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Messages from Madeira 27 October 2008

Posted in Life.

Mrs Alcock at 0500 with Thompson, airline of desperation

I hate cheap airlines

Alarm wakes me up at 0430, I cant believe check in is at 0500. Of course this is an honourable time to get in; a dishonourable time of the day to rise.

Even at that this time Manchester airport is packed with people starting the half term holidays; it's a bloody zoo. We arrive at check in.

Our group of four try to check three bags; we had only booked two. They weigh all the luggage (including hand luggage) and announce that the extra weight is £115. Thompson use 'Serviceair' in Manchester to 'handle' their hapless 'customers' and therefore it was pointless shouting at them. We pay; I am pissed off...

What happens if you get a really 'big' passenger. Do they charge them a fat supplement? No do they buggery.

A few months ago we were exposed to Ryan Air when we were running a Diving Expedition to Sardinia. It looks cheap at the beginning but then as you proceed through the booking form it mounts up.

Q. Do you want to check-in?

A. Definitely: £7.50 per person.

Q Do you want a seat?

A. Yes: £30 please

Q. Do you want to take luggage?

Yes: another £15.

Q. Do you want the facility to use the toilets on the aircraft?

A. Errr, yes

Q. How many times?

A. (I think) That's a bargain at £3.00 per piss...

Q. You may want to do do a #2!!!

A. What time's the flight? 0700, quite possibly. That will be £10 per pooh, but (special offer) if you have more than three in one flight you get a 50% discount on the third and subsequent ones (terms and conditions apply).

Cant wait to buy my boat...

Starving

Stupidly, I had nothing to eat following my business lunch in London yesterday and Angela and I are starving.

We queue for breakfast on the 'air side' of Manchester Terminal 2. We are so hungry we consume it without thinking what we are eating. On reflection the £26.98 bought us sausages which were mostly meal and flaccid bacon that had clearly been full or water. I am sure the chickens that popped out those eggs were packed together like breeze blocks.

So much for my ethical buying stance...

Hire cars

My mate Rennie is 6'5". We arrive at the Europcar desk in Madeira airport and are faced with a deeply tanned, Madeirense temptress...

"Good morning"

"Good morning"

"I would like to rent a car please"

"OK"

"I am tall, what's the biggest car you have?

"Its a Seat."

"A Seat what?"

"A Seat Ibiza, its has five doors."

"I am very tall"

She smiles sweetly...

"Thats the biggest, right"

'Right"

"OK, we will have one of them"

Rennie Alcock in Seat Ibiza

We arrive at the car in bay 168. Four adults and a weekends luggage (plus all my business stuff from the meetings in London the day before). Ren gets in the 'Ibiza', he look like Quasi Modo, hunched over the steering wheel. His knees are touching the dashboard and has his seat so far back Anne, sitting behind him, has her knees on her forehead.

We all laugh and set off.

Ren wrestles with brute power of the thing. It's a devil machine, five on the floor and a monster under the bonnet.

Madeira is very, very mountainous and he manipulated the gear lever as if he was stirring a risotto. Could it be that he was trying to contain the awesome torque and achieve maximum performance, or was it just an underpowered piece of crap which was totally unsuited to the terrain?

Moral of the story. Car rental agents are the same as estate agents. Sea view (you need the Hubble telescope to see it). Appropriate sized car (they only have one size and it fits all based on short, Spanish blokes who live on a flat island).

1 comment

greg on 06 Nov 2008 at 11:09

Very funny post mate, although I like cheap airlines - they’ve never seemed to mind me and my mates being slightly inebriated and chatting up the hostesses on various european flights. They’re also very short (because of the very nature of cheap-flights) and the less time spent in a flying box, the better.

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