I can do this!

FIS Alpine Ski World Championships 2017 St. Moritz, presented by some car manufacturer with almost as many rings as the Olympics. In fact, about 20 km away from St. Moritz, on the ski hill of Zuoz, at the qualifying races. This is where the lesser nations like Finland, Jamaica, Mexico or Tonga send their competitors down the slopes in hope that one or the other makes it to the main event, up the valley on the posh hill. And then there is the one guy from the Swiss national radio station, who at some stage late at night in a bar said that he could do just as well as the rookies just mentioned before.

Said radio guy could have been about anyone in Switzerland, me not withstanding. I have quite a few things to say about my skiing and while some might be true, I might actually still be very far away from being competitive. The other week I tried a speed trap on a steep slope in order to finally and officially crack the 100 kph. I failed by a mile, clocking up something short of 97 and to be frankly honest, I did not feel entirely safe hitting the brakes sharply before the fence. After two attempts I knew what I had to do to accelerate more, but I knew exactly that my braking action would be a considerable constraint.

Swiss Radio (SRF3) DJ Fabio Nay, wearing his vintage 1990s Swiss Cheese Union ski dress
(source: www.srf.ch)

I have no idea what kind of speed the skiers hit on a giant slalom qualifying track, but one would expect that to be somewhere in between 60 and 80 kph. Our radio DJ would have had to hit about 50 gates at that speed, turning left, right, left, right and left again. As far as I could see, there was not even any major topography difficulty in the track, apart from the obvious slope. Still, he looked like a tourist, waving his arms around and sliding left, right & centre. Having properly learnt how to ski on the edge (the physical edge that is, not the proverbial limit), this looked as if I could do better to me.

Most certainly, I would have looked worse. While I probably knew more about skiing before I ever heard about the offside rule in football, there is so much more that goes into skiing than watching the stuff on the telly every weekend and racing down the crazy tracks in the Ski Challenge game (for as long as it existed). Suddenly one starts to realize how much training has to go into a body to withstand the forces of nature once things become a bit more extreme. Being able to handle myself on a mountain is one thing, but doing this on a competitive level is another.

After all, as a born and bred Swiss I feel as if I have a reason to feel aggrieved. Neither have I cracked these bloody 100 kph, nor have I ever won a race. But pretty sure, somewhere over a beer or three in a bar, I would have told or will tell somebody, that I could do this too!

BA strike ops 9-11 February 2017

9 February 2017

BA468 LHR 1600-1900 BIO A320 (Titan)

BA469 BIO 2000-2050 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA846 LHR 0825-1145 WAW A320 (Titan)

BA847 WAW 1240-1430 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA848 LHR 0830-1150 ZAG B752 (Titan)

BA849 ZAG 1235-1410 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA854 LHR 0720-1015 PRG B752 (Titan)

BA855 PRG 1105-1225 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA866 LHR 1325-1650 BUD B752 (Titan)

BA867 BUD 1740-1925 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA920 LHR 1610-1845 STR B752 (Titan)

BA921 STR 1930-2020 LHR B752 (Titan)

10 February 2017

BA370 LHR 1700-1955 MRS B752 (Titan)

BA371 MRS 2040-2140 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA468 LHR 1600-1900 BIO A320 (Titan)

BA469 BIO 2000-2050 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA500 LHR 0705-0955 LIS B752 (Titan)

BA501 LIS 1045-1335 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA846 LHR 0830-1150 WAW A320 (Titan)

BA847 WAW 1240-1430 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA882 LHR 0750-1305 KBP B752 (Titan)

BA883 KBP 1400-1555 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA Strike Ops 5-7 February 2017

British Airways strike ops February 2017

5 February

BA850 LHR 1520-1845 WAW B752 (Titan)

BA851 WAW 1935-2120 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA882 LHR 0755-1310 KBP A320 (Titan)

BA883 KBP 1405-1600 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA938 LHR 0925-1145 DUS B763 (Titan)

BA939 DUS 1255-1330 LHR B763 (Titan)

BA1312 LHR 1430-1610 ABZ B763 (Titan)

BA1313 ABZ 1650-1830 LHR B763 (Titan)

BA1314 LHR 1655-1830 ABZ A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1315 ABZ 1910-2045 LHR A320 (Thomas Cook?)

6 February

BA468 LHR 1600-1900 BIO A320 (Titan)

BA469 BIO 1955-2045 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA846 LHR 0830-1150 WAW A320 (Titan)

BA847 WAW 1240-1430 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA854 LHR 0720-1015 PRG B752 (Titan)

BA855 PRG 1105-1225 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA866 LHR 1325-1650 BUD B752 (Titan)

BA867 BUD 1740-1925 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA932 LHR 1715-1935 DUS B763 (Titan)

BA933 DUS 2030-2055 LHR B763 (Titan)

BA1306 LHR 0800-0935 ABZ A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1307 ABZ 1035-1210 LHR A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1312 LHR 1430-1610 ABZ A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1313 ABZ 1650-1830 LHR A320 (Thomas Cook?)

7 February 2017

BA468 LHR 1600-1900 BIO A320 (Titan)

BA469 BIO 1955-2045 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA750 LHR xxxx-1630 BSL B763 (Titan)

BA749 BSL1715-xxxx LHR B763 (Titan)

BA790 LHR 0740-1035 GOT B763 (Titan)

BA791 GOT 1140-1300 LHR B763 (Titan)

BA846 LHR 0830-1150 WAW A320 (Titan)

BA847 WAW 1240-1430 LHR A320 (Titan)

BA854 LHR 0720-1015 PRG B752 (Titan)

BA855 PRG 1105-1225 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA866 LHR 1325-1650 BUD B752 (Titan)

BA867 BUD 1740-1925 LHR B752 (Titan)

BA1306 LHR 0800-0935 ABZ A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1307 ABZ 1035-1210 LHR A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1312 LHR 1430-1610 ABZ A320 (Thomas Cook?)

BA1313 ABZ 1650-1830 LHR A320 (Thomas Cook?)

You naughty!

Oh yeah, the white stuff. It is here, finally!

Snow. That lovely stuff that softens all noises, makes kids happy, lights up places even at night (albeit with some help), covers the landscape so nicely. Also, snow. That white glibbery something that lets people slip, fall over and in the subtropic flatlands of Basel seems to make the people all gaga. Yes, we spent four months of late fall and early winter moaning about the 10th non-white Christmas on the bounce and when the snow finally arrives, we wish it back off to hell, even though it usually comes from high above.

As I am writing to you out there, I am in my warm home. Listening to the sound of somebody doing some awkward sports outside. You can not possible try to tell me that literally still hours after Christmas anyone is fit enough to do a serious workout. Bring on the snow and suddenly the whole neighborhood starts to feel like having to protect their walkways from that mean white layer.

I have hardly spent half an hour on this and I have heard at least two shovels and one leaf blower trying to banish the frozen demons from the North. Ok, this place was burnt down by some naughty Swedes almost 400 years about, but seriously, should we fear another invasion by this folk? Or just leave that snow where it is, as it is. It is not going to last long anyway!

It was only a kiss!

I am writing this as I hold Jack in my hand. Jack who brings the warm and the calm back to me, Jack my saviour. Jack who cost me a load of pennies at the bar. For Jack's sake, no, he is not my boyfriend and neither he is my nephew. Jack is a drink, a hot whisky of sorts, a welcome alternative to your average Glühwein available on the Christmas market.

Just, why did I need to meet Jack so desperately then? Put it all down to a kiss. I had a ride on this yellow big little something we call tramway, just slightly out of town towards the shopping mall. Casually stood in the alley (as I am meant to be for another 30 years for sure), I surely did not expect what was coming our way. A soft braking action towards my stop turned into something nastier. The pilot up front seemed to have gone the way of full reverse thrust and blown tyres in my book.

At the back, the pedestrian self-loading cargo was starting to shift slightly towards the front. Half a millisecond after the braking got stiffer, I held on the handrails a bit tighter. Only to let go another millisecond later, assuming that if not, my wrist or my arm could soon point into a slighty uncomfortable direction. Just as I kind of regained control, the lady to my right came closer and closer and … oh, well, lucky enough she did not hit me at full tilt. Nothing against a fair lady on top of yours truly, but let it be another one. Please!

The yellow 40-metre chariot turned awkwardly silent, with the entire population of this microcosmos waiting for things to happen, the tram to make the last ten metres to the station. Things probably lasted five minutes, but in proper football terms, this rather felt like 45. It may have been six or seven minutes even, given the necessity for people to start calling their close ones. Not feeling that need just yet, I tried to have a look outside, where somewhere up front I saw a van in an unconventional position, right on the opposite direction tracks.

Said van soon retreated and the driver swiftly got called over for an open-air meeting over paperwork. Not much bad blood ma'am, but if you are smart enough to put yourself and your van into the tram hit zone, you pretty much deserve a good shellacking out in the breeze. She might argue that her front numberplate got headbutted by that yellow monster that had just eaten 150 humans before. Lucky enough, apart from that, nothing of note happened. As far as the tram and the van are concerned, it was only a kiss.

Fifty shades of grey

While others are just sailing the seven seas of booze and visiting places that make my heart (yes, I do have one!) go wild, I am sitting here in the freezing fog and once more pointing my verbal gun at my sorrows … ;)

It has been a shit few days if you allow me some colourful language. For the first time in what has felt like half a century I found my way out to the airport this week. I arrived there in half sunshine, half fog, expecting the latter to clear, given it was hardly lunchtime still. That grey old bastard had other plans though, but being as optimistic as only I can be out there, I was not yet ready to give up. Meeting a few old friends can make waiting time exciting time too.

That time became longer and longer and to be frankly honest, my friends were about everything I could see. Hats off to those flight crews who made it down in one piece and hats off to those who made the right decision not to force things when maybe they could have and caused trouble in doing so. Flying must have been a nightmare that day and so was taking pictures.

F-GLZR, Air France, A340-300

On the way back I met another old friend of mine and we had a chat over a coffee about what we had just seen - or more essentially, about what we could hardly see in the mist out there. If you have any doubts about that grey rectangle above, this was as bad as things got and let me tell you, it was not only dull, it was windy, moist and freezing!

The next day things did not get better. In fact, they got dramatically worse. This time the talk about courageous flying with hardly any visibility was not the talk of disappointed planespotters, this time death had struck. Over dinner I found out about a homebased Piper PA-34 aircraft that as it would turn out to be crash-landed within the airport boundaries. They say pilots don't die, they just fly away and don't come back. But what exactly can you say if he actually comes back but does not make it from the airport fence to the terminal?

HB-LSD, Piper PA-34, crashed at BSL, 7 Dec 2016

I spent considerable time trying to gather information to have some basic imagination about events. Said information includes straightforward things as maps, weather, radar tracks, but also tougher stuff such as an airband radio transcript from right when the accident happened. To the trained ear, airband radio is nothing special unless there are non-standard proceedings or for those who like it, particular language accents. This time I was listening to a record knowing that one of the voices would suddenly drop out for all the bad reasons. I have listened to the same record again since, but the first go was a really tough one.

Crashes do happen and I do not have any illusions about that whatsoever. It is the particular context that made me slow down just a bit now in this case. Having been just a few hundred metres from the crash site not only the day before, but on so many other occasions, some wild thoughts came across me. What if this had happened on a sunny Sunday afternoon with so and so many people watching live? These are a kind of thoughts that comes up naturally, but should still not lead to knee-jerk reactions. I can definitely assure you that I will be back at the Belvédère, even if there is proof now that the sky may fall down on you.

A night and a day have passed since and the sky has cleared, at least for a few hours. The authorities have done their job and got their evidence on the spot which appeared to look as messy as messy can be. Where exactly on the scale of messiness this will, only they will know for now. As for everyone else, it seems appropriate to take a deep breath and look into the future. Time is moving on and I sincerely hope that the blue skies of today were only the start. I did not go without some more grey though, owing to one of those aircraft that had to avoid the crash site last night and got diverted as far away as Liège in Belgium:

A7-AFV, Qatar Airways Cargo, A330-200F

That basically should have been grey as their aircraft are very grey, but for some reason, this fella decided to show me the belly only …

The last mohican

The last mohican of special-coloured Swiss Avro RJ100s is one HB-IYU in the colours of Star Alliance. All its brothers and sisters in the same design as well as that outfreaked alpine cow parade fella have left the scene. If you want to keep IYU some company or just take a picture of it, follow this post:

Schedule for 08/12/16:

LX442 GVA 0720-0800 LCY
LX443 LCY 0830-1115 GVA

LX2813 GVA 1545-1640 ZRH
LX758 ZRH 1725-1825 LUX
LX759 LUX 1900-1955 ZRH
LX818 ZRH 2055-2210 HAJ

Schedules should usually be available after 19.00 CET, except for when I have no time to take care of them. And yes, they are extremely subject to drastic changes, but please don't blame me for that. ;)

I hate Qantas!

When little Joel first took to the air, he was a little fella who probably knew one train from another, but did not know much about airplanes. So, when he first arrived in Frankfurt, he thought that all those fancy Starlifters and Galaxys on the far side of the runway were from the Swiss Air Force. After all, the term "air force" was mentioned and to his knowledge, there was only one air force in the world.

That Frankfurt place felt like one big jungle and to be honest, things have not changed a great deal since. That airport has just grown bigger, but mind you, there are some other places in the world where an airport is a lot more associated with a nightmare. At least everything was still pointed out in German (so little Joel could read it) and the shopping was awesome. Oh well, yea, the things little Joel could look at, such as model trains and maybe something else, which pretty sure was nowhere near as fancy.

Bedtime approached, but there was no bed to be seen anywhere. Instead it was time to head towards the gate lounge to wait for one massive steel bird to arrive from Paris. Those were the days when one long-haul aircraft would still cover several destinations far away from home. Or en-route, as little Joel was about to find out. Whether little Joel knew about the Jumbo at the time is unknown, but one thing is sure, he does now.

About 24 hours later, little Joel arrived in Sydney, having found a way through a package of pretzels, through some airline catering and surely one or the other can of coke. To be an addict of said deliciously refreshing black poison does not come by chance, one has to start early! Things went as bad an overly-caring flight attendant asking whether it wasn't too early for little Joel to have one of those mean cans at 8am a few weeks later. Little Joel still has not forgiven her.

To imagine that the big cabin screens on aircraft are slowly becoming a dying breed in the wake of the introduction of on-demand entertainment on a personal screen was absolutely unthinkable in those days. To little Joel and many other six-year-olds in this world, being able to watch movies (albeit in that strange language they call English) hour after hour was just great. Particularly if those movies involved intellectual icons such as one Mr. Bean.

I bet, little Joel would never ever have said this:



;)

Dangling the carrot!

Just in case you have been wondering where all the fancy easyJet aircraft with their special colours are flying around, here is the magic list of their current bases, last update 18 September 2017:

A319:

G-EJAR (UNICEF Change for good) -> Bristol (BRS)

G-EZBF (Tartan) -> Milan (MXP)

G-EZBG (Hamburg flag) -> Bristol (BRS)

G-EZBI (Romeo Alpha Juliet - Shakespeare portrait) -> London (STN)
G-EZDL (Europcar) -> Milan (MXP)

G-EZDN (Amsterdam) -> Glasgow (GLA)
G-EZDR (Europcar) -> Berlin (SXF)

G-EZDW (Venezia) -> London (LGW)

G-EZEZ (Napoli) -> Venice (VCE)

G-EZIO (UNICEF Change for good) -> London (STN)

G-EZIW (Linate-Fiumicino per tutti) -> London (LGW)

A320:

G-EZUA (semi-new colours, small titles) ->  London (LGW)

G-EZUG (Moscow) -> Manchester (MAN)

G-EZUI (all orange, 200th Airbus) -> Berlin (SXF)

G-EZOL (250th Airbus) -> Porto (OPO)

G-EZOX (how 20th years have flown) -> London (LGW)

G-EZPC (Europcar) -> Berlin (SXF)

G-EZPD (Europcar) -> London (LGW)
G-UZHA (NEO) -> London (LTN)
G-UZHB (NEO) -> London (LGW)

A click on the registration leads you to a fancy picture of the respective aircraft. Bases can change any time upon short notice, though I really try to keep this as up to date as somehow possible.

Credits go out to all the valuable sources like flightradar24.com, jethros.co.uk or skyliner-aviation.de

Oh and ...

... I did not vote for Trump either.

My election consisted of a bunch of aircraft pictures spread on a table, waiting to be elected into a magazine. Results took a while to be confirmed, with many candidates deemed unsuitable and very few candidates really standing out. Some rather orange stuff (coincidence!) was brushed aside and there were some other candidates of all sorts of colours that split the opinions. In a proper Swiss compromise, some candidates were allowed to join a repechage round that allowed the electors to fill all the spots available.

Add to that an "elephants' round table", where we had a chat over a beer about plane spotting hotel politics (the famous question about guests joining the facilities from outside) and about how to break the old bad photo law by using the means of Photoshop. Unanimous result: increase the quotas for black and white and the landscape will be as green as it has never been before.

You see, just like any given Tuesday ...

Just for the record ...

... I did not vote Clinton.

The friendly giant

There was quite a bit of chatter just recently around my homebase about some friendly giant from Russia. For the first time in a while (almost three years in all) we got to see one of those Antonov An-124 planes, very useful for hauling around big and heavy stuff, but also the kind of aircraft that makes people go absolutely bonkers.

Face it, it is just another aircraft. It has about the same size and weight of a Boeing 747. Its shape and specifiations allow the transport of bulkier and heavier cargo and the fuselage can be lowered in order for the aircraft to be loaded by trucks from ground level. While a cargo 747 is just an adaption of the passenger model, the An-124 obviously had been designed for heavy loads from the beginning.

The 100 metric tonnes of cargo that were supposed to be loaded into our Antonov were not an issue at all. The plane could take another 50 tonnes on board, albeit with a range penalty for every bit of weight added. Flying from Basel to Korea with stops en-route sounds slightly old-school, but for our giant with 100t of cargo on board, it looked a fair deal. So much for all the technical aspects.

RA-82078 of Volga-Dnepr Airlines, Basel-Mulhouse, November 2005

As for the photo romantics out there, as soon as rumours start to spread about "the Antonov" (fyi, there are many other kinds of Antonovs and dozens of most variants out there!), patience is a word that gets deleted from peoples' minds and dictionaries. One question comes after another, as if there were different rules, regulations or conditions for "the Antonov". Any question that is answered by "no" or "I don't know" gets repeated a thousand times. Try to be one of those people in the know in these situations and your life will get utterly painful.

Those asking for things about "the Antonov" will most likely be people who only just recently shot out of the ground. They might be tourists (i.e. traveling from other airports or regions), newbies or a bit of both. Basic knowledge about air operations (and cargo ops in particular) may not be something you should count upon with such people, but even the slightest glimpse of common sense usually seems to be missing. All that results in yours truly having to answer questions about timings, runway use (even if there are hardly more than two proper options), sun position, parking position, the pilots' shoe sizes, their girlfriends' phone numbers as well as the exact vodka preferences of the loading crew.

"Mir wei luege" ("We'll see as we go") is a sentence often used where I come from and implies a relaxed attitude towards just about anything you can encounter in life. Air cargo operations are no different to that. For all the attempted persuasion to make our tourists and newbies believe that the information I gave them was purely indicative and that I still don't have any power in that, of course things had to go wrong on the final straight. The Friday afternoon arrival turned into a Thursday evening arrival. People had taken time off (from work, school or even their boyfriends or wives) to see "the Antonov" and in some cases to no avail. Maybe it teaches them not to get carried away to easily.

Do not get me wrong, I am not against people having fun or their dreams fulfilled (unless those dreams involve the wrong football teams, but that's an entirely different matter). But once more I am glad that the frenzy is over. At least until the next visit of a friendly giant … ;)

Life in 2016

Business news in 2016 - from the busiest places you can imagine straight to your pocket!

Oh well, the upper part was obviously added by myself ... ;)

All naked - all normal!

There is nothing special about nudity. There are even places in this world where most people have seen their boss naked in the sauna and think this is 100% normal. Well, normal for them. To most people, nudity still has this something special attached to it. This counts for aviation as well. No. This is not going to be about flight attendants entering cockpits to apply for the mile-high club. This is about "new-born" aircraft that take to the air with just some protective layers applied to them, but without a proper fancy (or boring for that matter) paint job. It is a phenomenon that can usually be seen around aircraft manufactures like Airbus in Toulouse and Hamburg or Boeing in the US. I am lucky enough to live close to a couple of outfitters of private jets, so I get some exposure to flying nudity every now and then. So, if your average billionaire goes shopping for a new toy, they might initially look like these beauties seen in Bordeaux, France:

Should he however choose to go a bit bigger, he might end up with one of those Boeing Business Jets (the famous BBJs), just like this example that is now flying for the ruling family of Abu Dhabi:

And for I had not seen a proper big one in just its primer colours, this Airbus A330-200 rocked up at my homebase just the other week:

All of this just goes to say that there is absolutely nothing special about nudity. It is just for some bloody reason that people still tend to get a lot more horny about these planes than others … ;)

Afram Island!

One thing about those EURO bandwagons is that you should not jump on too late. My early decision to go for Iceland has been vindicated last night now, with Aron Gunnarsson's blue army beating England to a place in the quarterfinals. In typical nordic understatement, nobody from within that camp in Annecy would have predicted this, but then again, nobody would have said that it was impossible. Now they are off to Saint-Denis again, up against hosts France, with arguably nothing to lose. Their no-nonsense style of play has even impressed my grandma, and I am still not convinced whether she watches football or just footballers' hairdos. At least she knows that there is a difference between football and woodpecking - some TV commentators apparently don't!

Of course I kept supporting my own team, Switzerland, until they were out of the tournament, but once again we seemed to choose a pretty innocuous way of getting out, losing a 50-50 arm wrestle against Poland on a day of football most people would have forgotten already. Unless they are from Poland, Wales or Portugal that is. They say Granit Xhakas ball that he sent wide in the shootout has not been found yet. Wait for it to collide with the missile one Lionel Messi sent out of the Met Life in East Rutherford at the end of the Copa America final against Chile, a testosterone-laden battle that made a few of the EURO games look like womens' games.

Much has been said about Spain and Italy colliding early in the EURO tournament, an occasion that would have made quite a few people chuckle. Though, let's be frank, Spain should have done better than to slip against a Croatian outfit that did not survive against a perennially mediocre Portuguese side and Italy for once were just too good early on to have their R16 destiny in their own hands. Finally, Belgium have finally arrived at the tournament, beating Hungary by plenty and making it look ludicrously easy in the process.

As we look set for another couple of days without our daily dose of the green screen, let's bask in the joy of Icelandic folk. They say, big men don't cry (or similar). Last night I could not help it!

Thor's Army

Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in St-Etienne is usually known as a hell's entrance disguised as a football ground. When the local team of AS St-Etienne plays there, it is also known as the "green cauldron" or as our german friends would probably call it - the green hell. After events last night, we should ask ourselves whether the blue fairies of Iceland changed this.

Icelands's travelling support turned up in vast numbers, making people wonder whether anyone has stayed at home. Quite unusual for a football team's tournament support, families and children were out in style. It seemed as if an entire huge village community went on holiday together, all proudly wearing their blue shirts. And then they all celebrated their anthem, which unlike the Portuguese counterpart is a never-ending chant just about the beauty of a country and not a blood-filled rousing war cry.

The storyline continued on the green pitch of Geoffroy-Guichard, where the men in blue were initially outplayed, conceded a goal to one of those Portuguese Hollywood actors and to add insult to injury, they were discarded by some TV reporters as a bunch of woodpeckers. Fair enough, their tackling style may be agricultural at times, but then again, some of the much hyped sides from South America tend to play the beautiful game just as beautiful.

Portugal being their usual mercurial self, they went off the boil in the second half and Iceland did not take not to capitalize. Birkir Bjarnason, a born hero (he plays for Basel, that's why!), latched onto a cross and put it past the Portuguese keeper for the equalizing goal. And as hard as Portugal, helped by their Turkish friend in the referee's jersey, tried, they did not manage another goal. It may have been a draw, but it felt as if Thor's cast had just beaten Hollywood to the Oscar.

Visiting Vikings

Memories of a lovely time with some wonderful people in Paris are still fresh and it is to make sure they can follow this that I write this in English. I may have been to France, but quite frankly, English seems to be my strongest language these days. Also, I have fresh memories from some funny cat & mouse games with the police in Milan, but do you really want to read about that? Don't think so …

Recent experience has taught me that one of the loveliest areas in Europe, with even lovelier people must definitely be Scandinavia. So, let's talk about Denmark, shall we?

It was last year in July when I got this cheap cheap plane ticket to Copenhagen. I thought this might be a good opportunity to fill some gaps in my plane pictures collection and also a chance to finally get a sniff at visiting Scandinavia again, more than ten years after I had last been there. The way up to Copenhagen was almost boring, apart from the last few minutes on approach to Kastrup where my Helvetic eyes were treated to how they make use of the sea over there.

I made my way out of the airport into the very same approach path very quickly and got a first feel for what they apparently call normal weather. Living lightyears away from the North Sea I rather felt this was gale force wind. Nevermind that, once I was used to it, I had to change my position anyway. The Flyvergrillen on the other side of the airport is much more cosy and wind-protected, but probably the only thing close to a jungle in all of Denmark. None of the pictures taken from there would give that away however.

Firing rounds and rounds with a Canon generally makes one pretty hungry, so I decided to try out one of those nice danish hot-dog sandwiches. They are basically the five-star-deluxe version of what you get back home and should be easy to get there, because the people behind the bar should speak English, right? Everyone does so in Scandinavia, up to the extent that you'd even expect the boss' 13-year old child helping out at the kiosk to do so. Well, that particular girl didn't, but nonetheless, I got my sandwich and my Coke.

***

24 hours later, I had just left my last photography spot to head back to the warm safety of the terminal building. Flight radar information suggested that the plane for my flight back home had just left Basel on time, so I had to be back in the terminal in time too. Expecting a stroll through security I just hastily threw a look at the departures board. London Gatwick Gate 5, London Luton Gate 7, Stockholm Gate 6, Basel Gate … oh hang on … Basel cancelled. I am not one to spread panic if I see that word, but in this case cancelled was not going to mean "no photo", this time it meant "no way home".

Not surprisingly, mere ten years' experience in or around the airline business were now going to pay off. And while I have a habit of being generous to people in immediate need for help in complicated situations, this time it was a case of making hay before anyone else could. Thankfully I did not have to recover any luggage from anywhere and after a few text messages from and to my connection within the airline, I decided to proceed on my own. Proceeding by plane would have cost me an arm, a leg, some more and probably the entire next day. But in the back of my mind I had what I thought was something brilliant.

From running around in the terminal before I knew where the DSB railway counter was. I asked the lady behind the counter if she could get me a ticket for the night train. "Do you think you are the first one today?" she asked back with a dirty smile that beat almost anything that I had seen in Scandinavia before. The price? I did not care, because a) my airline was going to pay for it anyway and b) I was just glad to be in for another 15 hours of pain.

In downtown Copenhagen I did not have much time to lose, so I took a look at the Tivoli, albeit only from the outside and I treated myself to the traditional danish gourmet cathedrals that are McDonalds and Seven-Eleven. A burger, some fries, some danish pastry and some water for the long way down south. I probably paid a fortune for the train and the food, but the experience as a whole? Priceless!

Try Time!

Was hier folgt ist für mich irgendwie einfach schwierig, auf deutsch zu beschreiben, da ich mir meine Rugbymatches immer noch gezwungenermassen entweder auf Französisch oder Englisch reinziehe. Es soll eine Beschreibung dessen sein, was sich letztes Wochenende in den "Headquarters of Rugby", der grossen Arena von Twickenham im Süden Londons abspielte. Und nicht nur dort ...

It doesn't get any bigger - Twickenham is THE place for any important Rugby match. In recent years clashes between England and Australia were a bit one-sided due to the Rose XV's inability to disconnect from a game plan that was to cart up the ball and then give it to their goalkicker. And even in cold November, something different was brewing over Twickenham.

"Archi-comble" sagen die Franzosen dem, wenn das Stadion ausverkauft ist. Und so gehört es sich für einen Wettkampf zwischen Pommies und Aussies. 82000 gehen in "HQ" rein und ebenso viele waren da. Entweder gelb-grün oder weiss-rot. Etwas dazwischen gibts kaum. Wobei ... eigentlich doch. Die Bindungen zwischen den beiden Nationen sind wiederum so eng, dass in jedem ein bisschen Blut des anderen fliesst. Aber da machte am Mittag die Kunde die Runde, dass die Engländer antrazit-grau tragen würden. Ich sagte doch, es wehte ein anderer Wind über Twickenham.

Based on recent results there was no favourite. England had beaten the Wallabies in Sydney in June but only a fortnight ago, die Aussies had stunned the All Blacks of New Zealand in Hong Kong. England were expected to keep it tight around scrums, rucks and mauls. But ... instead of giving a away shedloads of penalties and a yellow card in each half they hit the ground running. And when Chris Ashton cleared Drew Mitchell to score the game-breaking 100m-try for England, he did not only take the roof off Twickenham. Just about any english pub around the world that had the game on must now be a space of open air ...

Es gibt weiss Gott dümmere Beschäftigungen an einem Samstagnachmittag im November. Und nächsten Samstag wieder alles von vorne ... :)

JOELATBSL

One night at ... the airport!

(*räusper* - Aus aktuellem Anlass habe ich mich dazu entschieden, für einmal mich in einer anderen Sprache auszudrücken. Wer also das Gefühl hat, ich hätte mein Deutsch verlernt, der ist zu Recht der Lüge zu verdächtigen.)

Well, Spotters are weird people sometimes. They carry ladders around airports and railway stations. They stay outside even when the weather is more than just awful. And they tend to sleep in airport buildings. Well, at least sometimes they do so.

The story takes us back into last year, when I travelled around the UK and Ireland with a friend of mine. We were a few days at Manchester and we tried to organize a trip to somewhere in between. We chose to fly to Dublin, as the flights were the cheapest available. There was just one problem still to solve: Should we book a hotel or should we try to spend the night, urm, in an other way.

My buddy and I, both around 20 years old at that stage, decided to do it the hard way. We opted to spend the night in the back then sole terminal building of Dublin's Airport. After spending the day around Manchester's Airport, we took our flight at 10pm. In fact, the flight was delayed, so the departure was moved to somewhere around 11pm. Not too bad for us though, as we didn't expect to get much sleep anyway...

After we landed firmly but safe (yea, everyone on board knew that we had touched down) landing we walked an awful long way from the parking position to the immigration and the baggage carousel. We quit the airside area and looked out for a place to hang out. Actually, we didn't expect to see so many people there at midnight. There were no more flights, neither arriving, nor departing. The last stores were about to close and we were accompanied by the sounds of vacuum cleaners and the likes.

To stay on the safe side, it is very helpful if at least one of two guys stays awake. To help not falling asleep, I decided to do a walk outside, around the parking lot and inside, around the terminal. The parking lot wasn't quite a cozy place though. Wind, rain, darkness and the ever repeating tune about not leaving behind any luggage made it very uncomfortable out there. Inside it was packed. Surely a few hundred people were spread all over the floors, lay on all the chairs available and of course, their luggage was kinda spread all over the place.

Around 3 o'clock in the morning, halfway through our short night, I got myself a little update on what's happened in the world. I dropped an e-mail to a buddy home in Switzerland. Only to get an instant reply! I returned to our spot and also got probably an hour's sleep. After a short breakfast (no, I won't explain that any further) we dropped our luggage at the bag storage and took off to the other side of the airport. We waited for the first planes to arrive from overseas and didn't get disappointed.

Dublin was well worth it. Around noon it felt like it was already late in the afternoon, because we had close to no sleep, but the experience of the lively airport at night was indeed a very special one!

Good night ;)

JOELATBSL