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Reading in the Daily Mail last week that you can no longer renew your passport up to 9 months in advance & keep the same expiry date. It was quietly dropped a couple of weeks ago.
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Keep thinking we must renew ours. They ran out in 2010 I think. Each year we think "will we get to use them this year, probably not" and then look at the ever increasing price to do so, and put it off.
Starting to wonder if we will ever go abroad again. There are one or two places we'd quite like to see, but the hassle of actually doing it is tending to outweigh the desire. God, how old do I sound. Sigh.
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Home Office state that change is to comply with international regs. Don't know how well that assertion stands up to challenge.
Ours expire next year. Had always intended to renew before Brexit. Losing six months validity is something I can live with.
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>>Starting to wonder if we will ever go abroad again. There are one or two places we'd quite like to see, but the hassle of actually doing it is tending to outweigh the desire. God, how old do I sound. Sigh.
I know exactly how you feel. After my last few experiences at airports I'll need some very strong motivation before I fly again. 'Freight, self loading' is one term for us that pay their wages.
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The problem with travelling is that most people don't do enough of it.
That has two effects really;
They are therefore not practiced and tend to slow things up as they [understandably] work out where to go next or what to do.
As they only fly once a year the airline cares more about a price to entice them than it does about a service to make them want to use it all the time.
At one point I was travelling in and out of Poland on LOT a great deal. One time I wasn't paying attention and I caught a LOT holiday flight rather than a normally, all year round, scheduled flight. The difference was astonishing.
It'll be a long time before I can hang up my passport, however much I want to.
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Surely flying is about the easiest form of long distance travel.
One you are checked in it's a pretty straightforward process. OK Security can be a bit of a pain but no luggage to worry about until you arrive and assistance required if necessary both at the airport and on the plane.
When I travelled to Canada in the summer I sat next to an elderly lady who was travelling unaccompanied to see her family. She told me she was 93. I shan't be giving up flying for a while yet.
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>>One you are checked in it's a pretty straightforward process.<<
You may think so, I may think so, but you only have to witness the self loading freight at places like Luton and Stansted to realise how thick the average members of the UK population actually are. Roll on Brexit (:?
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>> Surely flying is about the easiest form of long distance travel.
Nooooo, if you wanted to go to Australia for example, a long sea voyage was by far the easiest and gastle free. Took a ruddy long time tho.
These days it's a case of if you want to get anywhere, and not spend your entire vacation doing so, it's fly or don't go.
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OK, so I wasnt including time travel so I could use an ocean liner
I'm not sure spending six weeks being sea sick could be described as "easier" than flying and you could afford a first class air ticket for what that sea passage would have cost
Flying is a doddle. I really quite like it.
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Flying is a bore. It will never be as enjoyable as not flying. It is simply that if you want to be somewhere else it is usually the best option.
Airports are the same. They'll never be as good as not being there. and usually they are much much worse.
Travelling from Point A to Point B is, at best, tolerable.
Travelling for travelling sake can be enjoyable. In which case boats are a good answer. I find too many people on a cruise ship. But sail boats and freighters have their role in life.
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I couldn't agree more, I find the whole process of flying from start to end boring, especially the actual flying.
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Its the city of the age. “I’m boredâ€. What ever technological marvel we are given we constantly want to be entertained and relieved from our boredom. Sit in an airport lounge for an hour and read the newspaper “It’s boringâ€. Sit on a plane for a few hours and be served a meal and watch a film or two and listen to some music “It’s boringâ€. Look out of the window and see the Alps or the English countryside way below “Why bother I’ve seen it before, it’s boringâ€
How on earth did previous generations manage to cope with a land or sea voyage lasting weeks or months when we can’t go fo a few hours Where has the excitement gone? Do we really find travel so mundane?
And if you really find it so boring remember Dunbar’s theory from Catch 22*. Boredom is the best way to make you life seem longer.
* I read it on a plane journey:-)
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Flying has been turned from exciting and glamorous to tedious uncomfortable agro beset with petty officialdom, priced down to the lowest common denominator, getting worse.
Trains are the pleasant way, one of my best holidays was traversing Italy by train.
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They aren’t a lot of good at crossing oceans though are they? Come to that they aren’t much good at getting to London from Norwich.
Having said that I still hanker after a trip on a sleeper train. Have you been on any?
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...I've been on a sleeper train across the ocean (well, a sea crossing anyway)!
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>> ...I've been on a sleeper train across the ocean (well, a sea crossing anyway)!
The English Channel does not count as an ocean crossing
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>> The English Channel does not count as an ocean crossing
>>
...that guess is quite a long way out.....
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...that guess is quite a long way out.....
>>
Where did you travel on it?
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..overnight train from Copenhagen to Oslo (over 30 years ago).
I don't think Helsingor to Helsingborg is a train ferry any longer.
(I got woken from my slumbers in the early hours of the morning by a statuesque blonde Swedish immigration official asking for my passport - thought I was still dreaming :-) )
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>> They aren’t a lot of good at crossing oceans though are they? Come to that
>> they aren’t much good at getting to London from Norwich.
>>
>> Having said that I still hanker after a trip on a sleeper train. Have you
>> been on any?
So do I and no. If I did it it would be in a VSOE wagon lits
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>> Having said that I still hanker after a trip on a sleeper train. Have you
>> been on any?
Three. Zeebrugge (or thereabouts) to Villach in a troop train, about three days. Nice to Paris, 6 persons to a compartment; found out later that it would have been cheaper to fly. Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok return.
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I seem to remember that when Concord was flying it was cheaper per mile than some rail travel in the UK.
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>> I seem to remember that when Concord was flying it was cheaper per mile than
>> some rail travel in the UK.
If they rebuilt Concorde from scratch today at a cost of a gigatrillion quid, it probably still would be cheaper per mile than the Cambridge guided bus service.
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>>Flying has been turned from exciting and glamorous to tedious uncomfortable
GHASTLY. I loathe flying - don't mind being up in the air, but that's not the problem. Recommend Jerez airport though even there it took 20 minutes to get into Spain and through passport control.
>>Trains are the pleasant way
Nothing really beats Eurostar 1st class for a way to leave London (though the food is pretty stingy - explains why the seasoned travellers fill up with peanuts and gin in the lounges).
I have done the Scottish sleeper a couple of times, but it's sadly nothing to write home about. Uncomfortable and stops at every lampost and even the deepest sleeper would struggle. Fun, yes. Comfortable? Not really.
If you want to do a sleeper, go from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The sleepers have priority over all other trains on the route. They do a steady and unchanging 50mph (or whatever) so never stop or change speed, but give you 8 hours' sleep. Don't go cattle class, which is one huge dormitory and apparently hell, but instead in the double bedroom with en suite facility. Not particularly expensive either - once you've added in the cost of travel and the cost of a saved hotel night.
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A few years ago we rambled through the Dolomites, Alta Via 2 finishing at Feltre, some 60 miles NW of Venice. As we had a few days to spare we went there, but accommodation being enormously expensive I caught the midnight sleeper to Nice ( cheaper than another night in Venice) Via Milano. Unfortunately I had to share the 4 berth sleeper compartment with an American nut job, but waking up trundling along the shores of the Med was a lovely experience.
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How on earth did previous generations manage to cope with a land or sea voyage
>> lasting weeks or months when we can’t go fo a few hours
probably bored but had no internet to complain about it ;-)
I'm not easily bored or find travel in general boring, i quite enjoy going by ferry, but there's just something about flying, just how I find it.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Sun 23 Sep 18 at 20:38
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>>How on earth did previous generations manage to cope with a land or sea voyage lasting weeks or months when we can't go fo a few hours
Because that wasn't just getting from A to B, that was enjoying the journey for itself. Like I said, sailboats and freighters.
As for sleeper trains, yes I have. London / Paris / Barcelona / Madrid. Often. Just great. Relaxing, entertaining and comfortable.
Takes the best part of 18 hours though.
>technological marvel
I'm supposed to marvel at the airplane and that will be sufficient to keep me entertained? Hardly. I was in the top 5% of American Airlines passengers by mileage for 3 years running. There is nothing left to marvel at.
It is functional. One might as well be impressed by the technological marvel which is the diesel engine in the No 17 bus.
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Surely you possess enough enough hi tec technological gadgetry to keep you entertained for a few hours. Or you could try a book. Plenty to marvel at in books. I can thoroughly recommend them.
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That reminds me. Skyfaring†by Mark Vanhoenacker might make the process of flying seem a little less mundane
www.amazon.com/Skyfaring-Journey-Pilot-Mark-Vanhoenacker-ebook/dp/B00N6PCX60
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I’ll give up travelling not before I’m reduced to lying on rubber sheets in a Nursing Home. Even if it’s 9.5 hours on 4 trains to SW Wales to backpack and sleep rough in a field.
The current logistics of taking a 90yo to Spain, 3 peeps week one, returning 1 peep to airport Friday, collecting 2 new incumbents Saturday, returning them the following Saturday to meet 3 new incumbents on the inbound flight 7 days later, keeps my old brainbox fully activated.
The idea of my old Mum not having a valid passport appals me
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How can you get bored flying? Lots of people watching at the point of departure. Then once onboard watch the film you’ve downloaded on your tablet, in my case Isle of Dogs from the iTunes Store, using a decent pair of headphones ( assuming you don’t want to chat to fellow travellers as my old mum did for 2.5 hours)
Boring
Never
And I’m the wrong side of 60
Last edited by: legacylad on Sun 23 Sep 18 at 21:35
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I thought I was alone! You're right about the headphones. I've got a pair of Bose wireless noise cancelling phones and they are great even for simply getting rid of engine noisewhen reading.
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I bought a pair of Reconditioned Bose QC35’s from the Bose Factory Store in Folsom CA over 10 years ago. ( not name dropping). Worth every dollar. No more screaming children. I’m now happy to spend 10 hours + watching films long haul, either on the airlines own System or downloaded films on my iPad. Time flies by. Even in cattle class.
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I have a pair of QC 35's, just goes to prove the steps required to overcome the utter misery and boredom of flying
I tolerate it and embrace it only because of the end result, not the journey
It was fun in 1964, it's not now
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>> How can you get bored flying?
Of course there are things you can do to pass the time. The same things you can do even when not on an airplane.
Those things are not making flying interesting, flying is boring. They make your own time more interesting or tolerable, but not the flying.
Airplanes, Airports and Hotels. The three things I find amongst the most boring places to pass time on the Planet Earth.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 24 Sep 18 at 15:27
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>> Surely you possess enough enough hi tec technological gadgetry to keep you entertained for a
>> few hours. Or you could try a book. Plenty to marvel at in books. I
>> can thoroughly recommend them.
I read a lot. I am not sure how reading on an airplane is better than reading not on an airplane.
The difference is the airplane. And it adds nothing to any experience. Except perhaps looking down. It is at best tolerable.
Or are you only able to marvel at the contents in a book when sitting in an airplane? Perhaps you should give it a go when you're not on the airplane and see how you get on?
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I see you are slipping once more into sarcasm. I guess with a brain the size of a planet conversing with mere mortals gets to be a bit of a bore at times. Rather like being on a plane I suppose
I guess I am lucky to find interesting that which to others is so tedious. Being stupid has its benefits.
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>>>> I see you are slipping once more into sarcasm.
"Plenty to marvel at in books. I can thoroughly recommend them."
Stones, glass houses.
>> Being stupid has its benefits.
I'll take your word for it, I wouldn't know.
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>> hi tec technological gadgetry
Though that is an interesting point. The only hi-tech gadgetry I have is my phone. I don't own any music or video player, or a Kindle. I don't own a laptop or any flash headphones. My watch is a mechanical analogue and tells me nothing other than the time; Oh and the date if I'm wearing my glasses.
I do have several drawers full of technology I've fancied, bought and then never found an ongoing need, desire or use for.
When I fly, assuming that the girls aren't with me, I carry my passport, my phone and my wallet. I board carrying nothing. In fact even with the girls, now they're older, I rarely carry anything, everything is checked.
I find that the best way to fly. Best way to travel, actually.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 24 Sep 18 at 15:32
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>>I was in the top 5% of American Airlines passengers by mileage for 3 years running.
Painful. Sympathies.
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>> >>I was in the top 5% of American Airlines passengers by mileage for 3 years
>> running.
>>
>> Painful. Sympathies.
You have no idea.
Though, to be fair, you get to know lots of people like check in, security and air crew and that does make life a great deal less horrible than it could be.
They also have a manifest with any relevant notes on their passengers. If you fly that much they always seek you out to make sure everything is ok.
You also get to know your way around pretty much every major airport you're ever likely to need.
I always found it ironic that the rewards for flying more than any human actually wants to fly are air miles allowing you to fly more.
I've never used an airmile in my life; my parents on the other hand have flown all over the world using my air miles.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 24 Sep 18 at 15:17
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>> I always found it ironic that the rewards for flying more than any human actually
>> wants to fly are air miles allowing you to fly more.
>>
On a more mundane level, although I used to fly a bit on business in the 80s and 90s. I now find the same thing with hotels. The statistic s on your reward membership in various hotel schemes on the number of nights stayed and the number of free nights points earned are kinda frightening at times, literally years of my life, at 365 nights a year, have been spent in one or two brands of hotels travelling on contracts and projects round the UK.
I also agree with what you say, that being able to read / listen to music etc stops you being bored but does not make hotel rooms nice places to be, especially on your own.
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I used to go months at a time without going home, sleeping only in hotels and airplanes. I must say it didn't seem that bad at the time, but I shudder looking back on it.
I used a single chain of hotels and two airlines mostly. It is pleasant to be greeted and treated well. I never cared for the points and gifts, but anything in the service which makes life easier is very welcome. And they are typically *very* good at looking after their frequent customers.
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One for the railway buffs, do locomotives have cruise control? Aircraft and submarines have an autopilot, a similar gadget.
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>> One for the railway buffs, do locomotives have cruise control?
No but kinda yes.
Some have a speed limiter, but you have to keep the power lever applied manually as one of the dead man's handle interlocks.
But as far as autopilot goes some have dumped the driver completely. little known fact is that the Jubilee line and Victoria line are fully autonomous equipped. And with in cab signalling the Channel Rail link could be so operated.
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I have used the driverless metro system in Dubai, it seems to work OK, I survived. I have also used some airport driverless rail systems between terminals, can't remember where.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 24 Sep 18 at 16:54
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>>little known fact is that the Jubilee line and Victoria line are fully autonomous equipped.
Really? Didn't HM The Queen 'drive' the first train? - i.e. open the doors. Best-kept secret for fifty years nearly, then.
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Everything you need to know about automated metro trains. Impress your friends!
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems
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>> Really? Didn't HM The Queen 'drive' the first train? - i.e. open the doors. Best-kept
>> secret for fifty years nearly, then.
I said Equipped, not operated. The union won't allow non driver operation
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and the DLR - sitting in the front seats is just like a fairground ride.
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>> and the DLR - sitting in the front seats is just like a fairground ride.
DLR has been driverless since the start. Did some project related to it for Computer Science A level.... so it must have been 88 or 89 when it started.
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...the "Merry-Go-Round" trains that were used to deliver coal from the collieries to the power stations had a rudimentary form of cruise control, (Slow Speed Control) such that the speed of the train could be set to a given (low) value that enabled the wagons to be loaded (from above) and unloaded (via drop) without the train ever coming to a standstill.
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I didn't mind being away for months, but after i got married and kids etc it became much more of a hassle. I found 5 months to be my limit. I felt I was just going through the motions and every day towards the end became groundhog days.
I don't have to worry about that know, moved jobs and only been away 10 nights in the past 4 months. Don't miss all the travel faff at all.
Thinking I wonder if someone's main reason for travel, by aircraft, is for pleasure as opposed to work it's more likely to give you a positive impression? Shear volume of travel must have an impact as well of course.
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>>You have no idea.
Oh I think so. Imagine doing it once - I can do that. And then imagine doing it nearly every day.
Job interview question no. 1. "Is there much travel?" "No, I'm afraid not." "Good."
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One role I had involved visiting San Francisco, Sao Paulo and New York every week. I lived in Dallas.
You know you've got it wrong when check in agents, airport porters, hotel porters and various receptionists start greeting you with "Hello again, Mark".
Though, if I am quite honest, it was a life I loved dearly. Every moment of it. Really, absolutely loved and valued. I just would never lead that life again and these days find travel, and everything about it other than the destination, tedious beyond measure.
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I've spent the last 24 hours worrying about the top 5% of AA's passengers, by mileage.
They're doing a lot more than 5% of the travel on the airline, say 20%. On that basis on an average flight you'd expect maybe 20% of all passengers to be in the top 5% by mileage. Wouldn't you? So I'd be surprised if they really checked up on them all. You must mean something different by this measure.
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God you must have an empty life. Everybody has an AAdvantage card why would they need to put any effort into checking?
If you want to worry more, or indeed if you choose not to believe it, then good luck to you.
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>> I've spent the last 24 hours worrying about the top 5% of AA's passengers, by mileage.
>> They're doing a lot more than 5% of the travel on the airline, say 20%.
>> On that basis on an average flight you'd expect maybe 20% of all passengers to
>> be in the top 5% by mileage. Wouldn't you? So I'd be surprised if they
>> really checked up on them all. You must mean something different by this measure.
>>
MM, have another. look at the logic and the statistics behind that, what you are saying makes no sense at all.
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Passport Renewal - Crankcase
