London's fancy video cabs


Today's NYC taxicab strike offers up the perfect opportunity to post some pictures I took in a London taxi cab last month.

I was in several cabs during the trip, but only one had backseat video. At first I was ticked off because I thought it was just one long commercial for a poker website. Then I realized there were channel controls. There were several channel options, including CNBC Europe in realtime, as well as what I think were offerings from BBC comedy archives.

You could also turn the sound off completely.

Labels: london, pictures

- posted by Amy @ 9/05/2007 10:42:00 AM

 
Pictures from the England trip

Before we head off to see my family in Oregon for a week, thought I'd share a few from the trip visiting the in-laws in England.



Platform 9 and three-quarters at King's Cross now has a baggage cart pushed half-way through to Harry Potter land.



Down in Churchill's WWII bunker, this is how you found out what the weather was like above ground.



This year we did a tour of the Peterborough Cathedral just before sunset, so the light was especially amazing. Also learned about the scandalous relic-stealing perpetrated by those crazy monks. In Peterborough, they built a watchtower inside the cathedral to prevent the Ely monks from again stealing the relics that Peterborough had in turned stolen from elsewhere.



And a little London bridge.

Labels: london, pictures

- posted by Amy @ 8/22/2007 09:12:00 AM

 
British Airways not your bag?


The Wall Street Journal's "Middle Seat" column today by Scott McCartney takes on British Airways atrocious bag handling system -- but with a far less passionate pen than the Brit papers did earlier this month when we were there.

The Telegraph had a package of stories from the auction house where British Airways takes all the luggage it's given up on trying to return to its customers. Supposedly BA gives those profits to charity.

From today's WSJ:

British Airways, the world's second-largest airline in international passenger traffic, mishandled 28 bags per 1,000 passengers in the second quarter this year, a rate that is twice as bad as the worst U.S. major airline, US Airways Group Inc. In all, British Airways has lost the bags of more than 550,000 customers in the first half of this year.

For our part this trip, we had no problems with bags, security or delays (except that the pilot announced we'd have to sit at the gate an extra 10 minutes before the U.S. TSA approved the final passenger list.) However, we're now in the habit of getting to Heathrow several hours earlier than necessary to allow for problems. And as another Brit paper pointed out, BAA, the Spanish-owned operator of all the main London airports, has been criticized for devoting too much of the airport to retail shops and not enough to expanding space for say, security checkpoints, customs, and oh baggage. While we were spending a lot of quality time at the British Airways lounge last week, we had a full view of a stretch of the baggage handlers at "work." They were so leisurely at their pace, even sending down a pot of tea probably wouldn't have slowed them down further.

Labels: london

- posted by Amy @ 8/21/2007 07:22:00 AM

 
New fun for old Heathrow

It seems like there is always some sort of transportation crisis every August we are heading off to Heathrow to return to New York. We've had wildcat strikes by check-in staff, scheduled strikes by airline food-service workers, last year it was the emergency no-hand-luggage-at-all except for a see-through plastic bag scare, and before all that there was a massive petrol shortage.

This year, it's a batch of confused little anarchists who are hoping to win over hearts and minds by reportedly "planning bomb hoaxes and assaults on Heathrow's security fence." Their cause: stop traveling by airplanes because it's bad for the environment.

So depending on the normal Heathrow crisis, I may (or may not) be back in NYC by Wednesday evening.

It's worth quoting from my archives from last summer, as I'm always surprised how many people I talk to in NY never knew how crazy it got in London last year. From Aug. 15, 2006:

The good news is that our flight from Heathrow to JFK (12 and a half hours from now) hasn't yet been cancelled and we will probably be able to take our laptops on board rather than hastily stuff them into our luggage while standing in some horrendous line at the airport.

The bad news is that accurate information is impossible to find.

I've just received e-mail from a friend in the U.S. who had no idea the UK had banned laptops in planes for the past several days. And a couple days ago, I read NY Post and Daily News stories online saying things were back to normal for all flights arriving to New York. Yet a third of all flights out of Heathrow (many going to NYC) were completely canceled and the papers here carried stories about tanks at airports, check-in lines snaking out to the car parks (passengers were given plastic ponchos since they had to wait in the rain,) and people being forced to throw away their iPods, cell phones and just-purchased duty free goods at the gate because the rules had suddenly changed mid-day and if they wanted to check those items into the plane's cargo, it would mean missing the plane.

Labels: london

- posted by Amy @ 8/14/2007 04:18:00 AM

 
Pictures from the UK trip

A couple interesting things from the camera phone in the past week:

A sign posted above an ATM in Peterborough, England notes that HSBC has a number accounts that are compliant with Shariah, Islamic law:




Here's one that should amuse the readers of Curbed. Just next door to King's Cross Station in London, they've been doing a major restoration of St. Pancras that later this year should open as a mega-transportation, living and dining complex. Of course the deluxe residential spaces (and hotel!) are being developed by ... the Manhattan Loft Corporation.



Oh, and now London has their own squeegie men, though the picture isn't so great as I didn't get the camera out until after a guy in a convertible had shooed them away:

Labels: london, nyc

- posted by Amy @ 2/18/2007 09:06:00 AM

 
Chocolate sea salted caramel

One more special little thing about the flight home yesterday. My British Airways meal came with a three-pack of chocolates from L'artisan du Chocolat's O Collection. The mint and fruit coulis-filled ones were nice, but the liquid sea salted caramel was absolutely outstanding.

The box says they're made in London: 89 Lower Sloane Street.

Oh my, according to the website, you can also buy a box of them in truffle size.

Labels: chocolate, london

- posted by Amy @ 2/18/2007 08:49:00 AM

 
'Rock N Roll' on Broadway, Czech style

Oh my, here is some exceptionally good news. While I was away, Variety reported that Tom Stoppard's "Rock N Roll" will come to Broadway this fall.

Martin and I saw it in London last summer and loved, loved, loved it. It's brilliant beyond words, heartbreaking and should be mandatory viewing for all you Czechophiles who were caught up in the post-'89 East Euro revolutionary madness.

So seriously think about planning yourself a fall trip to NYC just to see this play.

Labels: broadway, czech, london, nyc

- posted by Amy @ 2/18/2007 07:14:00 AM

 
For the Brits ...

From today's coverage about Prince Charles and his wife's visit to NYC yesterday:

“He’s rich and he rules in England,” Alhamodou Nimaga, 12, said of Prince Charles. And the duchess? “Oh, so she’s Dutch.”-- New York Times

And two from the Post:

Arona Pratt, the mother of another player, said, "I think it's great. My son was up all night waiting for this. They [the royals] looked much nicer in person than they do on TV." ...

"All the time he was shaking my hand I thought, 'Should I do a book report on him for my social-studies class?' "

Labels: london, nyc

- posted by Amy @ 1/29/2007 09:59:00 AM