Overweight again - and then murder plot thwarted
These airlines give me grief. As if it isn't bad enough removing shoes, belts etc to go through security, and generally being treated like a criminal, I was overweight again on a Ryanair flight to Turin this month. My specially booked case (£30 return for 15kg) weighed 17kg. I hadn't got my scales with me, and hoped my climbing boots would not take me over the limit. They did, so hasty and undignified repacking by the check-in desk while I replaced my light shoes with my heavy boots. The case now weighed 15kg, the check-in girl was satisfied, and the plane carried exactly the same amount of weight. Off I clomped wearing several layers of clothing, and just caught the plane.
On the way back a few days later after gloomy weather in the Aosta valley and only one brilliant day ice climbing above the clouds on the slopes of Mont Blanc, I knew to wear my climbing boots. The case was allowed through although it was just over the 15kg. This time it was the carry-on rucksack which caused the problem. I had my climbing gear in it - helmet, salopettes, crampons. Crampons! Murder weapons for sure with those nasty spikes. The lady supervisor was called. No, they would not be allowed on with me. They could be checked in. But that would cost another £30 and mean a return to the check-in desk. No matter than they had been allowed out without me attacking the pilot. No matter that I was clearly a climber with the rest of the kit. No matter that I was a 60 year old white man, hardly a high risk category. I wasn't going back so there was only one thing to do. I presented the Italian security man with his first pair of crampons. I hoped he would look embarrassed, and he did. Much good may they do him.
I am not sure if there is a general lesson in all this - except maybe don't fly at all. But that is not one we wish to promote. Maybe it is that "security" needs to be done with a smattering of intelligence. We shall see.
Friday, 28 May 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Travelling Lighter
If you've travelled on a budget airline recently, you'll know that they are getting tighter and tighter on both checked-in and carry-on luggage.
On a Monarch charter flight I discovered too late that I was only allowed 5kg of hand luggage rather than the 10kg on scheduled flights. They were weighing every bag. I took more and more out, and then discovered that my empty bag weighed 4.3kg. So I could carry virtually nothing.
Big Lesson 1: Buy lightweight luggage.
On a Ryanair flight I paid for a 15kg checked-in bag, about £30 return. Mine weighed 17kg and was refused. Embarrassing repacking on the airport floor.
Big Lesson 2: Weigh your luggage before you leave home. Buy a Travel Gauge, see website.
On Easyjet my carry-on bag wouldn't fit into the slot. Major row in front of other passengers with me saying I was allowed to bring it out, I must be allowed to take it back. Got on eventually but Big Lesson 3: Buy hand luggage that fits into the slot. Often 55 x 40 x 25cm max but airlines can differ.
Big Lesson 4: Make sure you have lightweight crushproof easy care clothing, and light shoes. It makes a huge difference and you can carry a far larger wardrobe than you might otherwise. We specialise in providing light weight but good quality clothing and accessories for travel. We are the only firm we know that does that, and we will be developing even more light weight ranges in future.
On a Monarch charter flight I discovered too late that I was only allowed 5kg of hand luggage rather than the 10kg on scheduled flights. They were weighing every bag. I took more and more out, and then discovered that my empty bag weighed 4.3kg. So I could carry virtually nothing.
Big Lesson 1: Buy lightweight luggage.
On a Ryanair flight I paid for a 15kg checked-in bag, about £30 return. Mine weighed 17kg and was refused. Embarrassing repacking on the airport floor.
Big Lesson 2: Weigh your luggage before you leave home. Buy a Travel Gauge, see website.
On Easyjet my carry-on bag wouldn't fit into the slot. Major row in front of other passengers with me saying I was allowed to bring it out, I must be allowed to take it back. Got on eventually but Big Lesson 3: Buy hand luggage that fits into the slot. Often 55 x 40 x 25cm max but airlines can differ.
Big Lesson 4: Make sure you have lightweight crushproof easy care clothing, and light shoes. It makes a huge difference and you can carry a far larger wardrobe than you might otherwise. We specialise in providing light weight but good quality clothing and accessories for travel. We are the only firm we know that does that, and we will be developing even more light weight ranges in future.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Creating a catalogue
Creating a catalogue is a bit like having a baby, and takes about as long from conception to birth. Only I have one every three months. Buying the products starts about nine months before, as that is how long some suppliers want you to order in advance. Of course, no one knows for sure what the world will be like in 9 months time, especially these days, so there is a great deal of finger in the air guesswork especially about new ranges or products. Samples have to arrive in time for the photoshoot about two months before the birth. Nothing can be left out, and a shoot schedule has to be devised. Models and photographer are chosen, and travel arrangements made, like a trip to Egypt, for seven people. That's quite a job in itself. Everyone thinks you are off on holiday, but there is a lot of responsibility in producing images which sell clothes off the page. No catalogue, no business. The photoshoot goes well, and with digital photography one can see the results as one goes along. It is fun too and perfect sunny weather, but I don't quite like to say how much fun back in the office, where it has been freezing solidly.
In his studio, Andy the photographer reduces the total images to a few of the best choices and gives them to me on a disc. I make the final choice and then I lay out the products within an overall 64-68 pages to get the right balance, and a logical flow. This time we have separated the men's products and put them at the back, so they know where to find them.
I write the copy, and sit down with Dave the designer and his Applemac to put the pages together. Then others say what is wrong with them, and can they get some extra last minute stuff in? More proofs. Three weeks later everyone is happy. It is clearly the best catalogue ever. The artwork is sent to the printer, nowadays over the internet, and I go down to the Midlands a week later to see the job on the press, as it can all be wrecked at that stage if the colours don't come out right. It is exciting to see the huge thundering press, as long as several buses, churning out your baby at around 30,000 copies an hour.
After I have gone home with a few handcut copies to show around the office, the catalogue is trimmed, bound, packed onto pallets, and sent by lorry to the mailing house in Peterlee, Co Durham. Almost a week later still, they print the names and addresses on each catalogue, polywrap it, and sort it into mailing bags which are collected by TNT and delivered directly to a local post office, from where two days later the postie drops it through your box. The cost of the postage is more than the cost of a 68 page full colour A5 catalogue. (It is a scandal that it should be cheaper to send the mailing by TNT when the Royal Mail postman actually delivers it, but that is another blog).
After that, we wait for the first orders with bated breath. After a week or so we can see if we are doing better or worse that we thought. So far things have gone better than planned, but already I'm planning the next shoot - and can see where things might be done just a little bit better after all.
In his studio, Andy the photographer reduces the total images to a few of the best choices and gives them to me on a disc. I make the final choice and then I lay out the products within an overall 64-68 pages to get the right balance, and a logical flow. This time we have separated the men's products and put them at the back, so they know where to find them.
I write the copy, and sit down with Dave the designer and his Applemac to put the pages together. Then others say what is wrong with them, and can they get some extra last minute stuff in? More proofs. Three weeks later everyone is happy. It is clearly the best catalogue ever. The artwork is sent to the printer, nowadays over the internet, and I go down to the Midlands a week later to see the job on the press, as it can all be wrecked at that stage if the colours don't come out right. It is exciting to see the huge thundering press, as long as several buses, churning out your baby at around 30,000 copies an hour.
After I have gone home with a few handcut copies to show around the office, the catalogue is trimmed, bound, packed onto pallets, and sent by lorry to the mailing house in Peterlee, Co Durham. Almost a week later still, they print the names and addresses on each catalogue, polywrap it, and sort it into mailing bags which are collected by TNT and delivered directly to a local post office, from where two days later the postie drops it through your box. The cost of the postage is more than the cost of a 68 page full colour A5 catalogue. (It is a scandal that it should be cheaper to send the mailing by TNT when the Royal Mail postman actually delivers it, but that is another blog).
After that, we wait for the first orders with bated breath. After a week or so we can see if we are doing better or worse that we thought. So far things have gone better than planned, but already I'm planning the next shoot - and can see where things might be done just a little bit better after all.
Friday, 19 February 2010
Cairo
To see the Pyramids and Tutankhamun's treasures you have to visit Cairo. Much as you want to like this great city, it now contains around 22 million people and is growing by about a million every year. It is a city out of control. The streets are in permanent gridlock, the pavements are broken, litter and rubbish pile up, and desperate Egyptians accost you at every step. It is all very exhausting. However, there is no sense of personal danger. You feel very safe even walking the streets at night.
Due to a law that only finished buildings pay taxes, there are huge areas of apparently uncompleted jerry built blocks of flats. Some of them have people hiding in them. Others are genuinely abandoned, as there has been overbuilding in Cairo as in Europe. Combined with the dust blowing in from the desert, making everything grey and dirty, it is not an attractive place. A green retreat like the garden of the Mena House Hotel by the Pyramids is very welcome.
My tip is to ensure a peaceful retreat like a good hotel, meaning a modern chain hotel. We stayed in the old Cosmopolitan and visited the old Windsor but I couldn't recommend them.
Due to a law that only finished buildings pay taxes, there are huge areas of apparently uncompleted jerry built blocks of flats. Some of them have people hiding in them. Others are genuinely abandoned, as there has been overbuilding in Cairo as in Europe. Combined with the dust blowing in from the desert, making everything grey and dirty, it is not an attractive place. A green retreat like the garden of the Mena House Hotel by the Pyramids is very welcome.
My tip is to ensure a peaceful retreat like a good hotel, meaning a modern chain hotel. We stayed in the old Cosmopolitan and visited the old Windsor but I couldn't recommend them.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Travellers in an Antique Land
We have just come back from Egypt where we have been doing the photoshoot for the Summer 2010 Catalogue which will be out by the end of March. It was a great location for a shoot, but what an amazing place Egypt is. I guess I was a bit "whatever" about the Pyramids, the Pharoahs, the tombs and the temples, and I was not until I really read about them that I learnt just how truly unique and extraordinary they are.
I read the Traveller's History of Egypt, one of an excellent series, and used the DK Eyewitness Guide to Egypt and Michael Haag's more literary and opinionated Cadogan Guide. I recommend them all.
Thinking of the Pyramids for example, they were built 4,500 years ago. In other words Jesus Christ comes into the second half of their existence. There were once over 90 pyramids but it is the three large ones at Giza, now a suburb of Cairo, that we call the Pyramids today. We know a lot about who built them because of the hieroglyph language. They are the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World and the only ones to survive. They were the tallest buildings in the world until the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Pyramid of Cheops contains 2.5 million blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.5 tons. They were built by farmers during the four months each year when the Nile was flooded and they could not work the land, supervised by skilled craftsmen. They were not slaves, and they believed in what they were doing. The Great Pyramid was built over 20 years from the time Cheops came to the throne to be his tomb. To build the Pyramid in that time meant a 2.5 ton stone was laid every 30 seconds during the four months of the 20 years. There is more stone in the Pyramids of Giza than in all the churches in Britain put together. (I don't know who worked that out, but it is approximately true). Originally smooth sided, the facing stones have been stolen and only the stepped interior stones remain.
150 tickets are sold morning and afternoon to go into the centre of the Great Pyramid, and it is a journey worth making up a steep passageway to the central granite chamber which uses huge stones brought 600 miles down river from Aswan and perfectly fitted together. No one really knows how the stone was quarried and perfectly cut before the knowledge of metal cutting tools, and also of the wheel. But the Pyramids exist and nothing like them could possibly be built today. Truly Wonders of the World.
We have just come back from Egypt where we have been doing the photoshoot for the Summer 2010 Catalogue which will be out by the end of March. It was a great location for a shoot, but what an amazing place Egypt is. I guess I was a bit "whatever" about the Pyramids, the Pharoahs, the tombs and the temples, and I was not until I really read about them that I learnt just how truly unique and extraordinary they are.
I read the Traveller's History of Egypt, one of an excellent series, and used the DK Eyewitness Guide to Egypt and Michael Haag's more literary and opinionated Cadogan Guide. I recommend them all.
Thinking of the Pyramids for example, they were built 4,500 years ago. In other words Jesus Christ comes into the second half of their existence. There were once over 90 pyramids but it is the three large ones at Giza, now a suburb of Cairo, that we call the Pyramids today. We know a lot about who built them because of the hieroglyph language. They are the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World and the only ones to survive. They were the tallest buildings in the world until the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Pyramid of Cheops contains 2.5 million blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.5 tons. They were built by farmers during the four months each year when the Nile was flooded and they could not work the land, supervised by skilled craftsmen. They were not slaves, and they believed in what they were doing. The Great Pyramid was built over 20 years from the time Cheops came to the throne to be his tomb. To build the Pyramid in that time meant a 2.5 ton stone was laid every 30 seconds during the four months of the 20 years. There is more stone in the Pyramids of Giza than in all the churches in Britain put together. (I don't know who worked that out, but it is approximately true). Originally smooth sided, the facing stones have been stolen and only the stepped interior stones remain.
150 tickets are sold morning and afternoon to go into the centre of the Great Pyramid, and it is a journey worth making up a steep passageway to the central granite chamber which uses huge stones brought 600 miles down river from Aswan and perfectly fitted together. No one really knows how the stone was quarried and perfectly cut before the knowledge of metal cutting tools, and also of the wheel. But the Pyramids exist and nothing like them could possibly be built today. Truly Wonders of the World.
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