Pig and Whistle

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Pig and Whistle

The pig and whistle

But if you do not like what I have to say, try this

http://www.errtravel.com/erro/archive/20000906.htm

or if you want to sleep in the airport

http://www.sleepinginairports.net

Let us start our trip, fasten your seat belt please.

This is probably your idea of how to travel.

You go to your travel agent, you book your flight, then he asks you:

“should I also book you a hotel”?

whereby you look at him in a quite superior way and declare, that of course he should do it..

Whereby you arrive by taxi at the airport, you go the check at the desk, hand over all the printed unreadable documents and your belongings, be given some kind of a card to be shown somewhere, then you stroll in the airport to give the pickpockets a further occasion to make their day, you enter into the transit zone, you walk pass the Tax Free Zone and marvel at tax free goods appearing to have the same price whether taxed or not.

You sit down, fold out the Financial Times, it's full of comics, only if the F.T. they call it graphs and consolidated results but as hilarious as you daily comic strip.

Some voice will announce something of uttermost importance and everybody (less you) will rush out to gate 14, then the voice comes back and the queue rushes to gate 16, then the voice comes again, the crowd sits down, the children are either consoled or given a slap to stop them crying, one man goes about asking everyone whether they have seen the pink pigskin case he brought over to gate 14 when a loud voice calls over the hall and gets his attention to show you a mauve true plastic case being held above every bodies head.

Finally the voice announce that the departure will not be in hall A gate 14 but in hall D gate 41 which can easily be reached going through gate C and then turning over to gate B and going to the other end and their turning to the left. The crowd rushes away like a Super bowl day when you are at 10 seconds, third try and 1 to go. You sit down and wait patiently until the third passage of the crowd in hall A when you decide leisurely to walk up to your plane which was reinstated at gate 14, Hall A. You look in all your pockets to find the embarkation card until a young lady kindly points out to you that you are already holding it in your left hand, observation which you were prevented from doing by the fact that the queuing lady was poking at you insistently with her umbrella (an umbrella in an airplane?).

As a seasoned traveller you sit down in the aisle seat, by the emergency exit.

You lean down to put your handbag under your seat to discover that the passenger sitting behind you has already occupied this space with some kind of malodorous object, possibly sockets enveloping two feet.

You raise to put your bag in the locker above your head and bang your head first into the head of the beautiful red haired lady sitting next you and wearing “My Folly N° 1” then you bang your head into the lid of the locker and then you discover that the locker is full of divers gear of importance to emergency exits (bibles?). You sit down and the pleasant effect of “My folly N° 1” starts to diminish until at the arrival you will hate only one thing in your life and only one thing, that is “My Folly N°1”.

You sit down and doze until somebody dumps a plastic tray on you lap informing you that this is your diner (at one o'clock at night?), you look at it with repulsion, a repulsion which is only marred by the view of starving fat passengers pushing down their plastic food and looking with envy at your untouched tray. Well, better be prepared for what is going to be your daily life for coming years when you will be happy if you only have a plastic wrapping having a scent of fried chicken for lunch.

Normally airplanes lands in an airport. An airport is a port for going somewhere. Well not all of them.

The airplane lands at 3 o'clock

why only a two hour journey?

no, this is local time, anyway it has no meaning none of the clocks that could not be stolen works).

The officials, bad tempered from having been woken up arrive, but really they should not bother as :

Either the luggage debarkation has not taken place as nobody had been instructed to go and collect the luggage, anyway, by the time they woke up the plane was gone.

Or the luggage with the pink slip have been unloaded until somebody remarks that it is strange that all the pink slips carry the name Bombay while you are in Dumbay.

Or the luggage is unloaded except that beautiful suite case you bought in Italy.

Or all luggages are promptly unloaded and yours arrive fully opened, the conveyor belt having been in the mood to try and beat the Guinness world record for the surface which can be covered with your underwear. Suddenly all fellow passengers wake up and stare at you while you try to recover your underwear, some of which you had intended to have washed at the Hotel, the most interested passenger being apparently the pink hair lady wearing the stinking “My Folly Number 1” which she seems to have refreshed with an addition of pig manure concentrate.

Let us now assume that you are outside of the airport, which all things considered is a rather stupid It sounds like these games “what would you do once you are in Heaven?”. Well the right answer is that you wonder how you managed to get there.

At the airport, you stand with your luggage in your hands and wonder what to do. One sleepy and rather unshaven blue clothed officer appears to take an interest in the passenger's passports.

Well you are faced with two possibilities out of which the third one is possibly the most difficult.

First possibility, hee will open your passport without looking at you, at random, and stamp it on any page. As your mind is very quick, you will remark that this is excellent, the job has been done, you are marked, and so what is the problem? The problem is that he has stamped your passport anywhere and as adjusting the stampler means turning the dirty inky wheels, it is much easier to leave them as they are and stamp your passport with any entry date. As a result, kindly do not let your mind wander as at this point things are getting a bit messy with all that in and out and here and there, so you stand there with your unshaven happy face, you passport having been stamped, not realizing that at your exit of the country you will be asked by a hawk-eyed exmigration officer who happens to be the same as the immigration officer of your entry, how it happens that you intend to leave the country when a) he cannot find your entry stamp and you do not expect him to go through all your passport pages and would you please move to the end of the queue and find the right stamp b) having found the page and the entry stamp and presenting yourself hopefully again you are asked how you intend to leave the country while the stamp on your passport indicates that your have entered next month? Have no worry, it will appear that the payment of a fine of some dollars will take care of that problem.

The second possibility is that the entry officer will look with contempt at your passport pointing out to you:

The photo does not look like you

The passport is not valid as it is blue.

The passport does not have an entry visa. If you are an unseasoned traveller you might try to embark into murky explanations as to the fact that the Embassy has clearly stated that no entry visa is needed, upon which you will be informed that no entry visa delivered by the Embassy is needed but that an entry visa delivered at the Airport is needed, the said entry visa costing some 20 dollars plus a fine for not having an entry visa, in total 40 dollars.

This brings us to the third and most awful possibility.

The Immigration Officer informs you that you have the right to return to your country of origin by next flight or stay in jail for illegal tentative to entry the country, your passport being confiscated and sir, kindly note that the non-presentation of the passport implies a fine of 100 dollars plus the cost of the hospitality of the airport until your departure by next flight for which you can book a ticket though his kind services, your remark to the effect that next flight goes to the opposite direction of where you intend to go classing you amongst the Immigration Officers as a most facetious joker.

Indeed at the time the Nationals of Indian Origin where trying to fly back to U.K. on their Commonwealth passport, they could embark once the Legal Authorities had made sure that they had been stripped of all possessions. Upon their arrival in U.K. they would not be let out of the Airplane as their Commonwealth passport was not duly decorated with an entry permit, they would be sent back to the country of origin, either at their cost or at the cost of the airline, arriving at the country of departure they would not be allowed to exit as their National passport had been impounded, so were requested to continue their trip with the airplane that had brought them in. Cases have been known of passengers flying from the country of origin to UK and they back and then to South Africa as the plane was due to South Africa and then back. Some have been known to make the round trip three times, by which they could have taken over the commands of the plane should the pilot get sick and knew all the stewards on first name basis.

Therefore, while we are still in a cheerful mind, let us make the rather unlikely assumption that you have passed vaccination control (yellow card sir please), immigration control, custom control, currency control (and where will you be staying Sir, and who will be paying for you, and kindly show me your return ticket, where is your currency declaration form, kindly count all your currency in front of me Sir) and you are in the Airport Main Hall. It is late night, in a spirit of savings and support to the policy of the Government, the lights have been turned out.

At this point the reporter wonders whether he should report on trivia. Well duty is duty, we are on this trip to the bitter end and we must not skip any of the moments how repetitive they may appear.

Suitcases are made by highly specialised engineers who test all the components, well all the components, except one, namely that the suitcase will be used by a suitcase carrier. Marketing studies have revealed at great costs that it is more suitable that a suitcase have a lock, which will prevent loaders and unloaders at airports to improve their mathematical skills by practicing substations. Each suitcase is provided with either a lock with two keys or a number code.

The first law of International Travel states :

<< it does not matter where you put the key, by the time you have to open the suitcase in front of the customs officer, the key will be the wrong one>>.

I have found it most convenient in happier days, to travel with a Swiss knife which apparently opened all suitcases.

The second magical law states that it does not matter how careful you are when locking the suitcase, by the time you want to open it, the key will have vanished and will be discovered, after you have broken the lock, inside the suitcase. That trick is usually very much appreciated in entertainment Halls, it is called the magical box and will bring a lot of loud applause from the public. The customs Officer does not appear to be an enthusiast of that kind of entertaining tricks.

Incidentally, may I remind the young traveller that the return journey is subject to most interesting restrictions.

Your ticket clarly states that you should confirm your return journey within 72 hours of your flight date.

The obvious conclusion is that :

if you call before 72 hours, it is too early and you are asked to come back.

If you call on the Airline Office after 72 hours, is is too late and you are considered to have both missed your flight and your money.

So let us say that you stand in the hall, you are next to the statue of the President inaugurating the airport.

You get out of the Hall through the remnants of the sliding doors, as they have stopped sliding years ago, they are always open.

At this point the traveller arrives for the first time out in the African air.

Traditions demand a lyrical page written about the first contact; as we have entered into a new age where the customer while paying the cost of the goods is still expected to do by himself the lion part of the job, you reader are now expected to sit down and write the classical page:

<<my first impressions from Africa>>

As a seasoned and lazy “Yes Sir”, possibly you would appreciate few hints as to the elements to be included in that page;

The hot air

The darkness being broken by the rising sun

The hot smell of Africa in the cold air (poesy entitles you to forget to mention that by the airport, the most noticeable hot scent is the scent of urine)

The cry of the birds slowly awakening. As probably you as well as I know nothing about birds except the “poule au pot” served at your dinner, you will have to use poetic words for all these flying things that appear to have so much to say.

The insects; better get the reader immediately in the reality of Africa, as you stand there, the mosquitoes start the competition about how fast you can be given malaria.

The hot breeze slowly and kindly blowing around you and bringing all the stray greasy papers around you.

Should the urge to write down these pages which will make of Shakespeare a “has been”, overwhelm you now to the point that you are tempted to let go your suitcases and grab your pencil and writing pen, my loud advice is:

<<Don't>>

In fact as from now consider your suitcases as artificial parts of your body. If you drop them, do not expect to see them again.

Let us leave poetry and go back to our main task which implies getting from point A (the airport) to point H (the hotel).

The things appear to be most feasible; all governments have built the largest and most impressive road between the Airport and the Party Headquarter. As walking in the dark, carrying your suitcases does not immediately appeal to you, you look for a taxi.

It will take some time for your Highly Industrialised Brain to connect the concept of taxi with the reality of these car wrecks which, while appearing to have been abandoned there 10 years ago and consisting only of the parts that can not be removed, that these wrecks are the taxis.

The taxi drivers are very kind, about ten of them try to grab your suitcases and put them in the boot (without lid) of their car. One may succeed and drive off at a surprising speed while you remain standing there, do not worry; your gift will be much appreciated. Just hope that your razor is not in that case.

While all drivers claim to be the only true accepted legal official driver entitled to take you to your Hotel, you make up your mind and entrust body and luggage to one of them. Do not cry if you discover that you have not agreed on the price before leaving, it will only cost you about ten times more than the official fare (non-deductible from taxes, not refunded by the Organization “You paid how much, you idiot!!!!!>

You are so relieved when entering the taxi that your mind starts wandering. It is only after five minutes that the information gathered by your visual system is transformed by your cognitive system into an intelligent thought:

<< how does it come that while we travel on the countries best highway, we are now driving on a mud road which is not very much larger than the cab, without any kind of lights (do I need to confirm that the taxi has no lights?>>

Starting a civilized discussion with the driver, he will kindly inform you that at this time of the night, the only way to get petrol for the tank is to drive to his cousin who will sell it to you if he takes a liking to your appearance and is convinced by the pleading of your friendly taxi driver, who sorts of indicates that his pleading in your favour will be far more efficient should it be strengthened by a financial contribution that will take away his mind from the worry of how to find enough money to buy a crate of beer, then the said cousin will dig up the jerry cans and once the financial transactions have been accomplished and once he has convinced you to make a funnel with your hands, will poor the precious liquid into the tank. This is your lucky day, you receive a full gallon of petrol.

By that time you luggage is or is not in the boot; this is immaterial, who wants to die for a stupid suitcase?

By the time you arrive at the Main Luxury Five star Hotel, the sun has had his first coffee and starts building up the strength to make another beautiful tropical day. You are deposited at the entrance of the Luxury Hotel, kindly do not express any surprise at the speed at which the taxi leaves you there and to not express vain and futile comments about the fact that at the beginning of the journey you were the proud owner of two suitcases.

You try to enter into the Hotel to find that the gate is locked. You press the bell repeatedly and in an insistent way until you begin to realize that most likely it is not connected to anything as the desk clerk continues his peaceful sleep.

Your insistent and persistent banging gives time to late coming mosquitoes to check if they could not find a spot that has not been sucked before, anyway there is no point in getting excited, the night attendant will eventually wake-up when he feels hunger invading his mind.

May I remind you that at this point you are trying to enter a 5 star hotel (well only 1 star is still luminous, the other 4 are broken) while anybody looking at you would immediately rush on his phone to call the police. Rest assured and peaceful, they won't do it either because the phone is not working or because his cousin who happens to be working at the police is having his breakfast (a cup of hot water). So you really mean that a dirty looking scarecrow, carrying no suitcases, stinking of petrol and being in a state of agitation, should be left into this five star hotel which is the Home of some of the Most Honoured Visitor of this Proud and Friendly Country?

Upon entry, which takes place when you discover that the entrance gate has not been locked for years, the desk clerk, after having ascertained that in spite of your appearance you are the person you claim to be will kindly inform you of the following:

You have no reservation in that Five Star Hotel.

The Five Star Hotel is fully booked.

It so happens that he, the Reception Clerk, could possibly put you ahead of the waiting queue, but of course he expects you to recognize the risks he is going to take on your behalf, risks he takes only because you are so sympathetic to him.

That the booking in time in this 5 Star Hotel is a 3 p.m

That regretfully, no sir, you cannot have coffee and breakfast in the Restaurant as you are not a resident of the Five Star Hotel

A day later you will discover that, while the Five Star Hotel is fully booked, it appears that the word fully applies to you and another traveller who is as lost as you are and you soon discover that you have no common language.

Entering the room after such a trivial and routine trip is neither a relief nor a pleasure, it is just a routine, and you have to play you part in the drama until the end.

You put your luggage on the luggage holder to discover that one leg of the table is missing and that once again your suitcase feels that this is the right time to open itself and display its content on the floor.

Which basically is a good thing as you do not have to look everywhere for the light bulb you have brought, it is there on the floor, so you pick it up to screw it into the bulb socket, where you discover that this is a stick-in socket, not a screw-in socket, so you will have to use daylight instead of electricity.

The bathroom is demonstrated to you and the groom turns the tap to demonstrate that there is no water, neither hot nor cold, and inform you of his privileged service of bringing you buckets of water (cold) at your request and cost.

The groom unfolds the bed to demonstrate that the bed sheets were very much appreciated by the previous owner and when you grab the internal phone to call the desk you verify that indeed the socket has been broken out of the wall.

I still wonder which company is providing that exceptional washing powder which provides them with this most attractive greyish colour, the kind very much appreciated by those who enjoy spending an afternoon looking at late pictures by Turner.

Having finally been able to register, you feel that a breakfast would not be out of order. You walk into the deserted dining room and a waiter materializes with a greyish torn card which claims to be the breakfast menu.

You wonder whether an English breakfast can be had at this time of the day and upon the affirmative reply you ask for two eggs sunny side up, bread and jam, bacon, coffee and well, the usual.

Confronted by the gloomy look of the waiter, you start wondering.

Problems?

Sorry Sir, no eggs.

Well, no eggs is OK, that will lower your cholesterol.

The gloom persists.

Problems?

Sorry Sir, no bacon.

Well, bacon comes from pigs, who has said that pigs do not have a right of their own to own their own bacon, so OK, no bacon.

No sunshine on the face of the waiter.

Problems?

Sorry Sir, no bread.

By that time you are beginning to get into you normal living speed so you accept this information but suddenly a light goes up in your brain and you ask:

Well, what could you serve?

Baked Beans, Sir!

While most thankful for that kind offer you decline the baked beans and being informed that they have no coffee you change your mind to tea. Forget upon adding sugar to your tea.

The perplexing fact is that the menu is soiled by stains of egg, bacon, fat, and other decorations, so these things must have existed under happier days.

Later on you will be thankful that you have not gorged yourself with calorie rich and fat enhanced food when you discover that the lift works ….. occasionally, or that when it works it feels that stopping half way to your floor where you have to wait for the only man who knows how to make it work to come and deliver you. They say that the longest time is at the dentist, I would not bet on it, waiting in a lift, while very good for meditation and self control, has a tendency to stretch time to unknown limits.

The reader might be under the impression that to enjoy all these enriching experiences with hotels and restaurants he has to travel to Africa. Not at all!!! Such creative experiences where freely offered by the USSR during the pre-wall days.

Getting from the International Airport to Central Moscow you had to use the official bus. It was probably one of the safest bus you could use, as its speed seldom exceeded 40km per hour, this assuming that it was not trying to climb a major slope.

Getting into USSR meant that you had obtained a visa, which also meant that you had prepared your trip six months in advance. The visa was granted most reluctantly, you had to promise that you would exchange all your dollars at the Official Exchange Bureau at the Official Exchange rate. The Airport Police Check made you feel that while they let you into the country, they were well aware of the fact that they knew you were in fact a C.I.A. spy and that you would be watched all the time. To confirm this, at the arrival at the hotel, you had to hand over your passport and wait, and wait, and wait. Some travellers have certified that they did not wait more than one hour, seems sounds unlikely. Once you were informed that your passport had been “accepted” but not returned to you, you were taken to your cell, sorry, your room, or rather to the floor where the lady floor warden would inform you in Russian of the floor rules.

Food could be obtained at the Hotel Restaurant (PEKTOPAH in Russian). You would enter a gloomy large room, would be given a table and then you would sit and wait. The waiter would be leaning against the wall, five meters away from you, not moving.

Why he was not moving?

Do I really have to explain it? It is really so obvious.

If he serves you too rapidly, you will have your meal and then leave your table, making room for another family who is waiting for a table, thereby the waiter would have to serve two full meals, whereas if he times his movements carefully, he will only have to serve one meal.

You could have any food you wanted and any vegetable so long as it was some kind of boiled meat and the vegetable was either potato or cabbage.

To avoid that you yield to the temptation of testing the local medical services, the food was always served at a temperature slightly, but very slightly above room temperature.

Party dignitaries or very wealthy business people could be seen at other tables eating such delicacies as tomatoes.

After your meal, being a tourist, you may want to visit Moscow, which appeared to be a very recommendable occupation as more than ten taxis were lined up in front of the hotel. So you walked out and waited for a taxi to come. And the taxi would remain in the line-up and you would be standing there looking at them. The taxi drivers were on monthly wages and were forbidden to accept tips from passengers, why would they bother to pick-up passengers? So you learned to use the Moscow busses.

As everybody else was using the busses, you could not feel lonely in the buss. To pay your fare you had a coin-ticket machine at one end of the buss, which you could impossibly reach. But this was no problem, you simply handed over your coin to your neighbour and five minutes later somebody would tap you on the shoulder and get you your ticket.

As for knowing were to get out of the bus, in the beginning you were tense as you cannot read Cyrillic names, this was not a problem, you simply announced in a loud voice where you wanted to go and the whole bus would keep you informed of your progress towards your destination.

Happier days indeed.

Happier days are not so far away.

I have known days when

You Want Me to Put My Shoes Where?

By HARVEY MOLOTCH

Published: March 12, 2004

For anyone who has flown recently, chances are that the airport security checkpoint - that travel spot where anxious human beings meet guards and their equipment - didn't provide a very nice experience. Surely there has to be a better way for the paraphernalia on one's person (or in one's person: think pacemaker) to mesh with instruments and instructions that are supposed to ward off trouble. While the ordinary goods of daily life receive exacting attention from industrial designers, ergonomic experts and human behavior analysts, airport security artifacts are the products of casual indifference. The stuff is terrible.

Before your next flight, take a closer look (not close enough to stir suspicions, just closer). The trays where you put your laptop or packages are off-the-shelf products never meant for airport use. They are for busing dishes in restaurants. The plastic bowls for your coins and cellphone were meant for nail salons and institutions serving people not to be trusted with ceramic (the one I turned over at Kennedy Airport was Rubbermaid). The "recovery" tables where travelers retrieve their luggage on the other side of the X-ray scanners are the fold-ups one finds in church recreation halls.

Adapting goods for new purposes can be ingenious, but not in this case. Coins tumble to the floor; people slow down the line as they struggle to lift their suitcases onto the conveyor belt and into the scanners. Strollers get tangled in equipment, worried people lunge for film they fear will be radiated. Some travelers simply do not get any instructions because they do not speak English. Folks tending to be a little mixed up in ordinary life are also prone to mix up their duty-free receipts with the boarding pass. Some travelers come undone. The mishaps distract the guards, forcing them to interrupt their work and call for reinforcements.

None of this is good for passengers, for airlines or for security. There are alternatives, some of which are not rocket science. The change bowls need some kind of funnel shape to help coins spill back into a cupped hand. The trays should have rubber linings to protect electronic goods against vibration and to prevent gifts from breaking. The platforms to the conveyor belts should slant down so that travelers don't have to lift their luggage as high. More ambitiously, the whole operation needs systematic analysis - just like one that an industrial designer would conduct for a car model or can opener. The result could be a radically different configuration of apparatus, queues and sensibilities.

The personnel also need a rethinking. The government employees now on duty have better training and demeanors than the hapless private contract workers they replaced, but they are still set up to control. They engage in a regime of instruction, prohibition and surveillance. Travelers are expected to toe the line: lift that laptop, take off those shoes and make no wrong jokes. The security personnel are not there as helpers. So old people struggle by themselves to get their luggage up, parents herd unruly toddlers through the metal detectors and novice flyers worry about which of their things go where and just when and how they will be retrieved.

Having employees help people with their luggage could have security advantages. The security workers could see the stuff and feel the goods - their heft, sounds and textures. They could observe the faces of the owners and how those faces respond to offers for help. The presence of helpers would also reassure and increase the confidence of those who fumble, causing them to fumble less. And, hardly a small matter, people have a better time.

As security concerns inject more checkpoints into our lives, the same questions of design arise. Will there be detailed caring or only command and control? As accomplished designers know, a good appliance blends machine and person for both functionality and pleasure. Cumulatively, all the little machine-human interactions build into psychological and social states of place and culture. The conditions at airport security checkpoints show that despite having many millions of dollars to invest, the custodians have not come up with a decent design.

Given the usual worries of getting to the airport, weather delays and (now) the threat of mayhem in the skies, flying is anxiety-ridden enough. Isn't it time for someone in charge to go out there and redo things?

Harvey Molotch, a professor of metropolitan studies and sociology at New York University, is the author of "Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be as They Are."