Jon Worth

Analysis

What is it about my visits to The Netherlands?

I’m jinxed. Whenever I travel to The Netherlands, things always go wrong. I’m sat writing this on the slowest train I’ve been on for quite a few years. It’s the small local service between Maastricht and Liège,

Analysis

Motivation of London bus drivers

I've spent far too long this weekend on London buses, first of all on the torturously slow 341 bus route on the way back from Ikea in Edmonton, and then today on a variety of different routes, including route 171 of London General (pictured).The driver of the

Analysis

Autumn Fog

I’m sat writing this at Stockholm Arlanda airport; I’m stranded here all day today as my flight to London was cancelled due to a technical fault with the aircraft. It’s my last visit to Stockholm for some time, and I will

Analysis

New iris technology and a delightfully old-fashioned airline

Seems quite rare, but I actually have some positive experiences to report when flying! I have just flown to and from Bucharest with TAROM, it was really quite passable. A cooked meal is served, even in economy, and it looks like a small company in Romania manufactured everything; no Gategourmet

Analysis

Sheer incompetence from SAS

On the face of it, overbooking aircraft seems to make perfect sense. Not every person is going to turn up for a flight, so why worry? Well, more often that not, more than the required number of people does turn up. For the 2005 departure this evening from Stockholm Arlanda

Analysis

Life vest under your seat

Each time you fly the cabin staff encourages you to listen carefully to the safety demonstration on board aircraft type XYZ. I seem to fly so often with Ryanair Boeing 737-800 series planes that I could probably do the safety briefing myself. But ask yourself this. Have you ever really

Analysis

All 5 London airports, and then the real world

The blog has been a bit quiet recently as I have spent the last 6 days in Sweden; 4 of those days were in a small house close to Nyköping in the countryside with no internet connection. But today I'm back in London, and it's back

Analysis

Plane pilots: a uniquely male preserve?

It dawned on me when en route from Stockholm to Heathrow with British Airways this morning that I don't think I have ever flown in a plane piloted by a woman. I fly far more than I really ought to, and have perhaps taken 50 or so return

Analysis

Green Line 757: price discrimination

There's always some source of frustration when flying with Ryanair, and returning from Stockholm to Luton Airport yesterday evening was no exception. The flight was fine and even the luggage arrived fast. The problem is with the Green Line coach to and from Luton Airport. I can'

Analysis

One railway replies to my complaint. But will anything change?

I write in this post a few weeks ago about the problems with the Stansted Express train service. After One Railway's own deadline to reply to complaints I have received the following answer: Dear Mr Worth, Thanks for writing.  I am sorry for the delay in our response.

Analysis

Feeling bad about being right

I've mentioned the problems with the Stansted Express train in this blog before... If you arrive at Stansted late on a Sunday evening, it is impossible to connect with the last Victoria Line underground service going southbound. Unfortunately, the staff in the train insist that connections are indeed

Analysis

Bag on the bus

Some of the signs displayed in the London Underground rightly state that the best way to get to grips with a terrorist threat is for every individual to be vigilant and to look out for left luggage etc. But the question now in my mind is whether the people of

Analysis

Pressure problems for kids in planes, and Will Hutton

The flight back from Berlin was a bit better than the journey there - no annoying fellow passengers, and I managed to get from the plane and into the train in less than 5 minutes at Stansted - surely a record! So I managed to get the last tube from

Analysis

How can I reduce my emissions?

I like to consider myself vaguely green - I don't own a car, I recycle all I can, turn off the lights when I leave a room, and even have some low energy lightbulbs. But all of this is wiped out by two factors: I fly far too

Analysis

Cyclists & red traffic lights

It's one of the most infuriating things about cycling in London: the behaviour of other cyclists, and specifically their tendency to completely ignore red traffic lights. I stumbled across this entry at the Black Triangle blog about this matter. The author - Anthony Cox - is opposed to

Analysis

Deception on the way to Stockholm

OK, travelling with budget airlines is never pleasant. But yesterday on the way to Stockholm it made me really angry. First of all the bus - the Green Line 757 service from London Victoria to Luton Airport. I get on the bus and ask for a return to Luton, and

Analysis

Bus etiquette

It was almost exactly a year ago when I was shouted at on a bus in Brussels for not having left my seat in favour of a pensioner. I was in the wrong then and had not really been concentrating. Since then I have aimed to pay the utmost attention

Analysis

No to scanners at railway stations

What a ludicrous idea. The government has announced that it is going to start a pilot to install bag-scanners in some railway stations, starting with Heathrow Express departures from Paddington - see this from the BBC. Now, UK railway stations are already crowded enough with the cumbersome ticket barriers that

Belgium

Finally home - journeys should not be like this!

You sometimes have to ask yourself whether anything else could possibly go wrong on a journey. I have had just about anything and everything over the past 22 hours. The fog at Baden Airpark was so thick yesterday evening that it almost looked like it was snowing under the floodlights.

Quick takes

OK, being community spirited is not such a good idea

On my wave of being socially responsible in London (see this post), I decided to do the same again and try to prevent my fellow passengers on the Stansted Express last night getting stuck at Tottenham Hale. But this time I encountered opposition and inaction. Maybe that will teach me

Analysis

A small good deed in Lambeth

When cycling home this evening from Waterloo towards Clapham, it soon became clear there was a major problem - no traffic southbound from Lambeth Bridge all the way to the Vauxhall Cross roundabout. Turned out there had been an accident there - quite serious, and apparently a fatality according to

Analysis

Ken Livingstone and the genius of Oyster

Shock horror! Tube and bus fares in London are going up again. Oh, no, they are not actually. Everyone has been ranting today that a Zone 1 tube fare will hit ??3 for a single - more than 3 times as much as Paris. But on the other hand, make

Analysis

The London Underground: some practical ways to improve it

I do my best to cycle to and from work regularly, partly because it keeps you fit, but partly because the London Underground is the only other reliable option to get from Clapham to Westminster. The system is old, and expensive and hot to travel on in summer. Those things