Thursday, July 13, 2006

moments with Matt...

As we rapidly approach the end of yet another school term millions of parents are thinking about the annual summer holiday. For many lucky families this might include a flight on a plane to some faraway exotic place.

I can picture it now screaming children, fraught parents, food dished up in little preformed cardboard containers, all in the name of enjoying two weeks away in sunnier climbs. But the joys of sitting in a small tin cigar surrounded by lots of other sweaty bodies with your knees around your ears and your bottom going numb from sitting on a horrible seat although not pleasant is not my main complaint. The real problem is the cost of it’s or rather the cost of it during the summer holidays. When the children break up at the end of July it certainly doesn’t get more difficult for a plane to stay in the air. The distance between two points does not increase just because we are in the summer holidays. The real cost of aviation fuel does not increase just because we're in the summer. Actually aviation fuel is probably the cheapest of all the fuels for engines. And whilst I’m on my high horse there might be some green eko dimwit out their starting to complain that jet engines and car engines ruin the planet with toxic gases, and yes they do but planes trains and anything else that uses an engine is now a fact of life in the 21st century and instead of just banging on about how unhealthy it is we should start looking at ways to improve their efficiency because they ain’t going away let’s face facts.

No the reason that the prices of air flights go up during the kids summer holidays is because idiot mugs like us are prepared to pay them the artificially inflated prices. Don’t get swallowed in by all the advertising Airline companies and, the travel companies are not there to give you a great time and to make you wish that everyday was your two weeks summer break, airline companies holiday companies and anybody else connected in the travel business are there to do one thing and one thing only make money from you. There a business you can’t blame them, well you can but that’s another story. My advice is be creative (sell the children into slavery and invest the money in a decent holiday and always travel business class, that last comment by the way for all our American readers who are known not to have a sense of humour was a joke) don’t go on holiday just in the summer holidays look at other times of the year. Mind you it might all change if the government gets its way and introduces the four terms school year, then those long lazy summer days will disappear quicker than John Prescott credibility and the contents of your wallet.

On a completely different subject for a moment can I recommend that everybody looks at the live feed from the Space Shuttle and the NASA space agency It's strangely hypnotic just watching the world go round below.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/nasatv.htm

Matt x

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