Basil Fawlty Moment #3: RyanAir

I’ve just booked some flights with RyanAir, and I used to love RyanAir, but not any more. I used to plan great journeys involving getting up at 3:30am, travelling through several different countries, running between bus stations and airports and only ever taking hand luggage, just so as I could use RyanAir flights to get to my ultimate destination and thereby save £20. But now it seems they’re getting sneakier and sneakier: “ţigănie” they’d call it here – “Gypsy business”. There are lots of boxes where you must select (or, more cleverly, deselect) stuff, and each thing you want puts an extra £10 on the price. Here’s your RyanAir webpage these days:

1 MILLION FLIGHTS GOING FOR £1, OFFER MUST END TONIGHT!!!

Flight F666: East Burnage “Liam Gallagher” Airport 04:55am – Zgzygrxysk 07:45am - £1

Please select the following options:

On your RyanAir flight would you like to eat: 1) Nothing except your fingernails 2) A blueberry muffin for £3.99 3) A cheese sandwich for £4.99 4) Your words (boom boom!)

On your RyanAir flight would you like the air stewards and stewardesses to be: 1) Well-trained, courteous professionals 2) Slags 3) Leprosy sufferers 4) Deaf

On your RyanAir flight would you like to breath: 1) Air 2) Carbon Dioxide 3) The exhaust from the engine 4) Zyklon B

Upon arrival at your destination, would you like the baggage control staff to: 1) Process your baggage carefully and efficiently 2) Send your skis to Addis Ababa just for a laugh 3) Practice penalty shootouts in their smoking room with any small packages you’ve checked in labelled “FRAGILE” 4) Not even bother coming in to work that day

Would you like to pay for your tickets with: 1) A credit or debit card, or perhaps a postal order or a bank transfer 2) RyanAir’s special “Favoured Customer” Platinum account (interest rate %105 per month) 3) Your family silver 4) Your life


If you’ve selected all No. 1s then the bill is now £51 and that’s just one-way. You’ll wish you’d flown cheesyJet instead.


Right, well, don’t say I haven’t warned you – this time I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing!!

Basil Fawlty Moment #1: I Vant to be Alone

I’ve had some visitors over from UK which is why I haven’t been blogging for a few days. They are people I love dearly – and owe money to – so I wanted to put my best foot forward, but the experience has reminded me of two important axioms:

A: There’s almost nothing better than a walk in beautiful scenery

B: There’s almost nothing worse than a walk in beautiful scenery accompanied by a constant running commentary

Sorry, but I simply don’t need my reverie broken every 5 seconds by having a leaf or a twig pointed out to me and someone’s opinion given on it. (When I think about it, the same goes for art galleries and silent films.) Now, I know that any desire to do something on my own makes me A Bad Person, but sometimes desire is simply too strong. What I did in the end was stage a Basil Fawlty Moment...



... Though in my case it ran something like “I said, time after time, that we need to plan a walk that X can do as well as the rest of us; but X can’t do this one and will have to stay in the car! Right. Fine. You lot have whatever walk you want – I’m going off on my own!” Of course I had to make sure my beaming smile was replaced by the scowl when I’d returned from my glorious ramble on a Romanian hillside with nothing but chaffinches and wagtails for company. I’m simply a bad person.