3731 days ago
I am a nervous traveller at the best of times. But right now the thought of flying into London really scares me. The Mrs left today. I had to drive her half way across the Peloponnese so that she could catch a ferry to Zakynthos to get a direct flight to Bristol. But it was cheaper than a flight from Kalamata, my local airport here in the Mani, and her plane did not land at Gatwick.
Bristol gets mostly domestic, Western European and holiday flights. The Mrs can pick me up from the airport and the passport line is not three hours long.
Gatwick is a schlepp of a bus/train trek away from Bristol and I am convinced that my flight will land just between one directly in from Sierra Leone and another from Turkey packed with British born men with beards who have just spent a few months in Syria and Northern Iraq. I thus face being stuck in the passport queue with a mixture of returning Jihadists - just looking for a chap with an Israeli army T-shirt on to behead - and highly contagious Ebola virus carriers.
It is s 35 minute cab ride from The Greek Hovel to Kalamata. It is an additional five hour bus, taxi, ferry, taxi ride to Zakynthos. But the idea is growing on me.
PS The Mrs suggests that just in case there are any Quindell Moron type jihadists reading this I should not publicise my final travel plans until I have landed. As ever she is a wise woman.
4225 days ago
On our last night we stayed in a hotel in a village near the airport on Zakynthos. Also staying in the hotel was a group of two teachers and 11 students who were studying for a Btec in Tourism and Leisure. I shall not name where they study as they were a really nice bunch and are, as it happens on the same plan as us heading back to the UK and as I am writing this I’d rather not cross them. Anyway a Btec is a vocational equivalent of an A-level. And as part of this course the students have to arrange, plan and book a holiday. And they go on it with their teachers. And everyone goes out and gets pissed for four nights and then goes home. And then you get a credit for having achieved this daunting feat.
It strikes me that this is not a terribly good use of taxpayer’s money. And that the group of eleven students might just be better of going straight into the jobs market. This course seems to me to be merely delaying hard work, having to do a real course to get A-levels so you can go to University or unemployment. Because I actually liked the teachers I asked if they track what their students go on to do. If 50% go on to have meaningful careers in tourism and leisure (and that does not been trolley dolly or working in a bar at Lagunas Beach) then I was prepared to eat my words.
But no, there is no tracking. And so the grateful taxpayer continues to fund courses where being able to get on the right aeroplane earns you a credit with zero evidence that it delivers any economic gain at all. Another “I give up” moment.
4225 days ago
For once I spent my Greek holiday not on the mainland but on an Island. It is not something I plan to make a habit of for reasons that I shall admit to – I guess that I am just an unreconstructed snob. It all started at Gatwick airport last weekend as I waited with my partner in the departure lounge for a flight to Zakynthos. As I surveyed my fellow passengers I noticed a large number who were young, had large numbers of tattoos and various bits of their body pierced, seemed to use the F word in every other sentence and who were loudly discussing how they were going for “the season.” My heart sank.
By the time the flight was passing over Dover my fellow passengers were already drinking. My heart sank some more.
And so to Zakynthos.
