I’m flying without wings here or at least blogging without links. This morning I saw something on Al Beeb which made want to defenestrate the Sky box. Apparently our beloved government is upping the tax on long haul flights. The impression I got was “long haul” is anything out of the EUSSR. Fuckin’ magic. That’s over ten percent for an economy return to the USA.
The Beeb had a bloke from Virgin who talked sense and a complete twatter called Richard although in the context (he is a founder member of Plane Sense) Dick might be a more appropriate appelation. He had one of those big plastic rings in his lug-hole. He was not happy. Because that extra forty quid is just going in the general money pit and has not been hypothecated for “green travel options”. The last long haul trip (it involved six flights pal and for everyone of them Gaia drowned a cute lickle polar bear cub, Dickie) I was on was shock horror to the USA and how precisely would I have got there by a “greener” option you cunting twatter? Swim, row? What?
Long haul is by air. It is the only realistic option. The single greatest achievement of the C20th is powered flight. You, Dick, probs think Orv and Will ought to have stuck to the bicycles. They didn’t and the world took off. This time tomorrow I could be in Brisbane bothering Mr Cats. And you Dickie think that’s a bad thing? And by the fucking way Dickie I am like Henry’s Cat and I know everything about nothing and not too much about that but I do know aviation and I know that the Airbus A380 for example gets 80 passenger miles to the gallon. Try getting that from your fucking Toyota Pious you cunt - and no pal you’re driving it alone because it’s fairly clear to me that you don’t have an enemy in the world (apart from me) and your friends don’t like you much either. The even newer Boeing 787 Dreamliner manages even better.
You will not take the skies away from us Dick, you prick.
And it’s all bollocks anyway. You were wittering on about facillitating “greener” options weren’t you? Utter drivel. If I decide to go into Stockport today I do have a number of options. I could go by car or bus or train. I could go by unicycle or pogo-stick or space-hopper but if my travel plans called for a trip to say Miami or Brisbane (to perform percussive maintance on the Cat’s server) there is no realistic option other than flying. Until they build the transworld railway it’s gonna be on a Boeing or an Airbus. This is because the 192 bus terminates at Manchester Piccadilly and does not continue to Brisbane or Miami via Beijing. It’s a totally different issue. I mean it’s down to the brute facts of the science of Geography that some places are in fact further away than other places. Stockport is (at a push) walking distance. Johannesburg isn’t. That’s geogrpahy for ya and unfortunately there is quite a lot of it.
And no one flies these days because it’s fun. It’s a fucking grim ordeal which involves morons X-raying your shoes and shouting at you. We don’t do it for giggles and fits. We do it to get from A to B. And the A and the B might be on different continents. Affordable inter-continental travel is the blessing of this generation and the likes of Dickie and the TSA are the curse that comes along with that. That and being 5′11″ and only being able to afford economy.
But the end result is the same and me in steerage gets there just as quick as the folks at the sharp-end and it means that I am a citizen of a global village and I could get to see Cats quicker (and probs relatively cheaper) than my great great grandad could get to see Ian in Northamptonshire.
But then Dickie doesn’t even acknowledge this. He was talking about his scattered family and how he didn’t see them as much as he’d like being the climate martyr he is. Well seeing as he’s also the cunt he so clearly is I suspect his family regard that as a feature and not a bug. He mentioned his elderly Grandmother in some Australasian part had an upcoming birthday and he wasn’t going but he was sending a DVD he was making about “his activities”. What an utterly prickulent turdwich he really is. By this point in the interview steam was rising from Nick’s ears.
“Plane Sense” BTW are a pressure group who not long since invaded a runway at Manchester or Gatwick or somewhere like that and caused utter chaos. Alas not one a single one of the GROLIEish fuckers was ingested into a turbofan and spat out the other end as burning foam.
Al Beeb then cut to a story about their crappy show “Strictly Come Dancing” and I lost the will to live. It is the mere ghost of Nick that is banging out this copy. I may not have substance but the rage is still there. And shall always persist.
I dunno though. Is it me? I mean seriously. Is my generation (came out kicking and screaming in ‘73) the last who thought progress was good? Are we the last? Are we the last to think that bigger and faster was unalloyed good? Seriously. I’m worried. I mean it’s possible to fly to Australia for about the same as the average weekly wage (roughly) and I always thought that was a good thing. It is a good thing right? I have to believe that or what the fucking hell is the point? I mean when I was a little kid America was a big deal and it’s now eight hours and 300 quid away. That’s good is it not? Ah fuck ‘em it, it is good and I shall not be telt elsewise. Orv and Will were right and I wanna get to Tau Ceti and fuck the carbon footprint on that one.
Well, you gotta dream. Because you either dream or you are asleep.
I wonder if the EcoNazi had given any thought to how his DVD was going to get to Australia? For that matter, I wonder if he’d given any thought to the environmental impact of the entire history of science and technological development that culminated in the production of such a thing as a recordable DVD?
Why do these people always want to ban things? I’ve got slight ecomentalist tendencies in that I cycle to work and I really don’t know why a feckknuckle the other day felt the need to drop a gear before roaring past me in his BMW 7 Series on the Embankment. Why would anyone bring an autobahn cruiser into central London? The actions of a tosser but I don’t want to ban him from doing it. He may want to ban me from the roads for going at a mere 20 mph but I respect his right to his deluded views. The pedestrians, horses and bikes were here first so Mr Smallcock in the beemer is going to have to live with it as I have to live with his poor driving.
However, I appreciate that aeroplanes are probably best for longer journeys, especially over oceans, and I understand that some people want to make those journeys. In fact, when I go oop north I use a car because that’s the best form of transport for that journey thanks to Beardie Branson preferring to trouser large amounts of taxpayer’s cash rather than spending it on running a train service. As I go very early in the morning on an almost empty motorway I drive at excessive speed. Just because I can.
Anyway, those of us in school in the 1970s remember being told by the greens (via teachers who will repeat any old pony they’re told to) that we would have run out of oil by now but it wouldn’t be a problem because we would all have frozen to death in a new ice age. Times change but the desire of authority to scare the shite out of us remains.
Pash,
I have never in all my born days understood why anyone would drive around central London. Maybe there is a connection between masochism and motoring. Ask Max Mosley on that one.
I don’t blame Branson as much as the epic mess which was pritivazing the TOCs sepertae from the track. I live just South of Manchester and they have spent billions and a decade fecking around with the line and it still doesn’t work. A hundred-odd years ago they re-gauged the entire GWR in a fortnight. They are still running rail replacement buses through Stockport. And this has all been at horrendous tax-payer expense to a tune vastly more than the cost of the Paris-Lyon TGV line. And Branson has his Pendolinos which are high-speed tilting trains which can’t tilt because they abandoned the line upgrades. Magic.
I grew-up walking distance from where George Stephenson did. It makes me mad as hell. It is fortunate that I don’t believe in an afterlife because Geordie Stephenson would be getting-up enough angular momentum to knock this planet off it’s axis.
Back when I was learning to fly one of my instructors was a young lad who was working towards his ATPL and financing his own training by teaching people like me how to handle that notorious supersonic widowmaker called the Cessna 152.
Can’t remember where was getting his own training, but it was the airport where all those protests about transporting live animals were going on. Every time he went there he’d get eggs thrown at his car and be accused of murdering Ermintrude by a horde of soap dodgers.
The answer turned out to be sausages. He bought a carrier bag full of Happy Shoppers cheapest bangers and he and a friend charged the hippy lines hurling them like grenades from the car windows. Apparently they didn’t like it up ‘em.
So next time you see one of these twats in the flesh, remember - the humble sausage is like kryptonite to them ( and thinking about it, a whole salami would make a half decent blunt instrument )
Fuck do I hate airports!
I like to arrive, not to fuckin travel, unless the travelling is extremely pleasurable, and passing through any airport is certainly no pleasure these days.
It was once. When I went to the States first in 73, you were treated like a Prince, even allowed to smoke on the plane you youngsters!
But now you are treated worse than Ermentrude HSLD.
I had my handluggage searched twice in Dalyan airport recently, yet happily got through with a couple of bottles of water and a stash of sandwiches. Go figure!
So the bastards are going to steal some more of my hard earned for no reason at all are they?
Well I fly about 3 times a year, and the bastards arnt going to stop me, so I will just have to pay up.
I swear this is a plot to get back to the good ‘ol days when only the Upper Classes were allowed on Aeroplanes.
The, We really must ensure that the riff raff dont fly anymore White paper, must be due anytime soon.
Well no fuckin deal you bastards!
I am the Riff Raff, and I am fuckin well flying!
[...] Counting Cats says taxing long haul flights is just plane [...]
Up until recently I have been in flying hell. Imagine taking regular trips back and forth to an airport in Europe which is only served by Ryanair. That’s bad enough.
Then imagine having metal in your body which always sets the fucking detector off, so you always get the full search.
Outbound from the UK is the worst, shuffling along with my boots unlaced and belt removed like I’m some fucking gangbanger being inducted into San Quentin.
I always feel like giving a clenched fist salute and shouting ” let my people go ”
When flying I always wear my ‘Mossad’ sweatshirt, it’s to fuck off hippies and members of the Religion of Peace and a small way to get my own back on the stupid system.
I’d replace all that X-raying your shoes crap with a simple test that involves eating a morsel of delicious smoked bacon before being allowed to board the plane. For our Jewish friends this could be replaced with shaking hands with a Rabbi or something. I’m happy to do both. Vegetarians can just fuck off.
“…how precisely would I have got there by a “greener” option you cunting twatter? Swim, row? What? “
Perhaps Fat Al (Gore) could give you a lift when he’s next jetting back and forth round the world. I mean, his plane must be a ‘green option’ or everyone in the ‘global warming’ industry would spend all day at their keyboards decrying him for being a hypocrite.
Wouldn’t they..?