The lost art of travel

I don’t remember the heyday of travel. Way before my time. But you see it don’t you - in films or on Downton Abbey. The days when travellers wore their Sunday best, and strolled onto steam trains or stepped elegantly into propeller planes.

Flying was a luxury for those people who wore fur and knew not of ‘the weekend.’ You and I would have been on a coach trip to the seaside with a scotch egg in our back pocket.

But now, thanks to the wonder of budget airlines, we can all take to the skies. But there’s no Sunday best or elegance in the matter, as I discovered on a recent trip with our lovely friends at Ryanair.

Queuing for her onboard scratch-cards

First there’s the stampede. The flight is called and we run. Bags and limbs flailing as we sprint across the airport. Picture the scene of the Pamplona Bull Run and you’re half way there. Next it’s time to be manhandled into a waiting area where I learn how battery chickens reside. And that’s before we’ve even made it onto the plane, where cramped quarters bring out the ‘best’ in my comrades, especially when it’s announced we’ve missed the take off slot. But don’t worry, there are plenty of cheese and ham paninis on sale to keep our spirits up; cheap at half the 8 euro price tag.

And as you haven’t paid for an allocated seat, priority boarding, or simply been mugged on your way onboard, you’ll have to sit on a stranger’s lap the whole way. They’ll give you an infant’s seat belt if you’re lucky. Ah well, chocks-away.

But Ryanair, what you don’t realise is that the triumph is mine. Even with your detailed baggage dimensions and weight limit and strict policy enforcement there was no way I was paying £70 for the privilege of luggage. And now, sweet smugness. No check-in queue for me. No waiting at the carousel. No chance of you sending my bag to the wrong side of the world. Oh no.

Of course I haven’t really got enough clothes for a week, and there’s no glamour in washing your smalls in the hotel sink or running out of shampoo, but we’ll just gloss over that.

Travel’s not glamorous anyway.

Next stop

I used to love train travel. There was something romantic and adventurous about cutting through the British countryside, the world rushing by, with nothing to do but stare out of the window, daydream or crack on with my book.

Now there’s wifi, enhanced network and goodness knows what else, which means that we all have to  endure the woman next to me loudly giving her husband step by step instructions on how to cook the dinner. 

And every-time I take the train there are less and less carriages and I am forced to stand in closer and closer proximity to dozens of strangers.

People do not always give the same attention to personal hygiene as I would like. Don't make me stand in their armpit. Please.

But the thing that has really gotten my goat is this: Have you noticed that whatever form of public transport you travel on nowadays, the same robotically-voiced woman appears, every 30 seconds, reminding you of the type of public transport you boarded, your destination and every stop on the way? Are we all idiots who need to be reminded constantly where we are and what we’re doing?

No, it’s too much.

I’m getting off the train. Before I actually do need someone to remind me where I am and where I’m going, and the robo-voiced woman makes a mockery of us all.

a highland fling

I am sitting overlooking a loch. It would be pretty spectacular if it stopped raining for long enough for me to see the water. Really, this is the kind of rain that they have in the Bible.

In light of the rain, we took a ride out to the tourist information to enquire what we might do on a rainy day in this beautiful spot. The tourist information woman – Carol – had one suggestion. ‘Have you tried the wildlife hide?’ We had.

Actually it had been pretty magnificent. We turned up, with none of the correct outdoor activity gear, just at the right time to see a group of otters playing on the island and a couple of seals coming into shore. And then we left. It was cold and damp – I’m sure you’ll understand.

Well, what a success. How very efficient of us. The people who were waterproofed up to the nines in the hide had likely been sitting there for several hours. Then, these two imposters turn up in jeans, (jeans are useless in rain) and get all the action in twenty minutes.  I wouldn’t have liked us very much either.

When we had first arrived at our accommodation, Val (the cottage owner) showed us around. She handed us the key, which had a wind up torch as a key-ring. ‘City types don’t tend to have a torch to hand’ she’d said. I wanted to tell her that I had an app that served as a pretty bright torch, but as a city type, I just keep quiet.

This place is unspoilt, uncrowned and often shut.

Mo’s fish and chip shop, which proudly displayed a sign claiming it was the ‘best fish and chip shop in Scotland’ had run out of fish. On a Saturday night, at 7pm. Oh - and curry sauce. And chips. Actually, turned out that Mo hadn’t run out of any of the above, but she wanted to get home to see the X-Factor, and our custom was set to get in the way of the opening credits.

Obviously no establishment takes card. Obviously we hadn’t thought this through, and as such have a limited supply of money. There is one petrol station with limited opening hours. We did however have enough spare change to buy raspberries from an honestly box at the side of the road. Yum. Actually, I hope the petrol station accepts Visa. If I could get signal I’d phone ahead to check.

There is little scope here for the 24-7 facilities of the modern world most of us inhabit. You might wonder how people survive without Tesco Metro, but it seems they’re surviving just fine.

Tomorrow we’ll show up at Ardnamurchan Point just in time to catch a pod of whales, capture the moment in high-res on our smart phones -and annoy another bunch of waterproofed professionals.

You should visit; it really is a chance to enjoy a gentler pace of life in the most beautiful spot. Just don’t expect to get fish and chips for your supper; seems people have got better things to do.

It's the American way

I have just landed back in Edinburgh from America.

What this means is that I am now in that dreadful state of ‘jet-lagged.’ Somehow I lost the night (and the sleep that the night tends to encourage) in a hop, skip and a jump across the Atlantic.

I feel a little drunk. Not the good kind of drunk where you are the funniest person you’ve ever met, are singing ‘don’t stop me now’, and dancing on table. No, the kind of drunk where you realise it’s time for  you to go home, have to hold onto the bed owing to the spinning, or even more likely, the kind where you find yourself, sitting on the kerb, head in your hands, shoes in the gutter and sick in your hair.

So, before I go and crawl into bed or collapse right here at the desk, I thought I’d share a little about my time state-side.

Let’s start with the most important question. Why does every American think that every Brit loves Monty Python? I was asked no less than 20 times (within a week) on my feelings towards the show.  In the end I just lied that I loved it.

And what is wrong with the understatement? I missed understatements this past week. Not quite as much as I missed a well made cuppa, but a fair bit. The Americans do not understate. We’re part of the ‘E’ for excellent team – don’t you know.

But the problem is that the Brits are ‘E’ for expert in the understatement team. We are not trying to be witty, we are just endlessly un-enthused.  Of course the reasons for the understatement are quite clear to see. As a nation we do not like gushing, emotional outpouring or boasting, and as such must go to the opposite end and feign utter indifference.

When we are seriously ill, it’s a ‘bit of a nuisance’, a dreadful experience is ‘not ideal’ and something incredibly impressive is simply ‘alright.’

We do not admit to ‘wanting to become an unstoppable force,’ to ‘paving the way to success’ or to being ‘exceptionally exceptional.’ I do however like the idea that when you run out of superlatives, you just repeat them.

We Brits much prefer a spot of modesty. Even if we are bright, successful and rich, we must deal with the embarrassment of having succeeded by making a self deprecating joke of the whole sorry matter. Of course this rarely works in our interactions with foreigners. They do not understand our hatred of boasting, and therefore tend to take our ‘witty’ downplaying remarks at face value.

And then we’re really stuck. We can’t very well shout after them, ‘no no – sorry – I’m playing down my achievements to conform to our culture. I’m actually blooming marvellous,’ can we? No. Of course not. Perhaps we’d be better off saying we were exceptionally exceptional from the outset.

However, when people were crying  (one woman was practically wailing) at the end of the conference I was attending, I was suddenly glad of our British emotional repression. We are a nation of the stiff upper lip, and would certainly not see fit to quote Martin Luther King in a closing plenary.

When I was the only one not partaking in the standing ovation I felt the fullest force of peer pressure.

I was thinking about this blog post as my plane came into land just a few hours ago. As we touched down (after a pleasingly non-eventful flight) the many American’s applauded and cheered. ‘Hurrah, we didn’t crash.’ ‘Amen, we survived.’

Now I am all for praise where praise is due, but if a pilot cannot land a plane with a pretty high success rate, he really should reconsider his career choice. 

I admire this generosity of praise, the ability to cry in public, the willingness to express emotions, to openly talk about what their therapist has suggested, and of course the TV series  - ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.’

Maybe the Americans are just nicer?

Or maybe not. I’ll end with a joke, from a guy from Georgia, which I rather liked.

Person 1: ‘Where y’all from?’

Person 2: ‘Where I’m from we don’t end our sentences with a preposition.’

Person 1: ‘Oh I’m sorry. Where y’all from, bitch?’