Is this how New Malden will look at the end of the world?
Radioactive New Malden
Copyright Chris Bushe
Arcticterntalk.org
The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world
Archive for the tag “london”
Weather Report from Scandinavia
It seems I am replicating the Grand Tour but instead of Italy am focusing on Scandinavia. All that I am trying to do is get back from Copenhagen to London. However last night having got onto a plane and sat there for 2 hours it became too windy for the ground staff to work. This also meant that they could not connect the air bridge so we were all stuck on the plane. Today the weather is a little less stormy but snow has arrived. Copenhagen airport is chaos, with people and queues everywhere. The pushing and shoving at the gates reminds me of Rugby League. Mr Angry is out in force and has been cloned too. Mr Important is standing there shouting into his phone that ” he has to get to Bejing”. Which is where most folks might wish to place him. Restaurants are packed selling high priced pizza and hot dogs. Most folks are surgically attached to wine or/and beer glasses.
Somehow I escaped on a plane to Stockholm that then promised me a trip to London however the london flight was cancelled along with most other flights. So I am here in Stockholm Arlanda Airport, most likely all night. The queues to book at the SAS ticket centres stretch around 200 yards or longer and just keep on getting longer. The staff are doing their best and remain cheerful and pleasant and SAS cannot be criticised at all.
For those of you who would like to experience this joy a few photos. As for the weather, well cold, windy, actually very cold and very windy and lots of snow here. Posted 8 pm. A glass of wine for me
The Hilton hotel is at Copenhagen airport and the sky shows that snow was coming. The queues you will have to just work out as they were endless. The pushing at the Gate. Well thats easy. The folks sitting on the baggage carousel was last night at Copenhagen. They may well still be there!
Is this Jose Mourinho or Roman Abramovich Car? Anyone know the numberplate?
Saw this rather nice car parked outside St Pancras Renaissance Hotel today. Numberplate reads BO55 CFC. So is this boss of Chelsea? Charlton? Curious to know.
A New Hotel in Terminal 3 Heathrow Airport
Well sort of. Was worried that these folks might kick each other in the head and the advert for the restuarant behind amused me. Enjoy as there is little else to enjoy about Terminal 3
The Shocking Cost of food at London City Airport
For anyone who does not know, LCY is an airport easily accesible from the centre of London and is used by many city types and those that inhabit Canary Wharf. Mere mortals like myself may use the airport when it is easier than travelling out to Heathrow. Tonight I was shocked beyond belief at the cost of meals on offer in essentially a bar area.
The layout of LCY is essentially open plan with a few barriers separating out a few areas. There is only one bar and that is in the main section of the deparature lounge and in fact one has to walk through the lounge with tables on either side to get to the departure gates 21-24. So there is a constant stream of people rushing past these tables to head off to the airport.
The cost of meals in this area is astonishing, ranging 20£ up to 35£ for a single main course. So for a couple with a bottle of wine eating a quick meal before flying off they will leave with their wallet emptied by potentially over 100£.
Prices of Food at London City airport
Photographs with an I Phone
Am seriously underwhelmed with the camera capacity of the I Phone. I see others do better but wonder how much post-production there must be, months maybe. There are not many times I want to take photos with the I Phone as for me it is not a real camera. But sometimes the subject matter just works and here are two examples where the photos are not too shabby. On a more positive note just look at the alcohol available in this BA lounge!
A Competition with No Prize
A competition to see if anyone can correctly identify some of the more bizarre things that have ended up on the dining table over this year. There are five things to identify, of which one is a plant type.
Iceland. Reflections on a short visit. Pingvellir
Iceland is not a country that I have been to before but some knowledge was there regarding the banking crisis, the ash cloud and more positive reports of good nightlife and interesting places to visit. Reyjkavik is a place that cruise ships now venture to. The first challenge was spelling Reykjavik. I failed when trying to input the city into my I Phone weather app. Thankfully the more intelligent and literary members of my family also failed similarly. In summary this is an interesting island that maybe would be good for 3-4 days maximum. There are plenty of things to see . The first impression as the plane comes into land is that firstly the plane flies low for quite a while whilst out at sea and the first image of Iceland is uncannily like the introduction scene to Father Ted where one views Craggy Island. In fact did they use Iceland? The people are friendly and rather Scandinavian like and most speak excellent English.
I had only 4 hours to see the isalnd and visited 3 places that seemed fairly special. Firstly the tectonic plates that divide west from east and literally these stones represent a dividing line in the Earth’s crust. Secondly some Geysers and lastly a massive waterfall that makes Niagara Falls look quite small in many ways.
The place to see the tectonic plates is called Pingvalla or Pingvellir. Neither is spelled correctly as the Icelandic alphabet has 32 letters which thus include letters that do not feature in our alphabet but also do not include the letters, C, W, Q and Z. The Icelandic parliament was founded here in 930 AD before even my time. And even functioned as a court of Law till 1798. Curiously Iceland has only been independent of Danish and Norwegian monarchy since 1918. In 2013, it was ranked as the 13th most-developed country in the world by the United Nations’ Human Development Index.Gender equality is highly valued in Iceland. In the Global Gender Gap Report 2012, Iceland holds the top spot for the least gap, closely followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden. Furthermore among NATO members, Iceland has the smallest population and is the only one with no standing army. The population of Iceland is less than 350,000.
Here are a few images of Pingvalla.
Pingvallir. copyright Chris Bushe
Pingvallir. copyright Chris Bushe
Pingvallir. copyright Chris Bushe
Bizarre plane and Curious Airline. Antonov An- 74. Cavok Air. Old bag come fly with me to Newcastle Airport
Landing this morning at Newcastle on a routine British Airways flight I noticed a bizarre shaped plane that looked deformed with CAVOK written on the side. My first thoughts were some sort of spy plane, but a little bit of research informed that that Cavok aero are indeed a real company and they live here http://www.cavok.aero
The plane itself I was tweeted by Newcastle Airport was an Antonov An -74. Here you see a snap I took with the disappointing I Phone camera ( Apple please improve your camera, forget the filters that hide the poor quality but the basic camera is really poor) and one that Newcastle Airport tweeted back.
Cavok indeed are real and this is what they say:
CAVOK AIR was established in 2011 and start its operation since 26.04.2012 – the date of receiving Airline Operator Certificate from Civil Aviation Administration of Ukraine.
What do they do? Well here with some interesting use of the English language we find out. As a prelude what is really encouraging is that they do ” Ground and Flight stuff”
The main activity directions of CAVOK AIR are:
— Air cargo transportation
— DG and special cargo transportation
— Cargo charter operations with 24H flight watch
— Planning and flight support
— Obtaining diplomatic and special permits
I like the bit about a Ukrainian air cargo company obtaining diplomatic and special permits. What exactly are these? Maybe more examples of ground and flight stuff………
So onto the planes themselves. Never actually seen anything like it ever. This is what Cavok have to say
Antonov An-74 is a twin-turbofan airplane designed to carry up to 10,0 tonnes of cargo at a cruising speed of up to 700 km/h at a cruising flight altitude of 10,100 m.
The engines have low fuel consumption and high level of reliability. They meet ICAO requirements for aircraft engine emissions and noise. High engine arrangement practically precludes ingestion of foreign objects into engine air intakes at takeoff and landing even when operating on pebble airfields. Landing gear with low-pressure tires allows autonomous operation of the aircraft on both hard-surface runways and unpaved strips.
The rear fuselage features a mechanized cargo door used for loading/unloading cargoes, wheeled vehicles, livestock cargo, …. . The internal crane enables to load and move inside the cargo compartment pcs up to 2,500 kg.
This is all good news. Many travellers, mostly in front of me at Heathrow this morning seemed to have 2500kg of luggage so this might be the airline for them.
What however is weird is that they just dont look right. Why those huge engines seemingly balanced on the wing ? The plane also looks like a small passenger jet and not a cargo plane. Anyway great looking plane and seemingly great little company.
Walton and Hersham 1 Ramsgate 1
By chance the second time in a few weeks that I have seen Ramsgate play. A decent enough game played in a low atmosphere ground with a crowd of 100 in attendance. The ground is essentially one sided now with the condemning of the main terrace stand. Walton have had a mixed start to the season under their new manager Steve Baker and on the evidence of yesterday they are a work in progress but going in the right direction. They played good football and generally were entertaining. Ramsgate played a lot more of the physical stuff and a little less of the football, but nevertheless a decent team. The game got off to a bizarre start as firstly kick off was delayed by 45 minutes due to a major M25 accident. In the second minute Ramsgate had their full-back carried off with what looked like ligament issues. In the fith minute Ramsgate had their number 11 sent off, maybe harshly. Not long after Ramsgate scored and although Walton chased the game it was not until the 80th minute that Walton equalised with a new header from their impressive number 9, Will Turl. He also had the opportunity to score again in the final minutes with an identical move and header but fell just short. Interesting aspects of the game? The referee made any number of errors, do not blame him for that, but why not at least consult with the linesman? The Ramsgate goalkeeper, although competent certainly had eaten some if not all of the pies. All in all end to end stuff and at this level a highly entertaining game.
Something for real football fans to read and mull over the implications for many non-league clubs
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Disallowed Walton goal.Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe
Walton V Ramsgate. Copyright Chris Bushe. Will Turl
A Great Place
The rants and warblings of an active and some would say disturbed mind. A Brentford Fc supporter and a psychiatrist and photographer. Welcome to my musings and rants.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 