Barry John Williams' Blog

Earlier in the year Louise and I had an eventful drive to the south of Spain and a small part of that was spent waiting at the side of the AP-15 just outside Pamplona in the Provincia de Navarra, Spain. We waited for about 5 hours whilst our UK breakdown company Green Flag (via Churchill Insurance) mis-communicated with Linea Directa, their Service Provider in Spain.

When we returned from our trip there was a questionnaire lying in the hallway asking me to rate the service received for this breakdown. I took great delight in expressing my feelings including specifying the weather as 40 degree direct burning sunlight. On the back they had a suggestions box which I used to highlight (what I thought) were the main problems which could and should be rectified.

A week ago I received a letter stating that they have admitted the lack of communication and apologised for the inconvenience. They explain that they will discuss this with their service partners - presumably so it doesn't happen to somebody else in the future. Anyway they refunded £40 as a gesture of goodwill.

I'm quite happy that something is being done and I've scanned in the body of text for everyone to read:



Link to my blog post about the journey

Labels: aboutme, travel

I'm up for extreme activities - never done one yet, but i'd like to. This one however does look pretty terrifying! It's the world's largest swing across The Oribi Gorge (Google Earth Link).

The linked blog has a YouTube video on it demonstrating the swing - crap sound - good video though.

Original Posting on didntyouhear.com
Discovered on Neatorama

Labels: coolstuff, travel, video

Spotted this article on Boing Boing where Mass Tram America Inc. are planning to use decommisioned aircraft to create a 'highway in the sky' by suspending them from overhead tracks. Mass Tram America do state on their 'about us' page that none of the technology is new and indeed, it isn't as this was trialled once right here in Glasgow (well just outside anyway).

George Bennie announced similar plans in 1921 and actually built a working prototype in 1929. You can read about this in Wikipedia's Bennie Railplane article.



This image was taken from Rampant Scotland's Bennie Railplane article.

Labels: coolstuff, travel

I thought this was a really novel use of Google Earth, advertising your flights, destinations and affiliate hotels by use of Google Earth. This encourages something I already do - check out your destinations on Google Earth before you go, whilst being able to see car hire locations, hotel locations and flight prices right there within Google Earth!

Find the Google Earth British Airways layer here

Labels: coolstuff, earth, google, travel

Fog at Luton Airport
Originally uploaded by barry_williams.

I flew with work into and out of Luton Airport yesterday and managed to avoid the cancellations due to the fog. We only really noticed the fog just as we passed inside of the M25, on the way back the fog eventually crept into the airport about 2 hours before our flight left...

Our easyJet flight departed about 30 minutes late, but made up some time on the way which was good!

I've seen some severe fog before - particularly in Dover when sometimes you couldn't see more than a meter in front, but never in a built-up and inland area like central london!!

Labels: aboutme, travel, weather