Category: Life: News Commentary

Lufthansa, the airline I used to fly to Japan and Portgual (both via Germany – so in the case of Birmingham, UK to Portugal, I went a very long way round), is adopting traditional dress: the Dirndl dress as used at Oktoberfest.

The thing that confuses me is that my experience of Lufthansa staff is that they are polite, understanding, and multi-lingual (on my Germany to Japan flight they recognised me as English and spoken in fluent English to my, in German to the gentleman sitting next to me, Japanese to some other passengers and I even heard French – the Portugese flight had German, English and Portugese speakers) – and I also believe there is some sort of Global Airline regulation that specifies that cabin crew need to be able to speak English.

So why does the BBC have an interview with the cabin crew who are going to be on flights from Munich to North America and Asia (so English will be needed to be known by the staff) – so why interview them in German and have to dub them into English 🙁

From BBC News:

Maria Esther de Capovilla – officially the world’s oldest woman – has died in Ecuador aged 116, relatives said.
Capovilla died at dawn on Sunday in the coastal city of Guayaquil after succumbing to pneumonia. Her funeral was planned for Monday.

That’s what I call good timing – if she hadn’t died on Sunday, she would have been buried alive!

There’s just been Road Traffic Accident outside my house, and from what I can tell a neighbour was driving down the hill getting ready to park whilst another car (possibly driven by a under-25 male: can’t confirm this though) came up the hill driving quite rapidly in a dark blue car.

When I tried to call 999, my phone kept cutting out (even though my computer is right next to my bedroom window and the accident happened just outside, there were already people on the scene by the time I looked out) – but after around 8 minutes, 3 fire-engines, 1 paramedic car , 1 ambulance and 1 police car arrived (all that I could see).

Apart from the two main vehicles (the dark blue one is a total write off as it “flipped over” onto its roof), one other vehicle was slightly damaged on the side.

Murphy’s law dictated that my main camera was out of batteries and I didn’t find any more until the fire bridge had nearly finished right-siding the car (they are just cleaning the road as I type): but pictures are in the main entry below.

Shortly in the UK (1st December), it’s going to be illegal to drive your car whilst using a hand-held mobile phone (aka a “cell phone”).

Whilst I’m all in agreement with making our roads safer, I’ve got to take issue with a report on my “East Midlands Today” News (my local BBC news service broadcast in the BBC 10 O’Clock news on TV). In it, either a reporter or interviewer said that drivers can be fined if the mobile phone is not in a fixed cradle (showing someone install the mobile phone cradle at that point) and then they said that having the cell phone on your lap with a cheap (in my phone’s case, free) earphone and microphone would result in a fine. However, I’ve got to question that – what’s the difference between the phone being in a cradle (ie not hand-held), being in your lap (ie not hand held) and my “personal preference idea”: being in a shirt pocket with the ear-piece? According to the DFT’s Mobile Phones and Driving: Frequently Asked Questions document, there doesn’t seem to be much difference…

I’ve just read the BBC News article Phone tones ‘to beat CD singles’ that mobile phone ringtones are expected to be more profitable then record single sales, but for pricing for “mobile phone rings – as are other popular tunes such as TV themes – for between £1.50 and £3.50” – I’m not too surprised!

I can remember when you used to get mobile phone ringtones for free: but I know a little “hack” to still get them for free: It’s called a) Infrared transmitter (included in most laptops, but you can buy a USB infrared transmitter from somewhere like Maplin – just like I did), b) a copy of Nokia’s PC Suite and c) Google.

Ok – it also counts on your phone or your friends mobile phone being infrared compatible: but if not, you’ll have to just buy an appropriate data cable from somewhere such as Carphone Warehouse.