Category Archives: Travel

Come Fly With Me

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I am a frequent flyer (95% work related).

All told, in the past 12 months, I made over 100 flights around this fantastic ball of dirt, water and gas we call Earth. In the last 10 years, over 2000 sectors.

I’ve had some great flying experiences.  I’ve had some awful flying experiences.

One of the downsides of flying is that you have to interact, a lot, with a lot of people.  On the whole, people suck.  You’ve met them, so you know what I mean.

Nowadays, I must admit, I predominantly fly First Class – don’t begrudge me, you would too.

But I also make loads of smaller, internal domestic flights, and not all have a Business Class option.  So today, we’re talking domestic, cattle class only.

Here are Gaz’s Tips for improving the airways.  Three for the airlines, and three for passengers, as both contribute to the overall flying experience.

Gaz’s Tips for Airlines:

1.    Elbow and Leg Room:

Charge a little more, and cram a few less seats in.  There.  Simple.  You can achieve this without impacting upon your bottom line.  I’m a businessman.  I get why you maximise the number of seats you can fit in a plane.  But airlines, you have pushed it too far.   Just because you are filling flights, doesn’t make it right.  You are not catering for the masses, but you SHOULD be.  Indeed 40% of flyers list this as their biggest gripe, so I’m not Robinson Crusoe here.

I am also quite “big boned”, so I am acutely aware of people’s pleading eyes as I’m walking down the aisle, that scream “please don’t sit next to me, please don’t sit next to me!”  Don’t get me wrong, I always pay more whenever I can to buy a little leg room, but the width is fixed in sardine class.   As a general rule, I don’t want to rub body parts with a complete stranger, without both parties being consenting adults.

* Armrest territorial wars will be covered in greater detail in the Passenger Tip section.

 

2.     Seat Comfort:

This is not a width thing, or even a girth thing.  This is purely about ergonomics.  Most airlines seats are akin to an ironing board, bent in half at 90 degrees, but with far less padding.  The irony is, airlines of the world – you’re filling your seats, so you should be filling our seats.  Seriously, when someone is rummaging in the seat pocket behind my seat, it should not feel like I’m getting a Thai massage.  Again, I’m not Charles Darwin here, as this is a major gripe of close to 80% of air travellers.   It really does require an industry-wide rethink.

3.     Wifi:

As a busy, corporate traveller, the wait for inflight Wifi has been a long, and frustrating one.  The technology is there, and I will choose a carrier with Wifi over one who doesn’t, regardless of any price differential.  I want to be able work, stay connected, or keep myself entertained, irrespective of flight duration.  Inflight entertainment was a necessary transition, but its appeal is limited.  Give us Wifi and we’ll probably bother the attendants less.  Pretty sure they’ll like that too.

 

Gaz’s Tips for Passengers:

1.     Armrest Battles:

Ah, the delicate ballet of armrest tenure.  Since there are no rules, anarchy reigns supreme.

The point is, there should be rules, and these rules should be read out during the pre-flight spiel, so there is no ambiguity.  Here is what I propose:

  • If you sit in the aisle seat, you get the aisle-side armrest.
  • If you sit in the window seat, you get the window-side armrest.
  • If you’re stuck in the middle, you get both.  Simple.

Here’s my logic.  If you’re in the aisle, you have the space to lean towards the aisle on the armrest (the heightened risk of trolley impact is outweighed by sprawl freedom).  If you’re in the window, you have the ability to lean towards the window.  If you’re in the middle, your leaning capabilities are hindered.  Indeed if you have two selfish armrest hogs, there is nought to do but cross your arms and plot their demise.

 

2.     The Seatbelt Sign Free-For-All:

People, the moment the seatbelt sign flicks off is not the trigger for you to charge into the aisle like ants on a honey trail.  What is the point of this exercise?  You still need to wait for the passengers nearer the exit to “deplane” before you can budge, so why do you feel the urge to leap out of your seat in order to beat your cross-aisle opponent out of the plane?  I don’t like my face being anywhere in the vicinity of your midships, aft or bow.  In addition, the spontaneous flurry of action means that any poor sod who had to place his belongings in an overhead locker behind where they were sitting, has to swim upstream like a migrating salmon to collect their carry-ons from the overhead compartment.  So seriously, sit the fuck down.  Wait for the plane to start clearing, then casually stand, stretch, collect your belongings, and stroll out of the plane.  Again, this should be instructed during the pre- and post-flight spiel.

 

3.     Personal Hygiene:

It was down to this, or screaming kids.  But sound attenuating headphones eliminate most noises nowadays, no matter how shrill or insistent, so I’d rather eliminate the odours.  And folks, it’s real easy.

  • Shower before flying.
  • Deodorise before flying.
  • Wear clean clothes before flying.
  • Clean your teeth before flying.

You wouldn’t go to work dishevelled and malodorous, so why subject a complete stranger to it, especially one who will be rubbing shoulders with you for the next few hours?

“Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you” is an apt phrase under the circumstances (but one that will likely get you kicked out of most Gentleman’s special interest establishments).

So it is in the hands of both airlines and passengers to heighten the flying experience for everyone.  Who knows, it might even lead to increased membership of the Mile High Club, and not just in the Solo Aviator Division…

Get a Room

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I travel.  A lot.  And you should too.

I truly believe travel broadens the mind.  Admittedly, it also shrinks the wallet, but mine is pretty big.  And so is my wallet.

But on the whole, I’d rather be living the scratch and sniff lifestyle of the world traveller, rather than being stuck in upper suburbia worrying about what the Reserve Bank will do next with interest rates, what to pick up from grocery store on the way home, or working out “which fucking night is bin night again?!”.

However – travel does have its little nuances and nuisances.

So I thought I would present Gaz’s Top Ten Tips for the world of Hoteliery.  Airline Tips will follow.

These tips are free (unless you want to pay me for them).  They are also not rocket surgery.  These are small changes, for big results.

Right, here goes.

Gaz’s Top Ten Travel Tips – for Hotels

1)     Train your fucking staff. 

This is the toughest of my tips, so let’s get it out of the way first.

Good customer service is not free.  Invest in your people.  They are your lifeblood.

Nobody likes stumbling out of a cab in the pouring rain, after travelling for 24-hours across the globe, only to be greeted by pimply teenager with attitude, telling you “your room isn’t ready yet, you’ll need to come back in a few hours”.

Do that to me, and I won’t be back in a few lifetimes, of that I assure you.  Anticipate your guests’ likely problems, and come up with appropriate, pre-planned solutions to suit.  Simple yeah?  You’d think so, but far too many hotels fail this one, horribly.

 

2)     Free Wifi

In-room WiFi should be fast and free.

I reiterate.

In-room WiFi should be fast and free.

Do it.  Do it now.

If you don’t know why, you should not be in the hotel business (or indeed any business at all, full stop).

Alright, fine.  Here are a few of the more obvious reasons.

  • You will increase repeat business.
  • You will give guests fewer reasons to leave your premises, thereby improving your room service, mini-bar and on-site restaurant returns.
  • You will attract more business clientele, Gen X’ers, Gen Y’ers and Gen-Whatevercomesnext’ers.

In turn, you will make more money.  If you don’t like money, you should not be in the hotel business (or indeed any business at all, full stop).  Capiche?

3)     Bed Runners

Ditch the grubby bed runners across the foot of the bed.  We don’t use one at home, and we sure don’t need one in our hotel room.  We always just kick them off onto the floor.  Besides, we know you rarely wash those manky things between bookings.   A black light would flare up like the Aurora Borealis when waved over one of these stinking cessrags.

 

4)     Towel rails. 

It’s a rail, for hanging towels.  Google it if you must.  Every bathroom should have one, or indeed several.  Hooks don’t cut it.  Rest assured, if a towel drops on the floor, I will not re-use it.  Install towel rails, and you will save a fortune on laundry, and you will thank me for it.  Well, you should thank me.

5)     Air Conditioning / Heating

Thermostat of choice?  The simplest one.  If it requires a manual, dump the fucker.

What should it have?

It should have an on/off switch (for turning on and off) and a dial, which if I turn one way will make the room warmer, and which if I turn the opposite way and you are still reading this to find out what comes next, you seriously have no place in the hotel trade either, you imbecile.

Seriously, you don’t want us calling reception every time we’re feeling a little bit chilly or toasty.  Your Duty Managers will also welcome the fewer distractions from crushing Candy Crush.

6)     Blackout curtains

Install them.

Enough said.

 

7)     Changing Technology 

Keep up-to-date with changing technology.  For example, if you have a sound dock, make sure you have adaptors to fit.

There is nothing worse than trying to crank out some Feargal Sharkey only to find that your iPhone 5 won’t fit in the “antiquated” speaker dock.  Okay, maybe a jalapeno enema is worse, but this is right up there.  Actually, a japapeno enema is right up there too, if you get what I mean?

8)     Pillows

This is a tricky one, because not all people are the same, and not all pillows are the same.

For example, I’m awesome, and most hotel pillows are not.

So please provide a smorgasbord of pillows in the cupboard, or at least offer a “pillow menu”.

A well-rested Gaz is a lot less likely to quibble over the number of adult “special interest” films that show up on the final bill at checkout.

9)     Don’t touch my stuff!

Seriously, so not cool.  I know that maids are instructed to return the room to a pre-set order, and I accept that within reason, but there needs to be an overriding ethos.

Let me explain.

Examples of things not to be touched:

a)     My stuff!

b)     My fucking stuff!

c)     All of the (fucking) above!

If I leave my toothbrush on the vanity, work around it.

If I leave my laptop on the table, work around it.

If I leave a glow-in-the-dark, rechargeable, battery-operated, therapeutic “massager” on the night-stand, yeah you probably don’t want to be touching that anyway.

 

10)  Power Outlets

Seriously, throw us a fucking bone here.

I have a laptop.  I have an iPad.  I have 2 iHones  I have a rechargeable therapeutic massager.   Please, more outlets, and in convenient places too – I am not crawling under that bed, even if my giant wallet falls under there.  I’ll consider it collateral damage.

Give us a couple adjacent to each night stand, a couple dotted around the room, and at least a couple at the desk.  That shouldn’t be so hard (that’s what she said).

GAZ’s BONUS TIP!

11)  “Do Not Disturb”

If I have to explain this one, please stop wasting my precious oxygen.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record*, these tips are not revolutionary.  They are common-sense.

Get your house in order, hotels of the world.  Provide the level of services your customers expect, and they will pay you (repeatedly) for it.  It’s that simple.

Put in a little effort and those Trip Advisor reviews will start to have more little gold stars next to them.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

You will also make a simple Gaz, very happy.  I assure you, this is a good thing if I am staying at your (expectedly) fine establishment.

If you have any other hotel tips for my good readers, please throw your thoughts in the comments section.

If you don’t have any hotel tips, you seriously need to travel more.  Go on, off you go then.  The world is your oyster.  And you know what they say about oysters…

 

* For the Gen Whatevercomesnext’ers, a broken record is a flashback to the heady days of vinyl records, where sound waves were created by a needle on a stylus that traced the spiral grooves in a spinning vinyl disc, transferring the vibrations to a diaphragm in a speaker which then amplifies it to an auditory level.   If one of these grooves is corrupted, the needle no longer tracks inward along the spiral, and instead follows a continuous circular loop, causing the music to cyclically repeat – hence the term, “sounds like a broken record”.  Okay, I probably lost most of you GenW’s (attention span of a fucking ADD goldfish) but for any still reading, it’s like your iTunes getting stuck on repeat.

 

Little Golden Chalice

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After being snowed under over Christmas with the man flu, I popped in to a local doctor’s surgery to see if I could get a prescription for some industrial strength decongestants to help me fly down to Melbourne. I hate being blocked up when flying, in more ways than one.

After waiting in a room, creatively named the “Waiting Room” (they must have been up all night thinking up that one), I was finally ushered in to see the resident GP. She turned out to be in her mid-thirties, and was particularly attractive.

She went through the usual background history stuff, and I explained my situation.

She said she’d need to do some routine checks prior to writing any prescription. She was pretty thorough, checking my ears, tonsils, glands. Apart from some minor irritation, everything appeared fine.

But just to be sure, she requested that I do a “mid-flow” urine test, and she handed me a paper bag with a small, plastic container inside, about the size of a shot glass.

“Wait, wait wait. Mid-flow? Into this? Are you fucking serious?! That’s like trying to fill a thimble with a fire hose!” I thought, but politely refrained from saying.

She then points me down the hall to a toilet cubicle to complete my challenge.

The first thing I noticed upon entering, was that there wasn’t a single flat surface in there.

Gaz’s tip for doctor’s surgeries – if you are going to send patients somewhere to provide a urine sample – at least put a fucking shelf in there!

The only vaguely flat surface was on top of the stainless steel toilet paper dispenser. It was a precarious perch to say the least, as it had a pitch of about 15 degrees. It became apparent that this was the place of choice, as evidenced by the numerous “urine rings”, a passing legacy of samplers past. They should get some tiny coasters made up.

Anyway, I managed to release, clench, release, dip, and quickly filled my little cup to the brim (without getting too much on my hands, floor, or ceiling). I popped the lid on, dropped it in the paper baggy, made my way back to the doctor’s office and sheepishly handed it to her.

I think Billy Connolly summed it up best. “There is nothing worse, than handing a jar of piss, to an attractive woman. And it’s still warm…”.

She took the bag, simulated weighing it in her hand, raised her eyebrows and gave a fake smile and nod like she was impressed. I watched as she gloved up and removed the lid from my amber-filled vial. She then extracted precisely two drops, placing them in some sort of microscope contraption, and threw the rest away in a medical waste receptacle.

Only two drops?! They should fucking tell you they only require a “sample”!

Oh wait, they did.

Anyway, she peered down the periscope of the microscope, and after a few seconds, popped her head up and said “All good downstairs, Mr Edwards”.

“Well, I’ve never had any complaints, Doc.”

In fact, I said no such thing, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of another way to end this story…

The Gazard of Oz for Xmas

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So the siblings and I all boarded flights from Vancouver to Brisbane, via LA. Me in 1a. The others in, well, I honestly can’t say. But I do know I entered every time zone well ahead of them.

In total, we checked 15 bags between us.

Of course, when we arrive in Brisbane, Karma sneaks up and gives me a nipple cripple. My four bags, and only my four bags (including my golf clubs), are the only ones missing.

So I’ve gone from sub-zero temps, to the tropics, and I have nothing to wear (the mankini was in bag 2). Must remember to keep this in my carry-on in future, if only to make customs inspections that much more entertaining.

Anyway it is at this time, that my brother and his partner inform me that for Christmas they bought me these nifty devices that attach to your luggage, which you can then track on your iPhone.

Fuck you, irony! *shakes fist*

So it’s only the first day, and I have massive tilt already. This trip is not boding well, I can feel it in me waters.

Add to that, I had to be in Melbourne two days after I arrive, with golf on the menu, amongst other things.

But fortunately, the gods shone, with all of my baggage turning up the next day. No excuse was given, aside from a conveyor belt breaking down in Vancouver. How it was only my four bags, out of the fifteen we checked simultaneously that were caught up in the great Vancouver conveyor meltdown is a question for the annals. I’m too over it to come up with a good conspiracy theory. Maybe my bags tested positive for Smurfiness, I don’t know. Throw your thoughts in the comments section if you have a juicy idea.

So with all of my luggage safely returned, along with my golf clubs, when I did head down to Melbourne, I couldn’t use the “hire club” excuse when I got my delectable ass handed to me on a platter. I couldn’t hit a fairway. I couldn’t buy a putt. I couldn’t sneak an unseen foot wedge out of the rough on the 14th. I think I even scrambled the GPS in my golf cart, the amount of territory I covered. So all I can say is, fuck you golf, you fucking fuck.

Dodgy golf aside, I had the chance to meet up with a few friends while in Melbourne, held a few business meetings, and caught up with Shane Warne who was in town for the Boxing Day Test and the launch of the Big Bash Twenty20 cricket.

It was a great couple of days to help unwind before jetting back to the Gold Coast to start the Christmas Countdown, and to respectfully celebrate Festivus. I’ll be airing my grievances in a later post, else this becomes War and Peace, but suffice to say, I inevitably caught the flu.

Flu shmoo, I hear you say? Mock me not! This was full-on man flu, which had me out of action for four days, including Christmas. There’s nothing better than having a raging fever, in sub-tropical heat. I must have sweated out some fierce demons, let me tell you. No-one wanted to visit me in my room for more than it takes to say “hope you’re feeling better, champ” and then step outside to play pool pony polo and sip mojitos.

Merry Karmaristmas, Gaz.

So my long awaited family get together more or less passed me by, but I was able enjoy some time with family, had the chance to binge watch a few long-awaited TV series, and received heaps of Smurf presents so it wasn’t a total wash.

I’m now back in Melbourne for some personal business, and New Year’s shenanigans.

I will need to rely on several of you to fill in the obligatory blanks over the next few days (and likely pony up some bail money). Will keep the rest of you posted, good people.

Til then, have a Smurfy end to Twenty Thirteen. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Seriously, don’t. That’s some sick shit. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Whistler Apology

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I’m sorry we fought, Whistler.

Since my last post, the snow started falling, the food started improving, and the bears have started shitting again.

So I’m happily exhausted from skiing, my belt is extended a notch, and order is restored to the forest.

Nice save Whistler, I should never have doubted you. You came good, old friend. You’ll always be Smurfy in my eyes, aye.

I have since scooted over to Montreal for some secret squirrel shit. Can’t discuss here, as I don’t want to jinx. But stay tuned.

Anyhow, as you know, I’m about to visit family in Australia for Christmas for first time in a few years. I’ll be leaving a Canadian Winter, where the temperature has been sitting at around -20°C (-4°F) and heading to an Australian Summer where the daytime temperature will average around 35°C (>95°F). That’s over a 50°C fucking turnaround! Out of the freezer and straight into the oven.

Now this is where my jetsetting lifestyle gets tough. Don’t cry for me, it’s still freakin’ awesome, but when packing a suitcase in London for a trip to Whistler, followed by a trip Down Under, it can become a little challenging to get the mix right.

Thermals – check.

Gloves – check.

Ski jacket – check.

Mankini – check.

The only common denominator is underwear. Well, and the mankini, obviously.

So I’m about to board a flight from Vancouver to LA to Brisbane with my brother and sister and their partners. When I say, “with” that’s not technically true. I’ll be in First Class, they’ll be in Coach. I’m going to feel wracked with guilt… right up until the time I wipe away my troubles with a hot refresher towel, followed by Salmon Rilette and a nice Laurent-Perrier.

I’m really looking forward to catching up with my folks for the first time in a very long time, although I know I’m going to be grilled about the lack of grandkids. I don’t know what will kill me first, climate change or the Spanish Inquisition. Is it wrong to pray for a tsunami?

Anyway, the standard Christmas routine is a quiet drink on Christmas Eve. Followed by a slightly louder drink. And then a bunch of rowdy ones. Shit, we are Australian.

On Christmas morning, we stagger downstairs, crank the air conditioning down to 20°C and exchange gifts and quiet pleasantries. Christmas lunch is usually a diverse culinary affair – a mix of hot and cold and traditional and local fare. Turkey and cranberries at one end of the table. Prawns, oysters and lobster at the other. My folks are in the restaurant business, so the spread is always top drawer.

The rest of the day will be spent sipping, snacking and swimming, consecutively or concurrently. And raping the family at open face Chinese poker.

In fact I must say, there are few things more satisfying, than the first mouthful of beer on a stonking hot Queensland day. James Squire, I look forward to you being inside me.

Somewhere between now and then though, I have to fit in the world’s worst chore. Christmas shopping on the Gold Coast. As Ford Fairlane so eloquently said, “It’s like masturbating with a cheese grater – slightly amusing, but mostly painful”.

Wish me luck, I’m going to need bucket loads.