can.) Why is this? There was some mumbling about men leaving the seat up, or leaving a mess, but I could just as easily complain that they leave the seat down, and what's more, I am reliably informed that women's public toilets are by far in worse state than men's, due in no small part to women's unwillingness to actually sit on the seat, preferring to spray indiscriminately from a great height.

What pisses me off most is that this is a typical double-standard. If men were granted dedicated urinals on planes there'd be a fucking outcry, with women picketing the airline's offices and N.O.W. lezzas in full warcry. Besides, regardless of the cause, it's simply a fact that there are more men flying in business class than women. Always. And there aren't enough bogs to go around now, so how does it make sense to dedicate one to the two women flying?

Actually I'd suggest that men-only toilets would make a lot more sense. Many's the time I've taken the overnight flight to Europe, where you arrive at around 7am, ready to work a full day. You try and sleep on the plane as long as possible, meaning that ideally you wake up, take a piss and land. But the chances are that one of the two women in business class will scuttle into the toilet clasping her make-up bag and then you can forget about anyone else having access for the rest of the flight. The bitch will be in there for twenty minutes, making herself "presentable", and emerging just in time for the wizened old flight attendant to order you back to your seat. Again.

The rule should be "The toilet is for piss, shit, and, maybe, just maybe, cleaning your teeth. For anything else please wait until you fucking land. Bitch."

Of course I'm expecting that the dickheads that All Nippon Airlines did just as good a job polling men on what would make their flight more enjoyable. If so, I shall look forward to the cigar bar, extensive range of scotch, free blow job and full English breakfast on my next flight. Yeah right...


Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Ve Haf Vays Of Making You Vait

I always thought the Germans were supposed to be efficient. And I also thought Chennai airport (that's in India, dumbass) was the worst airport in the civilized world. Well, as of yesterday I have revised my opinion of the Germans, and even though I can't say that Frankfurt airport is actually worse than Chennai, it comes fucking close, especially when you consider that it has all the supposed benefits of Western European development, and that there are no cows in the road outside or one-legged beggars in the parking lot.

Chennai is bad because it's badly run. You go to check in at Jet Airlines but you can't find the desk. Then, when you do find it, you realize that business class check in is a hundred yards away across the concourse. They give you a form when you check in, but they don't tell you that you need to fill it in before you can go to the next stage. Then you stand in a line for immigration (why do they need to inspect your documents so closely when you're leaving, for fuck's sake?), and this can easily take an hour. If you're lucky you can now sit in an overcrowded lounge while you wait for boarding, but don't wait too long, because you still have to clear security. That's the biggest clusterfuck of all, with shiftless workers manning x-ray machines and metal detectors that aren't paired up. I put my belongings on one belt and then got sent five lanes up for scanning. I swear it's a miracle that my laptop was still there when I returned. Then they check you documents THREE more times at the gate. Don't ask me why...

Frankfurt can handle the check-in part OK, but then you clear passport control and head to your gate. I realized there may not be a lounge because the check-in wench didn't give me an invitation, but I didn't realize that the gate would have about ten seats for a whole 767 of passengers. We asked a security bloke at the gate if there was an American Airlines lounge, and he said there was, only it was a bit hard to follow his directions, on account of him having a speech impediment which appeared to be linked to significant mental retardation. Nice of the Germans to give him a job - care in the community and all that.

So we walked in the direction he seemed to be indicating (unless that was just a spasm) and found another set of security checks. The staff there directed us back in the opposite direction, and we had a nice fifteen minute walk through the airport, just to satisfy ourselves that there was, indeed, no American Airlines lounge. But by the time we got back to the gate, the security checks had commenced.

In every other airport in the civilized world they have one big set of security checkpoints and you can go through as soon as you're ready. At Frankfurt they have a little set by gate 6 just for that gate and they don't open it until less than an hour before the flight boards. The set-up was simple - a long, Disney-style winding line, in order to get to two x-ray machines for your bags, either side of a single walk-through metal detector. People loaded their bags on the machines but they didn't move, because the bottleneck was the metal detector. Almost anything would set it off, and then the offending passenger would be subjected to a full pat-down and wanding, shoe removal and x-ray. Meanwhile everyone else had to wait. There as one man doing pat-downs for men, and one woman for the women, but only one of them worked at a time.

I was close to the front of the line and it was fucking painful to see such an exercise in complete fucking futility, organized so fucking inefficiently. Even if you believe that this type of security check does anything useful, you might at least expect that it would be organized so as to run smoothly. I stripped everything metal from my body, with the exception of fillings; even my belt, watch and wallet, which don't EVER set off metal detectors, just so I could avoid having the overtly homosexual German security man rub me down. Then I realized why the process was so fucking slow. In addition to the pointless rub-downs, your bags would be hand-searched, even if nothing suspicious showed on the x-ray. And guess what? It was the retard speech impediment twat who was doing it. Having opened up all the zips on my computer bag and messed everything up, he informed me that my computer power adapter would have to have the cables checked. (At least I think he said that - I have to admit I backed off a little at that point, just to minimize the saliva overspray.) Then he opened my larger bag and rifled through my dirty underwear while other passengers stood by.

[Note to fellow travelers: unless your wiping is of a magnificently high standard I recommend you avoid white underwear. Personally, I only buy black.]

Now you might think that having Helmut the Halfwit rummage through my bag would help save lives and keep America free, but it's worth noting that he failed to search my trainers, which were in a plastic bag, and were easily the most suspicious thing there, and he also failed to spot that I had an illicit bag with liquids in it (which I noticed when he uncovered it, but which he failed to spot). So why go through the fucking motions, piss me off and have the whole plane waiting in a pointless line, when you're not even paying attention?

I went to a separate room for my cable check, but what they actually did was an explosive residue test. Sorry Helmut, you weren't even close.

My colleague asked the Germans at the scanner (you have to do something while you wait) why it was that they didn't put more people on the line. The old woman at the scanner replied that they didn't need more people - "less people, but just more time". That's the kind of attitude that explains why I will be driving to another country before I leave Europe in future. My parting comment to Frankfurt security:

"With organization like that, no wonder you couldn't fucking take Stalingrad."

Wankers.


Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Ford Tortoise

I'd been meaning to get a new car for years, to the point where Mrs Bison refused to engage in any conversation about what I might buy, on the grounds that a) she didn't care, b) she wished I'd just go and buy one, and c) did she mention that she really didn't care?

Part of the problem was that I really wanted an SUV because I'd got used to the higher seating position, and my joints don't favor sedans after soccer games. But I also wanted a sport sedan, because I wanted to drive something that felt alive again. I really wanted something classy, like an Audi, but I was fucked if I was going to lay out the best part of 60 large on something that was going to get dinged in a mall car park the week after it arrived. So I ended up buying nothing.

Well, the best part about my new job was that it came with a company car. Not necessarily one commensurate with my monumental capabilities, you understand, but a company car is a bit like sex - not something you turn down when it's free. So to cut a dull story short I ended up getting a Ford Taurus, because it was an AWD option which I could get with all sorts of equipment. It has a navigation system, which is great, but it also has fancy alloy wheels, of the type which practically guarantee that if I park it in the wrong part of Chicago I'll be coming back to a car on bricks. In fact I might not want to stop at the lights in certain parts of town.

So what's the new Taurus like, I hear you asking? It's not bad, but you can tell it's a Ford. I got a black one, and it looks great, although once you're inside, the narrow slit windows make you feel like you're piloting something from the Wacky Races. And the drop down plastic holder for your shades doesn't fit right - the plastic hangs down, a tragic reminder that in a car that probably sells for close to forty grand, Detroit still can't quite get the basics right. The rain sensor windshield wipers have various settings, all of which are guaranteed to be exactly wrong for whatever precipitation is falling. You either get the annoying squawk of rubber across glass, or you peer out through the frosted windshield, trying not to kill anyone while you wait for the next sweep.

I have to say, though, that it's been great in snow, in spite of the low profile tires. And the stereo sounds good, especially when you turn it up loud enough to cover the squeak from the armrest. But best of all, I won't be boring the living shit out of my spouse with tales of potential car purchases. Lucky her.


Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison

Join The Club

I've often thought that bringing up kids was the ultimate opportunity for the exercise of simple common sense. So much of what is wrong with kids (especially other people's kids, you understand) comes down to the feckless stupidity and lack of discipline of their parents; surely all you have to do is play the game straight and everything will come out right. Right?

Well, it's now time for Bison Daughter's twelfth birthday, and the thing she wants most is a phone. Not really to talk to anyone, just for the texting. All her friends have phones, and they sit there on the school bus, texting each other. There's absolutely no point to it, of course. They have nothing to say, and I cannot see the point in expending $150 on a phone and a further $20-40 a month on a plan simply so that Bison Daughter can recede into a sad world of "CU L8R" or whatever meaningless drivel it is that passes between preteen girls as an alternative to actual conversation.

It's a no-brainer really. I mean, I didn't get a mobile phone until I got a sales job at the age of twenty four, and that was a car phone which had some apparatus the size of a four-slot toaster in the trunk, so it wasn't really "mobile" in that sense. Since when did it become an imperative that all our offspring have a mobile phone? Since phone companies figured out that they could sell them ringtones, wallpaper and no end of expensive and worthless downloads, that's when.

The problem is that, shite and worthless though the phone-text traffic is, that's the only means of communication kids seem to have now. They don't talk to each other - I don't believe most of them could hold a conversation if their phone depended on it - so if you're not part of the texting network then you're likely an outcast. No parent wants their kid to be left out; teenage girls have cruelty and exclusion down to an art form - I think it gives them something to do in between pulling the wings off insects and torturing small mammals - and being different is just an invitation to exclusion.

So much as I relish the thought of knocking down the "all my friends have one" argument with some tried and tested parental reasoning like "well, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" I know that at some point, eventually, I'm going to break down and get my kid a phone too. Which is a sad indictment of the society in which we live, isn't it? Parents go off to work, and spend way too many hours there, trying to make enough money to pay all the bills, including the mobile phone, while their kids sit around like little vegetables, only able to communicate at all by typing partial words and sub-sentences into their little reality-avoidance machines.

If we hadn't persuaded ourselves that we needed all this shit in the first place we could work less and spend more time with the people we purported to love. Applying the simple principles of common sense to raising them, so they didn't grow up to be dysfunctional freaks with social alienation disorders and an inability to relate to other humans, or cope with delayed gratification. Yeah right. LOL to that.


Copyright © 2010 Edward Bison