What if airlines charged passengers by their weight?
This horrible idea* was first suggested by my Latin teacher at school. She was four feet ten in shoes and I'm sure had to have her clothes specially made, since size 6 didn't really exist when I was at school. I could completely understand it from her point of view: she'd do better out of it.
So might the airlines. Lighter passengers require less fuel to transport, presumably. In those enormous A303s that carry nearly 1000 people, those few extra kilos a percentage of them are carrying are really going to make a difference. More cargo could be carried if the airline was clear on the weight of the passengers ahead of time, possibly leading to less flights and therefore a reduction in emissions.
How would it work, though? Would you be weighed when you booked your flight and have to pay extra then? Or would they charge everyone the same and then weigh you at check in and add a surcharge at that point? Since generally people try to lose weight for their holidays I think the second way would be fairer, though perhaps less useful if you want to know total passenger weight in time to add extra cargo.
How would it affect travel patterns? Fatter people would have to diet hard, save for longer or make do with staycations and cruises. Perhaps multinational countries would promote lighter people to positions that involve travel, whilst simultaneously looking at videoconferencing for their portlier employees.
I can see that weighing people and charging for extra pounds would cause enormous outcry. It's quite negative. The best way to introduce a new idea is to turn it on its head and look at the positive side: more incentive for people to lose weight. So perhaps lighter people could be allowed more baggage. Perhaps if you are a light couple, one of you gets to travel free (as long as you share your meal) since then that seat won't be taken up by a fatty who's weighing the plane down.
You know, I feel like I'm doing Stelios's job for him. How long before the bucket airlines adopt my policy? I want free flights for life, you know. And I won't be disclosing my weight, either.
* As an overweight lover of travel with family on three continents, I find it horrible.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Tuesday Ten
Ten links that I have liked
(This post is ANCIENT. I started writing it 18 months ago and only just found it again. So, some of the links are a little old now. But still cool.)
1. Whales hunting squid
2. Darfur in the rainy season - well, lots of Darfur pictures. The rainy season one was my favourite.
3. Plastic ship - must go and see how he got on!
4. Yosemite Nature Notes - Wildflowers - a video. Beautiful flowers!
5. Northern Lights
6. Freestyle skiing at the winter Olympics - endless time suck!
7. BBC drops climate change episode of Frozen Planet for overseas market - this series is just amazing, and having one less episode is their loss
8. Ten Rules for Fat Girls - some excellent advice here for the more corpulent among us
9. Pink Gin Marmalade
10. Tim Minchin singing White Wine In The Sun. He sang this live on Radio 1 on the drive home yesterday and I was really taken with it.
(This post is ANCIENT. I started writing it 18 months ago and only just found it again. So, some of the links are a little old now. But still cool.)
1. Whales hunting squid
2. Darfur in the rainy season - well, lots of Darfur pictures. The rainy season one was my favourite.
3. Plastic ship - must go and see how he got on!
4. Yosemite Nature Notes - Wildflowers - a video. Beautiful flowers!
5. Northern Lights
6. Freestyle skiing at the winter Olympics - endless time suck!
7. BBC drops climate change episode of Frozen Planet for overseas market - this series is just amazing, and having one less episode is their loss
8. Ten Rules for Fat Girls - some excellent advice here for the more corpulent among us
9. Pink Gin Marmalade
10. Tim Minchin singing White Wine In The Sun. He sang this live on Radio 1 on the drive home yesterday and I was really taken with it.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Today I wished I was...
Here, staying in a beach hut by the Great Southern Ocean, and getting up to walk on the beach and paddle in the water and spot migrating whales, before going back to bed with my Kindle and a massive mug of ginger and lemon tea with Manuka honey to soothe my tetchy throat.Monday totally kicked my arse. Only four more work Mondays left in 2011!
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Sunday baking: Banana Blondies
I made banana blondies today out of Short and Sweet. For those not in the know, blondies appear to be brownies made with white chocolate. These also contained bananas and a painstakingly home made brazil nut caramel.
You'd be forgiven for thinking these don't look anything like brownies. Actually, this is what they look like when you forget to put the sugar in.
#bakingfail
You'd be forgiven for thinking these don't look anything like brownies. Actually, this is what they look like when you forget to put the sugar in.
#bakingfail
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Weeknote: 12/11
This week, I have been mostly....
Knitting:
As predicted last week, I spent this week knitting cones for yule trees out of Cascade. Buying six skeins of Cascade might have been a bit ambitious, but I am certainly going to get a variety of colours so I can mix and match. My intention is to have enough cones for six trees, which is 18. I would like to have a variety of knitted seasonal items for decoration at home: pumpkins, knitted fairy lights, maybe something Easter themed....but this is a bit of a pipe dream because I don't even have time to make a proper list of things. Maybe one day. The yule trees are a start.
Going to:
On Monday I had a course in Clifton and got to do a bit of shopping up there (after being called a gorgeous young lady by an evidently blind man at the bus stop). I went into Kitchens looking for a brownie tin and was amazed to find it a veritable cavern of baking and cooking supplies. In fact, I was in there for so long I had to put down the items I'd selected, leave the shop and find a loo before I could finish my browsing and make my purchases.
On Tuesday I whimpered my way through the first spinning class I've attended in three weeks. I barely made it. The final songs were painfully loud; afterwards the intructor told us she had been medically diagnosed as a bit deaf, which gave her an excuse to turn the music up loud. I have to wonder whether she caused this problem for herself.
And on Friday, I had dinner at grounded with my lovely Bristol ladyfriends, Aliboo, Parpy Jo and Crabby. I may have drunk too much wine. It was nice.
Eating:
More Bento, more overnight oats, and rather a lot of cake. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had a new recipe for the slow cooker to try but then completely forgot to set it up.
We did have ostrich stir fry for dinner tonight, though. My butcher has taken to keeping a small stock of exotic meats and one little packet of ostrich goes a long way. It's very tasty, too.
Learning:
More about the American West. And more. And more. This is the topic of my revision text book and I am up to my eyes in the problems of the homesteaders. I have decided to bin the plan put forward by the publisher lady and write all the content first, before going back and adding in all the revision activities and the stuff that actually takes all the time to devise. It's going well so far, as you can probably tell by this rather chatty blog entry; my house is looking tidier by the hour.
What I'm finding frustrating about this task is that all my AmWest textbooks say the same thing. All the information has come from the research of whoever wrote the first textbook, I'm sure of it. I don't, therefore, like using these as sources of information; there may be four books, but if the original had a mistake or left out a fact because they didn't think it was important, then the others will too. That feels like bad writing to me. Hence, I am probably overegging it, but I am doing quite a lot of reading from tinternet to supplement what's in the textbooks.
Obsessed by:
The old theme from my final year uni course on travel writing, about how identities and beliefs can be created by the writings of a very small number of people. It's not just this book I'm writing that's brought this into focus for tme this week, either. Is it laziness or ignorance that stops historians from rummaging through primary documents and making their own conclusions? If they're looking at a country where a different language is spoken, I could understand it, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be an excuse.
I've been doing a lot of doomy thinking about the ramifications of this kind of lazy researching.
Entertained by:
I've spent all this week desperately trying to get on top of my marking so the weekend would be free for writing, so I haven't had a great deal of time to be entertained by anything, though I have enjoyed catching up with Dancing With The Stars. That Maks is a total butthead. Every series he loses his temper and his partner stands there simpering as he rants, all like "Oh my partner is such a bad boy, what can I do, eh?" I'll tell you what you can do - turn around and tell him to stop being such a butthead.
But then I saw how he basically slapped Hope Solo and tossed her around like a ragdoll in the preparation for the first team dance and I wondered if I'd be brave enough to tell it like it is. At least on live TV I'd have plenty of witnesses.
Feeling:
Ever-so-slightly out of my depth. It'll pass though, I'm sure.
Knitting:
As predicted last week, I spent this week knitting cones for yule trees out of Cascade. Buying six skeins of Cascade might have been a bit ambitious, but I am certainly going to get a variety of colours so I can mix and match. My intention is to have enough cones for six trees, which is 18. I would like to have a variety of knitted seasonal items for decoration at home: pumpkins, knitted fairy lights, maybe something Easter themed....but this is a bit of a pipe dream because I don't even have time to make a proper list of things. Maybe one day. The yule trees are a start.
Going to:
On Monday I had a course in Clifton and got to do a bit of shopping up there (after being called a gorgeous young lady by an evidently blind man at the bus stop). I went into Kitchens looking for a brownie tin and was amazed to find it a veritable cavern of baking and cooking supplies. In fact, I was in there for so long I had to put down the items I'd selected, leave the shop and find a loo before I could finish my browsing and make my purchases.
On Tuesday I whimpered my way through the first spinning class I've attended in three weeks. I barely made it. The final songs were painfully loud; afterwards the intructor told us she had been medically diagnosed as a bit deaf, which gave her an excuse to turn the music up loud. I have to wonder whether she caused this problem for herself.
And on Friday, I had dinner at grounded with my lovely Bristol ladyfriends, Aliboo, Parpy Jo and Crabby. I may have drunk too much wine. It was nice.
Eating:
More Bento, more overnight oats, and rather a lot of cake. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had a new recipe for the slow cooker to try but then completely forgot to set it up.
We did have ostrich stir fry for dinner tonight, though. My butcher has taken to keeping a small stock of exotic meats and one little packet of ostrich goes a long way. It's very tasty, too.
Learning:
More about the American West. And more. And more. This is the topic of my revision text book and I am up to my eyes in the problems of the homesteaders. I have decided to bin the plan put forward by the publisher lady and write all the content first, before going back and adding in all the revision activities and the stuff that actually takes all the time to devise. It's going well so far, as you can probably tell by this rather chatty blog entry; my house is looking tidier by the hour.
What I'm finding frustrating about this task is that all my AmWest textbooks say the same thing. All the information has come from the research of whoever wrote the first textbook, I'm sure of it. I don't, therefore, like using these as sources of information; there may be four books, but if the original had a mistake or left out a fact because they didn't think it was important, then the others will too. That feels like bad writing to me. Hence, I am probably overegging it, but I am doing quite a lot of reading from tinternet to supplement what's in the textbooks.
Obsessed by:
The old theme from my final year uni course on travel writing, about how identities and beliefs can be created by the writings of a very small number of people. It's not just this book I'm writing that's brought this into focus for tme this week, either. Is it laziness or ignorance that stops historians from rummaging through primary documents and making their own conclusions? If they're looking at a country where a different language is spoken, I could understand it, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be an excuse.
I've been doing a lot of doomy thinking about the ramifications of this kind of lazy researching.
Entertained by:
I've spent all this week desperately trying to get on top of my marking so the weekend would be free for writing, so I haven't had a great deal of time to be entertained by anything, though I have enjoyed catching up with Dancing With The Stars. That Maks is a total butthead. Every series he loses his temper and his partner stands there simpering as he rants, all like "Oh my partner is such a bad boy, what can I do, eh?" I'll tell you what you can do - turn around and tell him to stop being such a butthead.
But then I saw how he basically slapped Hope Solo and tossed her around like a ragdoll in the preparation for the first team dance and I wondered if I'd be brave enough to tell it like it is. At least on live TV I'd have plenty of witnesses.
Feeling:
Ever-so-slightly out of my depth. It'll pass though, I'm sure.
Friday, 11 November 2011
Weekword: Tea
Emma at the Gift Shed offered this week's word.
When people ask, I usually say I don't like tea. That's not strictly true. I don't like black tea made with milk - so, tea in the traditional sense. Apparently there was a time when I was small that I did, and I did go through a phase at uni where I drank it at work because I had a leetle crush on the man who checked in the deliveries and used it as an excuse to go and hang out with him; but I won't drink it for preference. This is probably because I don't like milk, and if I have black tea, well, black, then it makes me feel a bit sick.
However, I do like other tea. I like white tea, green tea, fruit tea, nettle tea, mint tea....and when I visited the tea plantation in Malaysia I realised I really liked their orange pekoe tea, too. Perhaps it's a freshness thing. I prefer tea like that brewed lightly and drunk while it's still really hot; unlike coffee, which I often leave until almost cold before drinking. I still drink coffee over tea all the time though.
The problem is, I like all the tea paraphernalia. I love tea pots, tea cosies, strainers and infusers in interesting shapes, cake stands, scones with cream, dainty sandwiches with no crusts, pretty tea cups and saucers (which will always remind me of my nanna) and, of course, cake. I like the ritual of making and serving tea and how it takes time to do tea properly, and therefore you have time for chatting.
Here's a good Flickr group called A Cup Of Tea, which I like to look at from time to time; and here is a song I love, all about tea. It's by Zoe Lewis, and unfortunately it's not on YouTube, but you can listen to a little sample on Amazon and I urge you to buy it, because she's great and this song is lovely. I was introduced to her music when I was living in the US and I can relate to this one particularly, which is a little bit about being an ex-pat and longing for homely things.
Be sure to visit Emma for a look at what everyone else had to say about tea this week!
When people ask, I usually say I don't like tea. That's not strictly true. I don't like black tea made with milk - so, tea in the traditional sense. Apparently there was a time when I was small that I did, and I did go through a phase at uni where I drank it at work because I had a leetle crush on the man who checked in the deliveries and used it as an excuse to go and hang out with him; but I won't drink it for preference. This is probably because I don't like milk, and if I have black tea, well, black, then it makes me feel a bit sick.
However, I do like other tea. I like white tea, green tea, fruit tea, nettle tea, mint tea....and when I visited the tea plantation in Malaysia I realised I really liked their orange pekoe tea, too. Perhaps it's a freshness thing. I prefer tea like that brewed lightly and drunk while it's still really hot; unlike coffee, which I often leave until almost cold before drinking. I still drink coffee over tea all the time though.
The problem is, I like all the tea paraphernalia. I love tea pots, tea cosies, strainers and infusers in interesting shapes, cake stands, scones with cream, dainty sandwiches with no crusts, pretty tea cups and saucers (which will always remind me of my nanna) and, of course, cake. I like the ritual of making and serving tea and how it takes time to do tea properly, and therefore you have time for chatting.
Here's a good Flickr group called A Cup Of Tea, which I like to look at from time to time; and here is a song I love, all about tea. It's by Zoe Lewis, and unfortunately it's not on YouTube, but you can listen to a little sample on Amazon and I urge you to buy it, because she's great and this song is lovely. I was introduced to her music when I was living in the US and I can relate to this one particularly, which is a little bit about being an ex-pat and longing for homely things.
Be sure to visit Emma for a look at what everyone else had to say about tea this week!
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Revolting fruits
I opened the fridge to find this.
It was worrying. I was afraid. The squash had turned bad. It seemed I wasn't the only one who had noticed.
Turned out, the squash had been evicted from the fruit and veg cupboard, for some very good reasons.
There had to be some restorative justice, but luckily I managed to fix the issues and everybody is happy now. As you see, luckily, the mango got better.
The moral of this story is, don't feed your husband cupcakes which have squash in without telling him.
It was worrying. I was afraid. The squash had turned bad. It seemed I wasn't the only one who had noticed.
Turned out, the squash had been evicted from the fruit and veg cupboard, for some very good reasons.
There had to be some restorative justice, but luckily I managed to fix the issues and everybody is happy now. As you see, luckily, the mango got better.
The moral of this story is, don't feed your husband cupcakes which have squash in without telling him.
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