Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

Every summer Rebecca and I go with my Mum and Dad to visit my family in Wiesbaden in Germany. We usually go on the second weekend in August.

Last summer, on the second weekend in August, the Gate Gourmet dispute resulted in BA cancelling our flight to Wiesbaden. My dad had taken time off work and we’d booked a trip with the family on the Rhine and we had to cancel due to BA’s inability to manage its contracts. The horror was compounded by the fact that the weather was bad and we decided to go to the cinema in my parents’ home town to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was absolutely dire and really rubbed our noses in the fact that we weren’t with our family, we weren’t on the on the Rhine or visiting the Weinfest or drinking good beer and eating great food. We were watching Johnny Depp impersonate Michael Jackson instead!

The thing that might stop us from reching Wiesbaden this year is the thwarting of an alleged bomb plot involving several aeroplanes flying between the UK and USA. The result of this has been the closure (for a time – then reopening to massive disruptions) of most of the UK’s major airports.

Guess what? It’s the second weekend of August!

Not everyone seems to be aware of the situation. Sure, the BBC knows, my Google newsfeeder knows, my friends know, the newspapers know, the British Airports Authority knows (and has taken its site down). MI5 (the British security service) also know about it:

The only people not to know, it seems, are Easyjet, who had nothing on their site mentioning the plot and disruption. They even allowed me to start booking a flight out of Gatwick, departing today. Oh, they did warn me, but not about what I thought they might warn me:

It goes without saying that I’m glad they found out, that we’re going to be safe, that something ‘orrible was prevented. The thing is, though, I’m terrified of getting stranded in the UK again and missing out on Wiesbaden and getting stuck in the cinema watching a rubbish movie. Any suggestions for the rubbish movie to watch in the even of getting stuck in the UK again, would be most welcome.

And don’t get me started on this whole Islamofascist business (though we don’t know who the plotters were at this time, or even if there was a plot as described). I’m keeping my powder dry for that lot in another blog, I think. And don’t worry – I’ve got some nasty things to say about Neocons too.