I treated myself for the ferry back to an upgrade to the best cabins on the ship (the difference between steerage and Commodore for a single person was actually only £200).
And my fellow Commodore’s are an interesting bunch.
There appear to be a fair number of other oiks like me who have paid that little bit extra for the unlimited free beer, snacks and breakfast (and with costs on board, you don’t have to go spectacularly overboard to be making a profit!)
Then there are a couple of clearly very well healed people who I think don’t like the idea of the lower classes being allowed to upgrade.
This really came into focus earlier when I was having a snack in the lounge washed down with two gallons of beer.
There was a small family group, and one of the kids was getting quite excited, so excited that their accent slipped from the kind of received pronunciation English that you can’t place to any particular part of the UK other than “well-educated” to what was very noticeably South West, and I’d even go so far as to say a full Bristol.
The reaction from the parents was quite swift with a stern telling off about “not using “THAT” accent in public” and comments to the effect that they weren’t spending good money on pronunciation lessons for their daughter to keep reverting back to “THAT” accent every time she got excited.
Now I know it’s not the nicest of accents, but then I can hardly talk with a nasty South London accent (or Sauf Lunun accent), but at the same time I really didn’t think that accents mattered so much any more. But obviously for a very small number of people they do (and for an even smaller number of people they represent a way of making an awful lot of money by beating RP English into people)
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Have you met the rest of us?
According to the bike tour guide in Copenhagen (though I can’t find a trace of this “research” anywhere on the internet) a survey carried out for one of Denmark’s main newspapers asked the Danes what nationality they would like to be if they weren’t Danish. Over 70% emphatically came down on one nationality.
English
Why?, have they seen England, more importantly have they seen the English?
Perhaps the 30% that didn’t say English all lived in Copenhagen where they experience the “full English” in all it’s Stag and Hen do glory on a regular occurrence.
Perhaps for those Danes who live a long way from the Capital, don’t venture there very often and the only English tourists they see are the ones who have hunted out their city or town for the art, music or museum, then yes the English might appear to still be a nation of genial bumbling idiots (although that does now conjure up an image of an army of thousands of Boris Johnson’s spreading out across the globe!)
Part of the reason for this liking of the English (and for this I can only assume the usual mistake of lumping all “British” as English, ignoring that the Welsh and Scottish (and Cornish, and Northern Irish, and Manx and Yorkshire and Essex and...) are separate nationalities) is the fact that it was “English” troops that liberated Denmark at the end of World War II and this really came home today when I visited the Occupation Museum (Besættelsesmuseeti) and saw the display on the outpouring of emotion that was shown when in May 1945 after five years of occupation, the English rolled into Denmark and asked the Nazi’s to leave (“I say old Hun you wouldn’t mind tottering back off to Germany would you, there’s a good chap”)
I don’t want to break the spell that the Danish have, but isn’t it about time that we told them the country has changed a bit since then. Perhaps it’s time we let Sky TV export some of their “factual programming” to Denmark, then let’s rerun the survey and see how many still want to be English.
English
Why?, have they seen England, more importantly have they seen the English?
Perhaps the 30% that didn’t say English all lived in Copenhagen where they experience the “full English” in all it’s Stag and Hen do glory on a regular occurrence.
Perhaps for those Danes who live a long way from the Capital, don’t venture there very often and the only English tourists they see are the ones who have hunted out their city or town for the art, music or museum, then yes the English might appear to still be a nation of genial bumbling idiots (although that does now conjure up an image of an army of thousands of Boris Johnson’s spreading out across the globe!)
Part of the reason for this liking of the English (and for this I can only assume the usual mistake of lumping all “British” as English, ignoring that the Welsh and Scottish (and Cornish, and Northern Irish, and Manx and Yorkshire and Essex and...) are separate nationalities) is the fact that it was “English” troops that liberated Denmark at the end of World War II and this really came home today when I visited the Occupation Museum (Besættelsesmuseeti) and saw the display on the outpouring of emotion that was shown when in May 1945 after five years of occupation, the English rolled into Denmark and asked the Nazi’s to leave (“I say old Hun you wouldn’t mind tottering back off to Germany would you, there’s a good chap”)
I don’t want to break the spell that the Danish have, but isn’t it about time that we told them the country has changed a bit since then. Perhaps it’s time we let Sky TV export some of their “factual programming” to Denmark, then let’s rerun the survey and see how many still want to be English.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Hope the trip was worth it.
As I boarded the train south to Århus from Aalborg I noticed a number of people getting on who had obviously just come from the airport and were heading deeper into Denmark and it reminded me of the lady I had seen at the baggage reclaim belt at Aalborg on Sunday.
Her bag came off just before mine, and as she was taking it off the belt it was pretty obvious that she had just come off of a mammoth trip.
I think the longest tag I’ve ever had has had two airport names on it (Tallinn via Helsinki, Hammerfest via Tromso) but this lady had two tags on her bag as one was full and they had had to go onto a second tag.
In order the tags were LAX, FRA, CPH, AAL. In short to get to Aalborg airport at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon she had come into Aalborg on the flight from Copenhagen, where she had arrived from Copenhagen, where she had arrived from Frankfurt, where she had arrive from Los Angeles, where she had arrived from who knows where.
Firstly I dread to think how long she had been travelling and I hope that the trip was worth it, and secondly it shows that the system does work. The bag was loaded into the system at an airport somewhere within a single flight of Los Angeles and has transited through three separate airports never once missing the connecting flight.
What’s the betting that if one of those flights had been with British Airways that the bag would currently be going round the baggage carousel in Kuala Lumpur with the confused baggage handlers going, Aalborg, Aalborg, where the hell is Aalborg?
Her bag came off just before mine, and as she was taking it off the belt it was pretty obvious that she had just come off of a mammoth trip.
I think the longest tag I’ve ever had has had two airport names on it (Tallinn via Helsinki, Hammerfest via Tromso) but this lady had two tags on her bag as one was full and they had had to go onto a second tag.
In order the tags were LAX, FRA, CPH, AAL. In short to get to Aalborg airport at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon she had come into Aalborg on the flight from Copenhagen, where she had arrived from Copenhagen, where she had arrived from Frankfurt, where she had arrive from Los Angeles, where she had arrived from who knows where.
Firstly I dread to think how long she had been travelling and I hope that the trip was worth it, and secondly it shows that the system does work. The bag was loaded into the system at an airport somewhere within a single flight of Los Angeles and has transited through three separate airports never once missing the connecting flight.
What’s the betting that if one of those flights had been with British Airways that the bag would currently be going round the baggage carousel in Kuala Lumpur with the confused baggage handlers going, Aalborg, Aalborg, where the hell is Aalborg?
Monday, 2 August 2010
Out of the Darkness, Light
Denmark suffered, for five years (the Dark Years as I have heard them described on a number of occasions) the land was under the control of Nazi Germany.
As with other places they invaded the Nazi’s wanted to protect their gains, and where there were coasts involved keep them secure.
And nowhere needed to be kept more secure than Grenen at the top of the country.
At Grenen the Skagerrak and the Kattegat meet. These are the entries (or exits) from the North and Baltic sea respectively and so a vital area to control.
With carefully built fortifications and big enough guns you can stop anything you don’t want entering the Baltic Sea entering.
Move forward over 60 years and the sand dunes on this part of the coast have helped Mother Nature reclaim most of the area, with many of the fortifications long since buried and slowly being crushed by the dunes.
But a couple of the bunkers have survived and today they are still serving their original duty of providing excellent views over the peninsular, only today rather than Guns it’s camera’s firing off regularly as holiday makers clamber over the ruins to reach their roofs for the views.
As with other places they invaded the Nazi’s wanted to protect their gains, and where there were coasts involved keep them secure.
And nowhere needed to be kept more secure than Grenen at the top of the country.
At Grenen the Skagerrak and the Kattegat meet. These are the entries (or exits) from the North and Baltic sea respectively and so a vital area to control.
With carefully built fortifications and big enough guns you can stop anything you don’t want entering the Baltic Sea entering.
Move forward over 60 years and the sand dunes on this part of the coast have helped Mother Nature reclaim most of the area, with many of the fortifications long since buried and slowly being crushed by the dunes.
But a couple of the bunkers have survived and today they are still serving their original duty of providing excellent views over the peninsular, only today rather than Guns it’s camera’s firing off regularly as holiday makers clamber over the ruins to reach their roofs for the views.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
I hope they are just errors
I have a lot of respect for the people who have to write guidebooks. The have to do a lot of work, much of which ends up getting condensed into a short sentence. Perhaps not quite as bad as the Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy where the whole of the earth is condensed into the phrase “Mostly Harmless”, but it still must be quite hard and at times pretty unrewarding (especially if you’ve got lumbered with updating the guidebook to a crime riddled dump, not that anyone has published a guide book to Croydon yet!)
However, occasionally, I’ve come across real howlers of errors that have caused me to think that not much research has gone into some sections. Today I think I may have come across one such incident.
I’m not going to name the guidebook series, but the errors imply that there is a chance the person doing the work either forgot to check when they were in Aalborg, or never even went.
The first error was the frequency of busses from the airport. The guidebook said every 15-30 minutes, it’s actually every 60 minutes.
The second error was on the opening times of the Aalborg tower, they claimed during July it’s open until 7pm every day, except at the tower they show they close at 5pm every day.
I actually asked the person at the tower about this and they gave an explanation which slightly concerns me:
They have never been open to 7pm, but they did, a few years ago, for a couple of weeks, have an error on their website which said they were open until 7pm, rather than 5pm.
Looking at the website for the local bus company you can see that there are buses on route 2 every 15 minutes during the main part of a weekday, but route 2 splits and goes to various different places, only some of the buses actually serve the airport.
I have a nasty feeling that a lot of the research might have been gleaned from the internet without being checked for accuracy or that they were even reading the correct information.
I would gladly like to be proved wrong, but at the moment, I’m not convinced.
However, occasionally, I’ve come across real howlers of errors that have caused me to think that not much research has gone into some sections. Today I think I may have come across one such incident.
I’m not going to name the guidebook series, but the errors imply that there is a chance the person doing the work either forgot to check when they were in Aalborg, or never even went.
The first error was the frequency of busses from the airport. The guidebook said every 15-30 minutes, it’s actually every 60 minutes.
The second error was on the opening times of the Aalborg tower, they claimed during July it’s open until 7pm every day, except at the tower they show they close at 5pm every day.
I actually asked the person at the tower about this and they gave an explanation which slightly concerns me:
They have never been open to 7pm, but they did, a few years ago, for a couple of weeks, have an error on their website which said they were open until 7pm, rather than 5pm.
Looking at the website for the local bus company you can see that there are buses on route 2 every 15 minutes during the main part of a weekday, but route 2 splits and goes to various different places, only some of the buses actually serve the airport.
I have a nasty feeling that a lot of the research might have been gleaned from the internet without being checked for accuracy or that they were even reading the correct information.
I would gladly like to be proved wrong, but at the moment, I’m not convinced.
When two worlds collide
I witnessed an interesting interaction on the bus yesterday which threw into stark contrast the different approaches to organising transport around the world.
Copenhagen, in line with most other sensible cities (and I deliberately exclude everywhere in the UK in that statement), operate a single ticketing system with tickets that are interchangeable between any form of transport in a set period of time after stamping. The system works on honesty as there are no barriers, the only difference to the system in say, Rome, is that when you board a bus you have to do so through the front doors to show your valid ticket to the driver.
I picked on Rome specifically, as it was two Italians who had the interaction with the driver (I’m assuming they were from Rome, they could have been from anywhere in Italy, but it’s only in Rome that I have seen similar disregard to signage)
On the rear and middle doors there is a no entry sign. It’s not a complex sign in Danish, it’s the international red circle with a short white line in the middle.
In Rome, no attention is paid to this and boarding takes place through any available door, in fact the only people who follow the signs appear to be tourists (after a couple of days in Rome I found even I had given up on bothering to queue up for the correct doors with the other tourists and was leaping on through any open door.)
However, this isn’t Rome and the bus driver was less than impressed with these random people ignoring a no entry sign. There were some words said in Danish, with no response. In the end the entire interaction was played out in English. It was almost like being on a bus in London when someone fare evading gets caught by the bus driver boarding by the back doors. The shrugs, the mangled used of the English language, and then the international signal for an unhappy driver, the engine being switched off.
At this point a helpful Dane who obviously spoke some Italian (so not satisfied with being fluent in both Danish and English they had obviously learn Italian as an extra!) let them know that they needed to get off the bus, and board properly.
Once they had done this, all was fine, but I suspect that when they get back to Rome it’s going to take them a little bit of time to get back into the swing of boarding through any door that’s open.
Copenhagen, in line with most other sensible cities (and I deliberately exclude everywhere in the UK in that statement), operate a single ticketing system with tickets that are interchangeable between any form of transport in a set period of time after stamping. The system works on honesty as there are no barriers, the only difference to the system in say, Rome, is that when you board a bus you have to do so through the front doors to show your valid ticket to the driver.
I picked on Rome specifically, as it was two Italians who had the interaction with the driver (I’m assuming they were from Rome, they could have been from anywhere in Italy, but it’s only in Rome that I have seen similar disregard to signage)
On the rear and middle doors there is a no entry sign. It’s not a complex sign in Danish, it’s the international red circle with a short white line in the middle.
In Rome, no attention is paid to this and boarding takes place through any available door, in fact the only people who follow the signs appear to be tourists (after a couple of days in Rome I found even I had given up on bothering to queue up for the correct doors with the other tourists and was leaping on through any open door.)
However, this isn’t Rome and the bus driver was less than impressed with these random people ignoring a no entry sign. There were some words said in Danish, with no response. In the end the entire interaction was played out in English. It was almost like being on a bus in London when someone fare evading gets caught by the bus driver boarding by the back doors. The shrugs, the mangled used of the English language, and then the international signal for an unhappy driver, the engine being switched off.
At this point a helpful Dane who obviously spoke some Italian (so not satisfied with being fluent in both Danish and English they had obviously learn Italian as an extra!) let them know that they needed to get off the bus, and board properly.
Once they had done this, all was fine, but I suspect that when they get back to Rome it’s going to take them a little bit of time to get back into the swing of boarding through any door that’s open.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Ailment Spotting
A sister-thread to Wound Spotting, I’ve been in Copenhagen for two days and I can’t help but notice that an awfully large number of people appear to have colds.
Everywhere I’ve been there have been people sneezing, coughing, sniffing (and more unpleasantly snorting).
I checked, it wasn’t me, though will I be able to get to the end of my trip without catching Købenflu?
Everywhere I’ve been there have been people sneezing, coughing, sniffing (and more unpleasantly snorting).
I checked, it wasn’t me, though will I be able to get to the end of my trip without catching Købenflu?
Just how many links do you need?
As I was walking through the city centre earlier today I noticed there was a bus stop for the airport express to Copenhagen Airport.
Normally this wouldn’t be a particularly odd thing, most airports have an express bus link.
It’s just with Copenhagen, it’s so well connected to the airport that does it really need this extra one.
To put it into context, Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, and one of the most important airports in the world. Copenhagen is certainly the most important airport in Scandinavia, and certainly comes in the top 10 of major European airports.
Heathrow:
Copenhagen:
Which brings me back to the question, why, on top of 6 trains, 15 metro’s and 15 busses an hour (and that’s only the buses from the city centre, not the local ones closer to the airport) would you need a coach service?
And then, in small writing, I discovered the real reason. And it’s an old favourite, it’s RyanAir.
The “Copenhagen” airport express is actually to take you over into Sweden to an airport on the outskirts of Malmo that RyanAir use as their “Copenhagen” base.
They used to actually call it Copenhagen, but then some busy-body in the EU decided that landing at an airport in another country which uses a different currency to the city your advertising you are flying to is a bit misleading and perhaps they should be a little more honest. Just who do these EU Bureaucrats think they are? Next they’ll be saying the plans to rename Birmingham as London-Birmingham International are not on!
Normally this wouldn’t be a particularly odd thing, most airports have an express bus link.
It’s just with Copenhagen, it’s so well connected to the airport that does it really need this extra one.
To put it into context, Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, and one of the most important airports in the world. Copenhagen is certainly the most important airport in Scandinavia, and certainly comes in the top 10 of major European airports.
Heathrow:
- Quarter hourly train service taking around 20 minutes at the cost of around £20
- Tube every 10 minutes or so, taking well over the hour, but only costing around the £6 mark
- Coaches pretty regular, taking well over the hour, but again costing only a couple of quid
- Buses, local buses from nearby train and tube stations, nearest advertised link is in Feltham taking 30 minutes and costing £1.20
Copenhagen:
- Train every 10 minutes, taking around 10 minutes, cost £4
- Metro every 4 minutes, taking less than 15 minutes, cost £4
- Bus every 4 minutes, taking less than 30 minutes, cost £4
Which brings me back to the question, why, on top of 6 trains, 15 metro’s and 15 busses an hour (and that’s only the buses from the city centre, not the local ones closer to the airport) would you need a coach service?
And then, in small writing, I discovered the real reason. And it’s an old favourite, it’s RyanAir.
The “Copenhagen” airport express is actually to take you over into Sweden to an airport on the outskirts of Malmo that RyanAir use as their “Copenhagen” base.
They used to actually call it Copenhagen, but then some busy-body in the EU decided that landing at an airport in another country which uses a different currency to the city your advertising you are flying to is a bit misleading and perhaps they should be a little more honest. Just who do these EU Bureaucrats think they are? Next they’ll be saying the plans to rename Birmingham as London-Birmingham International are not on!
Friday, 30 July 2010
Ah, so it’s not just Britain
I thought it was something unique to Great Britain, that nowhere else in the world would hamstring themselves in the same way, but the Danes have proved me wrong.
For an eight week period a large chunk of the S-Tog network is replaced by buses whilst they carry out engineering works.
I have to say every place that the replacement bus went near the tracks there appeared to be lots of people working and getting on with stuff the whole length of the line that was closed, which is more than Network Rail ever manage in the UK (one bored looking bloke with a pickaxe picking at a bit of track in the distance is all I think I have ever seen.)
It’s obvious that there are major works going on, and they intend on getting many kilometres of track re-laid and several stations rebuilt in the, in the grand scheme of things, short closure.
It also helps that there are multiple replacement buses, including ones running express from a station on another line to Hillerød (where I was headed) without the need to sit on a bus stopping at every stop along the line (perhaps something someone at Southern could learn about perhaps?)
The whole operation appeared to be running very smoothly, with no issues, excellent signage (in more than one language, recent experience has shown that Network Rail and most of the train companies struggle with the one language) and comfortable replacement coaches.
If engineering works were carried out like this in Great Britain then I doubt there would be so many complaints.
So come on Network Rail, I’m not asking for the signage in English and Danish (just intelligible English), just get engineering works to work and not turn into their usual farce.
For an eight week period a large chunk of the S-Tog network is replaced by buses whilst they carry out engineering works.
I have to say every place that the replacement bus went near the tracks there appeared to be lots of people working and getting on with stuff the whole length of the line that was closed, which is more than Network Rail ever manage in the UK (one bored looking bloke with a pickaxe picking at a bit of track in the distance is all I think I have ever seen.)
It’s obvious that there are major works going on, and they intend on getting many kilometres of track re-laid and several stations rebuilt in the, in the grand scheme of things, short closure.
It also helps that there are multiple replacement buses, including ones running express from a station on another line to Hillerød (where I was headed) without the need to sit on a bus stopping at every stop along the line (perhaps something someone at Southern could learn about perhaps?)
The whole operation appeared to be running very smoothly, with no issues, excellent signage (in more than one language, recent experience has shown that Network Rail and most of the train companies struggle with the one language) and comfortable replacement coaches.
If engineering works were carried out like this in Great Britain then I doubt there would be so many complaints.
So come on Network Rail, I’m not asking for the signage in English and Danish (just intelligible English), just get engineering works to work and not turn into their usual farce.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Getting back to the rat race
It’s amazing how quickly you get out of the habit of certain things.
For the last couple of day’s I’ve been wandering round Tórshavn with the roads all closed off for the national day celebrations so haven’t even had to think about traffic.
On the few occasions I did come across traffic there were zebra crossings. In the whole of the Faroes (according to the tour guide on Tuesday) there are four sets of traffic lights. One set controlling access to a narrow crossing in the Northern islands and three sets in Tórshavn, and those were switched off today.
Thankfully, I did remember in time when I got to the first crossing in Copenhagen, but only just I was just about to walk out when I remembered about the little green man.
For the last couple of day’s I’ve been wandering round Tórshavn with the roads all closed off for the national day celebrations so haven’t even had to think about traffic.
On the few occasions I did come across traffic there were zebra crossings. In the whole of the Faroes (according to the tour guide on Tuesday) there are four sets of traffic lights. One set controlling access to a narrow crossing in the Northern islands and three sets in Tórshavn, and those were switched off today.
Thankfully, I did remember in time when I got to the first crossing in Copenhagen, but only just I was just about to walk out when I remembered about the little green man.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)