Thread 19 - TalkLair: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 18)

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

In the TalkLair, the fairy lights are festooned on the mantlepiece, the tree is twinkling with baubles, the mince pies are in the oven, the MN legendary chicken is ready to feed the hordes. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Apparently it was a marvellous trip and Pompeii was incredible, and everybody coped very well with the flight cancellation drama.

The only thing DD was really upset about was that all their luggage had been left outdoors at Naples airport during the thunderstorm, so everybody with a soft suitcase like hers got all their clothes soaked - we all agreed it didn't make any sense why the baggage handlers did that, the incoming flight literally didn't arrive so why had they brought all the baggage outside?

Oh, also one of their teachers appears to be a full-on alcoholic. Can't hide anything from a bunch of eagle-eyed teens.

Probably wasn't an alcoholic before he/she took a bunch of teenagers to Naples!

Good point, Gonners!

I don’t seem to have been here for a few days so my student trip delay story is late enough not be alarming as a possible scenario. Not me but an old colleague was on a trip to New York with a large student group (not sure how many but we often took about 100 on field trips; this was probably similar but maybe a bit smaller). Their flight back was delayed by a heavy snowfall closing the airport. All the other passengers were taken to hotels but as a large group there wasn’t anything available and rather than split them between hotels they were basically left to camp out in the terminal.

My experience of Naples airport is of waiting several hours for EasyJet to finally admit that our luggage wasn’t on the flight. It arrived three days later which wasn’t great on a one week holiday. I’d pre booked a cab to take us to out hotel and our lovely driver waited for us to finally emerge luggage-less and didn’t ask for any extra money even though he’d spent Saturday evening sitting in the airport (I mean, we gave him extra, obvs, we’re not monsters).

My only experience of Naples was having to go to a clinic there for diagnosis when I had a medical emergency on a cruise ship. The taxi drivers were practically fighting over who got our fare when one just sneaked us away from the rest. He was lovely too, and met us when we came out of the clinic several hours later. (I ended up having to leave the ship a couple of days later and go into hospital in Athens for four days).

My goodness, sounds like DD got off lightly @artant and @Britinme !

I've been in Naples with work. My abiding memory is the hotel being across the road from the airport and being grateful that I had a wheelie bag!

Our lovely Italian taxi driver was a farmer as well as a driver (as was his dad who drove us back to Naples at the end of our week on the Amalfi coast) who, as a result of a decade living in Brighton, spoke fluent English (his dad, not so much) and pointed lots of stuff out to us en route to our destination. The people in the hotel were not remotely surprised we’d arrived luggageless as that was apparently far from unusual for Naples airport. To be fair it was Gatwick baggage handlers who hadn’t loaded the plane though.

You were probably better off in Athens than in Naples, @Britinme. Italian healthcare is very variable by region, and basically the further north you go the better!

And Ha! @artant ... see Naples and die buy new clothes, eh?

Our record of disastrous train journeys in the KucHousehold continues.*

Went to university open day on Friday, train from ThatLeeds to Peterborough was fine, train from Peterborough to Cambridge was well over an hour late. We'd had all these sessions and talks earmarked, so I ended up paying for a bloody taxi £95 But I suppose it was "worth it" because by the time we'd finished the first session, I idly checked the train schedules online and noted that the delayed train had at that time only just arrived at Cambridge station.

Coming home yesterday, lovely quiet train, nice cool air-conditioning, departed exactly on time. Bliss! Then, about half an hour from Leeds, an announcement: the train would be terminating at Doncaster because of signalling problems further along the line. "Get on the next train towards Edinburgh and change at York," they said. When we got to York, we found the station packed with drunken York racecourse attendees in posh frocks, drunken England fans waiting for the match, plus thousands of confused tourists etc. Every train to everywhere was either delayed or cancelled. Each time a train to X was rumoured, thousands of desperate people would go galloping across the bridge to whichever platform, only to be disappointed. We enjoyed several goes at this enjoyable game ourselves.

Finally, a largish group of us concluded that there was not going to be a train to Leeds for the rest of the night and went to catch the ONE bus service to Leeds, the Coastliner which I believe is usually a scenic and (after 9pm) a quiet service returning from the seaside villages to the big inland city. I think the bus driver nearly expired from the shock when he pulled up at the station and a horde of distinctly non-beachy angry people crammed on. Our mobile tin of sardines got back into Leeds after 10pm, nearly 3 hours later than we should have arrived.

I have spent the morning filling in my Delay Repay claim forms, which is a catharsis indeed.

*But still, our previous Peterborough-Leeds 3am jetlagged journey remains top of the leader board ChezKuc.

Oh dear, what a saga! Will you claim your taxi fare back?

I didn't try to get the taxi fare back as they could easily argue it was optional - the delayed train did eventually arrive in Cambridge, so it was our choice not to wait. But if we get all our train tickets refunded it'll more than cover the taxi.

What the hell is going on with the trains these days? Ours have been insanely unreliable all year, so they can't blame it on the heat. And when they are running, they're inundated with yobs and policemen. I'm not sure which cause more trouble.

MrG has a hospital appointment in Dover next week. It's 15 miles as the crow seagull flies but well over 2 hours by train (if there is a train). Or there's the option of some combination of three separate buses. Fortunately it just struck me that there's a nice lad over the road who drives an Uber. It will probably work out cheaper.

Gosh Kuc, your family have been having a bad time recently with public transport.

How was the open day?

Coincidentally I was in Peterborough this morning, having come over on Sat for a school reunion (!), which I'd been talked into attending and wasn't especially looking forward to, but then as I said to my DS, put your best foot forward and get out there, and good things tend to happen. And so it did, and everyone was just so lovely, and so pleased to see me! And hosted in the most gorgeous house! And caught up with some other old friends this morning, so a very successful trip. But Jeez, it's true, Peterborough really is a dump these days. The old city centre completely wrecked, dirty, and scruffy.

Peterborough always makes me think of Hilter and Bimmler in the Monty Python North Minehead by-election sketch. I sometimes wish that I could wipe my mental hard drive to make space for something more useful than "I in your Peterborough Lincolnshire vos given birth to".

I have relatives in the area and visit from time to time. The council has ruined it with rent hikes, all the major shops have left and it's vape central; they've closed what was a busy covered market, to build flats, with no alternative for the traders.

Anyhooo.... I saw a headline in the local paper yesterday and thought to link it, but they've amended it. It did say "Four Women in Court," but they have removed "women" today. Have a look at the pics. (I've been trawling FWR for an appropriate thread, but couldn't find one).

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/four-court-after-alleged-group-34256307

Whatever happened to turning up to court in a sober suit looking remorseful?

That was my first thought!

I'm in IT and the most common dress is jeans and t-shirt (for the engineers anyway). If one of us comes in wearing a tin flute the first question is 'interview or court?'.