The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

At one point when doing a lot of travelling for work it was interesting to sit in queues at petrol stations and what all the reps filling a jerry can in the boot as well as the car. It seemed to be very prevalent in the Thames Valley. 

 

Jamie

Edited July 14 by jamie92208

[GMKAT7]

Good afternoon folks,

 

Just saw and heard a Spitfire inbound to EMA.

 

No dump and burn there, just a bl00dy glorious sight and sound.

 

Cheers, Nigel.

[monkeysarefun]

Probably no different to any where else but ironically the most deft Expenses Wranglers here seem to have "The Honourable" before their name.

 

Buy a house in Canberra and rent it out to some of your MP mates, while you stay in a hotel and claim both the Canberra accommodation allowance AND pay off your mortgage with theirs, was a particularly popular one.

 

Of course when uncovered its all "The rules don't say we CAN"T do that!"  Which is a scary misunderstanding of how rules work by those charged with creating them.

[TheQ]

My expenses were tightly controlled with GEC, everything had to be accounted for, no alcohol could be claimed, they even phoned a Chinese takeaway to check...

By the time I bailed out to Saudi, the main meal allowance wouldn't cover the single main course in a 3 star hotel.

The cars we were issued, the insurance for driving stopped when we  reached the hotel after work. No using them to go somewhere else. We couldn't carry someone from another company or the RAF as they wouldn't be insured as a passenger...

[Willie Whizz]

15 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

...

 

Of course when uncovered its all "The rules don't say we CAN"T do that!"  Which is a scary misunderstanding of how rules work by those charged with creating them.

That last paragraph is interesting.  One of the "lightbulb moments" for me in the Brexit debate [which please let's not reopen!] was reading a newspaper column that pointed out the difference between the British (and descendents) and Continental European (heavily influenced by the Code Napoleon) legal systems.

 

It suggested that in "their" approach, typically the fundamental official view is that whatever a citizen might want to do is not permitted unless the Legal Code says it is.  In "our" approach whatever a citizen might want to do is permitted unless the Law says it isn't.

 

Before anyone tells me, I don't doubt that is a considerable over-simplification; but it does seem to carry a ring of truth from what I know and have observed, and as such may go some way to explain that uncomfortable feeling some had of having being a cuckoo in another birds' nest.  

[Dave Hunt]

One of the benefits when travelling on RAF business was to have a certificate stating that you were carrying material classified higher than confidential as that entitled you to first class - don't ask me why - then if you were accompanied by someone you claimed you had to have access to during the journey, they could also travel first class. Getting the certificate was the hurdle as it was something that was easy to check up on as you had to sign out the classified material and be cleared to take it away from home base.

 

Dave 

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

My expenses have never been questioned. I work for a small organisation and there is a laid back 'stay in good hotels and eat well but don't be silly' attitude which relies on people acting reasonably and being treated reasonably in return. 

Yep. Treat them like responsible adults and they’ll behave like responsible adults….

 

Re. travel: at one point we had a new travel agent bod in our business travel service. She must have come from a tight fisted organisation as for two legs of a multi-leg journey I did frequently* (and always in Business Class) she had put me in economy class. When I objected, she retorted - playing what she thought was her Ace card - “and what do you privately?” I replied - without thinking - “privately? I go either business or first class”**

 

Collapse of stout party (as they say).

 

It seemed that she didn’t last long. Rumour had it they she tried to send a very senior colleague on an 8 hour flight in economy.  This was not well received!

 

* a regular trip for me was Sunday ZRH-LHR-SFO, Monday morning and afternoon meetings, Monday night/Tuesday morning SFO-LHR-ZRH, Tuesday afternoon back in the office. I’m not sure I could do that nowadays.

** as the companies Mrs iD and I worked for allowed us to keep our frequent flyer mileage and as we both travelled a lot for work, we soon accumulated enough mileage to ship us anywhere in the world in business class, many times over… I still fly business class privately. With good planning it can be as cheap as standard fare economy.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

One of the benefits when travelling on RAF business was to have a certificate stating that you were carrying material classified higher than confidential as that entitled you to first class - don't ask me why - then if you were accompanied by someone you claimed you had to have access to during the journey, they could also travel first class. Getting the certificate was the hurdle as it was something that was easy to check up on as you had to sign out the classified material and be cleared to take it away from home base.

 

Dave 

Wasn't there a sport amongst  senior officers and civil servants who were carrying classified docs  on a train or bus?  They had to lose them in the most unimaginable places and scored more points if a newspaper got hold of them first!

 

I vaguely recall a female Captain, who managed to leave her pistol belt, pistol and ammunition in one of the traps of a ladies lavatory in a supermarket.

[figworthy]

I had a very enjoyable visit to LarkRail today.  Some very good modelling on display.  There was also a considerable quantity of cake (at least there was at opening time !), but I was rather surprised that given comments here from assorted bears and hippotami about their ability to detect cake, neither were to be seen.  Dogs and the odd sheep, yes.  Oh, and the cake supply included a rather good looking LDC.

 

Adrian

[figworthy]

22 hours ago, PupCam said:

 

Two words that have no business being in the same sentence.       Anybody with even just 1/2 a brain cell knows that it is a particularly stupid concept  (i.e.  a motorway with no continuous hard shoulder)

 

 

I know someone who used to work for the Highways Agency (or whatever they were called that week).  He told me that they didn't want to call them Smart Motorways, but the then minister thought it sounded good, so that was that.

 

Adrian

[polybear]

6 minutes ago, figworthy said:

I had a very enjoyable visit to LarkRail today.  Some very good modelling on display.  There was also a considerable quantity of cake (at least there was at opening time !), but I was rather surprised that given comments here from assorted bears and hippotami about their ability to detect cake, neither were to be seen.  Dogs and the odd sheep, yes.  Oh, and the cake supply included a rather good looking LDC.

 

Adrian

 

Bear's paws were already full elsewhere - all free too, with no skullduggery required......😀

 

 

 

[Flanged Wheel]

26 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Wasn't there a sport amongst  senior officers and civil servants who were carrying classified docs  on a train or bus?  They had to lose them in the most unimaginable places and scored more points if a newspaper got hold of them first!

 

 

If that sport still exists, then this gentlemen probably ought to be representing us in the Olympics…

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/03/civil-servant-who-lost-mod-files-at-a-bus-stop-was-to-be-uks-ambassador-to-nato
 

It’s worth noting that if he had been a serving military officer, then he almost certainly would have faced a court martial.

[Northmoor]

5 minutes ago, Flanged Wheel said:

If that sport still exists, then this gentlemen probably ought to be representing us in the Olympics…

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/03/civil-servant-who-lost-mod-files-at-a-bus-stop-was-to-be-uks-ambassador-to-nato
 

It’s worth noting that if he had been a serving military officer, then he almost certainly would have faced a court martial.

Wasn't there an incident around the time of Gulf War One, where a senior military officer had a briefcase - containing some very highly-classified papers indeed - stolen off his passenger seat, when he went to pay for petrol?

ISTR the briefcase was deposited anonymously at a police station quite soon afterwards with a note to the effect, "Whoever left this in his car should be 'kin hung".

[SM42]

I'm back from  my jolly, a little bit squiffy but otherwise unharmed.

 

I made some new friends on the train home, so not going to the pub with them would be rude  

 

Mrs SM42 waited outside for me.

 

What a woman

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

Many years ago there was a security test on a station I was on where a pink file clearly marked SECRET (but actually containing nothing of the sort) was left on the front passenger set of an unlocked car in the NAAFI car park (which was accessible by civilian outsiders) for a whole day. The car was visually monitored and although some people glanced in it no one either took the file or indeed reported it so the whole thing was a bit inconclusive but it did give pause for thought.

 

Dave

[pH]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Wasn't there a sport amongst  senior officers and civil servants who were carrying classified docs  on a train or bus?  They had to lose them in the most unimaginable places and scored more points if a newspaper got hold of them first!

I have had classified drawings of an Australian Navy submarine * in my hands. The naval officer in uniform running after our bus seemed unhappy with this arrangement.

* From Wiki, it was HMAS Otway.

Edited July 13 by pH

[monkeysarefun]

 

Post -Trump Maralago documents  scandal, does anyone even need to care about security anymore?

 

The US  government doesn't seem to - he's about to be made privvy to security briefings once   his official nomination as presidential candidate is confirmed. 

[BR60103]

Dayle had a cousin who was an accountant in Ford's head office.  His favourite job was auditing executives' expense accounts.  Apparently, in the office he was known as "Max the Axe".

 

At our company most of us were on salary (work until 5:00 or the work is done, whichever is later).  The secretaries/typists were paid by the hour and could collect overtime.  Every so often, in an economy drive, we would be told to cut out overtime.  As our main product (in pension plan consulting) was paper reports and plan documents there was suddenly a big backlog on output and complaints from those with client contacts.

 

[rockershovel]

A propos "treating people like grown-ups" I always found Saipem/ENI the Italian quasi-State oil company) to be notably bad in that respect. 

 

I regularly inherited the later stages of contracts in which the original incumbent had refused to continue until paid (cf il Dottore's earlier suggestion, this doesn't work because employers who work that way, know the ropes too). I had a good agent which would pay me to time and accepted their slightly low rates (obviously they discounted the risk somewhere) for the sake of the extra gross in the year. 

 

I once spent an uncomfortable 4 weeks on a Saipem survey boat in which the survey team (mostly Italian) hadn't been paid,the excuse being that their agency (a different part of the ENI octopus) hadn't received the funds from the Operating Company...

 

They were also notorious practitioners of that popular HR sport, "the worst itinerary you can find". It's possible to send PAX on long journeys very cheaply if you don't care how long they spend in transit. There was (probably still is) an itinerary from Atyrau (RoK) to Milan via Almaty and Frankfurt; look THAT up on Google Earth! 

 

Any crew-change to any offshore location in West Africa will be pretty dire. West African post-colonial countries are even worse than Pakistan or India because of the general "failed state" ambiance, I would NOT accept any posting to or via DRC for that reason and Nigeria wasn't much better. 

 

It used to be proverbial "don't accept any job in a place with a Z in its name, or ending in Stan" but that's not really true now.

Edited July 14 by rockershovel

[iL Dottore]

On the topic of airports, has anyone noticed how - over the past 25 years or so - SE Asian airports have way outstripped most of their US and European cousins by a country mile.

 

I’m old enough to remember when JFK was called Idlewild and when the TWA* Flight Center was cutting edge…

Nowadays? The middle eastern hubs (Dubai, Doha, etc) are as cutting edge as they come; Singapore Changi is almost a destination in itself, KLIA is efficient and modern, as is Chek Lap Kok Airport (although not as much fun for aviation geeks as Kai Tak. Even Narita - which is looking distinctly creaky compared with other SE Asian airports - can hold its own against Euro and US airports.

 

As for Euro airports: I only use LHR only if I have NO other choice (usually as a transit passenger), far preferring the minor inconvenience of travelling to Zürich - so I can go ZRH-LCY, Birmingham International (UK) was, once, not that bad - but at my last visit a total disorganised mess of a building site. Frankfurt and Schipol airports are way past their “use by” dates, CDG is OK - if you like Gallic weirdness.The less said about the Eastern European airports (especially St Petersburg) the better - there the spy has yet to come in from the cold. Having said that, a number of former Warsaw Pact countries are modernising (or have modernised) their infrastructure- so should be up to world standards now.

 

For a country that has swapped comfortable, long-distance trains for uncomfortable, narrowbodied, aircraft and interminable long drives, the airport experience in the US, I have found, has always been pretty grim -  especially in regards to arrivals (and for many airports departures as well). Surprisingly, one of my best ever US arrival experiences was at Chicago O’Hare!  Possibly one of the worst flight experiences ever was the red-eye between Las Vegas and Newark (don’t ask) and I was up at the pointy end. Equally poor, and somewhat more alarmingly, was the flight I took on a regional service of a major US airline, where - upon - boarding we were informed that because of “operational reasons” a number of overhead bins and the sole loo were out of order and indeed were kept shut by the abundant use of black duct tape……

 

Although a very frequent flyer at one point, I’m a bit out of touch with airline travel nowadays. But I wonder if what I noted back then - that airlines prioritising passenger experience had the most modern aircraft and were always full, whilst those airlines prioritising profit had older aircraft and were often half full - still holds true?
 

 

* has anyone flown TWA? Known in the latter days as Try Walking Across

[rockershovel]

5 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

On the topic of airports, has anyone noticed how - over the past 25 years or so - SE Asian airports have way outstripped most of their US and European cousins by a country mile.

 

I’m old enough to remember when JFK was called Idlewild and when the TWA* Flight Center was cutting edge…

Nowadays? The middle eastern hubs (Dubai, Doha, etc) are as cutting edge as they come; Singapore Changi is almost a destination in itself, KLIA is efficient and modern, as is Chek Lap Kok Airport (although not as much fun for aviation geeks as Kai Tak. Even Narita - which is looking distinctly creaky compared with other SE Asian airports - can hold its own against Euro and US airports.

 

As for Euro airports: I only use LHR only if I have NO other choice (usually as a transit passenger), far preferring the minor inconvenience of travelling to Zürich - so I can go ZRH-LCY, Birmingham International (UK) was, once, not that bad - but at my last visit a total disorganised mess of a building site. Frankfurt and Schipol airports are way past their “use by” dates, CDG is OK - if you like Gallic weirdness.The less said about the Eastern European airports (especially St Petersburg) the better - there the spy has yet to come in from the cold. Having said that, a number of former Warsaw Pact countries are modernising (or have modernised) their infrastructure- so should be up to world standards now.

 

For a country that has swapped comfortable, long-distance trains for uncomfortable, narrowbodied, aircraft and interminable long drives, the airport experience in the US, I have found, has always been pretty grim -  especially in regards to arrivals (and for many airports departures as well). Surprisingly, one of my best ever US arrival experiences was at Chicago O’Hare!  Possibly one of the worst flight experiences ever was the red-eye between Las Vegas and Newark (don’t ask) and I was up at the pointy end. Equally poor, and somewhat more alarmingly, was the flight I took on a regional service of a major US airline, where - upon - boarding we were informed that because of “operational reasons” a number of overhead bins and the sole loo were out of order and indeed were kept shut by the abundant use of black duct tape……

 

Although a very frequent flyer at one point, I’m a bit out of touch with airline travel nowadays. But I wonder if what I noted back then - that airlines prioritising passenger experience had the most modern aircraft and were always full, whilst those airlines prioritising profit had older aircraft and were often half full - still holds true?
 

 

* has anyone flown TWA? Known in the latter days as Try Walking Across

Schiphol and Paris CdG were designed in the expectation of borderless travel. That never really worked out and it's the underlying reason for the curious wandering around through inconvenient passport controls that tends to feature at both.

 

US internal air travel has always been pretty grim. 

 

Far Eastern airlines and airports are something else altogether. Budget travel is BIG over there (never, ever fly Indonesian Airlines if you can avoid it). Their regular schedule flights tend to be very good indeed. 

 

I've travelled in the FSU countries and I can only say that they were developing rapidly. When I first went to RoK, Air Astana had just re-equipped with a then-modern fleet and it was quite good, although the airport was risible. Now they have new buildings but the same planes, which are actually a thought-provoking reminder of what air travel was like as recently a the early 2000s

 

[SM42]

I don't do much air travel these days and by necessity it's by low cost airlines who tend to fly where I want to go, but I can say the whole airport  experience is the worst bit. 

 

BHX was OK until the latest round of building work  

Luton I found to be an acceptable place to pass through.

Stansted made it feel like you were walking there and why do you have to keep going up and down stairs?

 

At the other end Poznan Lawice is my only recent experience. 

 

A small airport but very efficient at getting you through. Not flashy and functional decor. Not a huge amount of shops but enough to satisfy most airport cravings.

 

Rzeszow I used many years ago when you queued up outside for passport control and baggage claim was where they drove the baggage carts into the building through a roller shutter door and unloaded the bags onto a substantial steel bench by hand, before driving out again through another door on the opposite side of the building. 

I'm told it has been modernised since.  

 

Babimost must be one of the smallest international airports in Europe. 

Free parking for about 60 cars outside the terminal.

Walk through  the front door of the terminal  and you are, after crossing  the door mat, into security. 

 

Budapest,  organised chaos when I was there 6 or 7 years ago. 

Checking for a 10am flight in a long queue, the person in front of me had a ticket for a 4pm flight.

 

Chaos but it worked somehow.. 

 

Andy

[jjb1970]

The impressive thing about Singapore Changi is it just works. 10 minutes from aircraft doors opening to being at the taxi stand is not unusual if not having to collect checked luggage. 

 

Tokyo Haneda is a nicer airport than Narita, and much closer to the city (Narita is middle of nowhere). Something I like about the two Tokyo airports is they're very enthusiast friendly, with old fashioned open air observation decks which welcome people who just like watching aircraft. Another nice thing about Haneda is the monorail connection.

 

The best European airport I have used is the new airport at Istanbul which is huge and makes the other big Euro hubs look very shabby. The thing I hate about European airports is immigration, they never seem to have enough channels open and clearly would rather have crazy queues than make the necessary investment to do things efficiently.  Recent experiences in Brussels,  Frankfurt and Copenhagen have been awful. Even airports most people from Europe would probably sneer at like Jakarta, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh manage the important stuff better than the likes of Frankfurt, LHR, Copenhagen,  Schipol etc, albeit with less shops selling over priced tat.

 

At the risk of being blunt, if airports like Haneda and Changi can do it then so could others if they wanted to. 

[jjb1970]

I wonder how much is down to people.  Seoul Incheon is always immaculate and also 'just works'. The two major Korean international airlines (soon to be one as Korean Air is buying Asiana) offer excellent onboard service. We could argue about all sorts of things but something Korea shares with Japan is a razor sharp focus on quality and getting it right, and people are highly committed to doing things well. They abhor the idea of doing enough to get by, and take a very dim view of shoddy service.

[Happy Hippo]

Having woken up to the latest news from the USA, I have a sneaking feeling that somebody responsible for security cover, did not carry out an appropriate risk assessment.