What’s the point of going on vacation? Seriously: Watching the chaos unfold in ports and airports makes me feel so bad for all those poor families trapped for hours in the sweltering heat, poor lost souls trapped in the purgatory of French border control.
And it’s not just the restrictions on passenger numbers at major hubs like Heathrow, or people being picked up from flights, or the six-hour queues in Calais.
It’s everything else too: the self-important border guards, the jobworth security personnel who make you feel dirty for accidentally forgetting your lip gloss in the plastic bag provided, or triggering metal detectors with the underwire in your bra, or dare to ask if it might be possible not to rummage through your underpants for the entire airport.
It’s not just the restrictions on passenger numbers at major hubs like Heathrow, or people being picked up from flights, or the six-hour queues in Calais. It’s all the rest too
The train cancellations, fare increases, endless strikes, overpriced shops, ripped off food on the plane, double baggage scams, annoying online forms, e-tickets, the fact that when something goes wrong – which it always does – you are more likely to find conscious life on Uranus than to talk to a human.
And all for what? So you can sit on the beach with all the people you were trying to get away from in the first place, worrying about how long it will take you to get home — or even if you ever will.
Staycationing isn’t much better. Water companies are pumping untreated wastewater into designated seaside resorts and rivers (more than 25,000 times by 2021, according to the Environment Agency).
Grumpy locals, enraged by inflated house prices driven by second-home owners and buy-to-Airbnb landlords, congested highways slash-death, courtesy of the Highways Agency’s murderous push to remove hard shoulders and replace them with so-called ‘smart’ highways.
As for ‘letting the train do the work’, forget it: astronomical fares make £2 a liter of petrol a bargain, and that’s if you can find a service that hasn’t been canceled by strikes or derailed by some form of light bad weather .
What’s the point of going on vacation? Seriously: Watching the chaos unfold in ports and airports makes me feel so bad for all those poor families trapped for hours in the blistering heat, poor lost souls trapped in the purgatory of French border control
The truth is that the corporations and government agencies (don’t get me started on the ongoing mess of passport offices) tasked with running our basic infrastructure are either incompetent, lazy, venal, or stupid – or a combination of all of the above.
This may not matter much, while we’re all hard at work like good little drones, busily replenishing the coffers so they can waste even more of our money on even more dead-end projects (run by even more incompetents) like HS2, or turn London into a gigantic smoke-spitting car park with cycle paths causing traffic jams.
But when we decide to break free, however briefly, for some well-deserved R&R, that’s when the problems begin.
There just isn’t the capacity. No margin for error. Everything is already stretched to the breaking point, meaning even the slightest load on the system – be it border controls, roads, or even just an unreliable internet connection – and the whole show comes to a halt.
And it’s always hard-working people who suffer because they can’t just hop on a private jet like Kylie Jenner (who took a 17-minute flight this week), or Prince Harry, or any of the other gun-grade hypocrites who teach us all. read from their ivory towers.
This Friday I would travel to France for a week. I was planning to fly to Toulouse, but anticipating chaos at the airports, I decided to drive and take the ferry.
Now it even seems that madness lies. Instead, I’m tempted to cancel the cat sitter, order a case of Whispering Angel rosé, stock up on Camembert and frozen baguettes, and spend the week rereading Peter Mayle. Possibly the best vacation I’ve ever had.
There just isn’t the capacity. No margin for error. Everything is already stretched to the breaking point, meaning even the slightest load on the system – be it border controls, roads, or even just an unreliable internet connection – and the whole show comes to a halt.
Former Strictly dancer Ola Jordan has spoken of being shocked by her ‘mum bod’ after posting a photo of herself in a bikini online. On closer inspection, the photo shows a perfectly normal-shaped woman with, yes, maybe just a little bit of belly. ‘Mum-bid’ my foot. If I had such a good grade, you’d never hear the end of it. Ola’s fitness DVD is undoubtedly in the pipeline.
Zac is wrong about this mob
Zac Goldsmith is a good guy and I respect his opinion. But I disagree with him about Extinction Rebellion. The Tory colleague believes their tactics are working and that their actions are a reflection of “real fear” the public is feeling about global warming. No they do not.
Extinction Rebellion is a far-left mob that relentlessly takes advantage of the threat of climate change — and, yes, people’s concerns about it — to pursue a destructive, quasi-anarchist agenda. They don’t care about saving the planet. They just want to control us all. In other words, they are climate terrorists and should be treated as such.
Most lottery winners indulge in extravagances that they later regret. But not Lee and Helen Kuchczynski, who won £3.6m in the EuroMillions lottery. Their first purchase was a £17 scraper, and Lee meekly suggested he could take his wife to Matalan or ‘go to Marks & Spencer’. Something tells me it’s going to be okay.
Run away Renee!
I loved Bridget Jones in her Chardonnay-guzzling heyday: she was very much of her time. But do we really want to see her as an exhausted single mom? Apparently so, if it’s true that Renée Zellweger, left, will be reprising her role in a fourth installment of the movie franchise. Now What, Bridget: The Menopause Years?
They might be reenacting a great Hollywood love story while honeymooning in Paris, but do Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck really need to chew each other’s faces in public all the time? And as for kissing in front of their teenage children, doesn’t that amount to child abuse?
Art, good wine and good food are the secrets of longevity,” said WW2 pilot Harry Gamper, who celebrated his 102nd birthday last week. Sure. Photos of Harry show that he barely looks a day older than 80. Many happy returns.
I can’t imagine how desperate someone must be when they feel they have no choice but to slit the throat of their terminally ill husband of 40 years. But that’s what Graham Mansfield did to his wife Dyanne (both 73) before he unsuccessfully attempted suicide. Subsequently tried for murder, he is acquitted. But this case nonetheless highlights the terrible dilemma for those who face a long and painful death. It is time to introduce options to ensure that no one ever has to take such desperate measures again.
The BBC should be sued
Not only did Martin Bashir ruin Tiggy Legge Bourke’s life when he whispered poison in Diana’s ear about her pregnancy from Charles, he also destroyed a piece of the princess’ sanity. Can you imagine the commotion if a newspaper had behaved so viciously? And yet the BBC gets away with an apology and £200,000 in compensation. Charles Spencer is right: it’s not good enough. Those involved should be criminally prosecuted.
A new report shows that health expenditure in the UK is around £10,000 per household, despite the results being among the worst in Europe. In other words, the NHS is losing money faster than the government can pump into it. The only way to improve things is to radically overhaul the way the service is run – but why are so few politicians bold enough to have a plan to drag this bloated, inefficient beast of an NHS into the 21st century? ?
● They might be playing a Great Hollywood Love Story while on their honeymoon in Paris, but is it really necessary for Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck to chew each other’s faces off in public all the time? And as for kissing in front of their teenage children, doesn’t that amount to child abuse?