BAA is British Airports Authority. They ‘run’ the main airports around London which include Heathrow, Gatwick and Standsted. Unfortunately, Heathrow T5 is the centre of operations for British Airways. I say ‘unfortunately’ because travelling through T5 is a thoroughly unpleasant experience and blights British Airways and Britian’s supposedly premiere airport. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Fun with BAA
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009TDC kicks off to a 2nd great day
Friday, May 15th, 2009The Thinking Digital Conference kicked off to a great start on it’s second (and last) day. The comedy of Tom Scott was a fabulous tonic to the rest of the first session which kicked off with an exploration od “Digital Darwin”, climbed considerable heights with data visualisation through an Internet connected presentation by Professor Hans Rosling, had a little dip with a spotlight on segmenting the US population for the recent Presidential elections, and finished with the Tom. Oh, and I almost forgot that there was a great digital piano solo that started the session by Rob Colling.
Air travel inside the UK
Monday, August 4th, 2008A couple of weeks ago my wife, Helen, had a business trip to Bristol. So, rather than driving or taking the train, the quickest option was to travel by EasyJet from Newcastle to Bristol. She had to take her passport to be able to get on the plane. It set me thinking; why did she need a passport to travel inside the UK?
After all, you don’t need a passport to take the train to Bristol. Or a coach, for that matter. And I’ve never needed a passport to drive my car to Bristol. This is inside this country. These are internal flights. Next time you travel inside the country and have to show your passport, ask yourself why?
PS I know people are going to say “Because they mix International and Internal passengers.” I don’t care about that; they also check your boarding card and passport at the gate before you get on the plane.
LugRadio Live UK 2008
Sunday, July 20th, 2008For the first time, and allegedly the last, I wen’t to LugRadio Live UK 2008 in …. Wolverhampton. I’d never been to Wolverhampton before; it was just about everything I had expected.
Travel to the USA?
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Just when I thought I didn’t need any new reasons not to travel to the US a new one pops up:
Europeans and other potential enemies of the US are to be forced to deposit their personal details on the Department of Homeland Security’s computer system 72 hours before they get anywhere near the place.
The new rules will apply to citizens of the UK, and other countries whose citizens can travel to the US under the “visa waiver program”, from January next year. The prime motivation for the scheme is increased concern in Washington that European grown terrorists can exploit the visa waiver program to get into the US and wreak havoc.
Such a beautiful, interesting country populated by really great people; sadly governed by (apparent) idiots.
UK Biobank & Privacy
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008I got an invite from the UK Biobank project to participate in their project. They are asking 40-69 year olds to come along for 1.5 hours and answer lots of questions about their health, families and lifestyles, provide blood and urine samples and have a set of tests. These tests are for lung functions, bone density and other health related metrics.
On their web site, they go to great lengths to say how safe the data will be; that the DNA and other information will be held anonymously and that they definitely won’t give the information to anyone (except if told to by the legal authorities). Except, the data isn’t held anonymously.