Easy Jet rules

Looking back over my previous blogs, I remembered the one I wrote whilst trying to purchase plane tickets for our holiday to Portugal. This reminded me of the hell that was Gatwick on that sunny morning that we flew out there.

Coming from so far away, and being naturally nervous flyers, we always arrive at least five hours early. Our children moan like hell, but have grown to accept that this is just the way it is and always will be, forever and ever, Amen.

So, we had a coffee and a mooch around and did a spot of people watching (the large girl in the leopard skin jumpsuit being the most entertaining) before deciding to queue up. We were still very early, at least two hours before our flight left, but the queue we joined practically went all the way back to Devon. We were tired. We were grumpy, and both my husband and I were getting those jitters that a fear of flying produces before you even get on the plane. When you start reaching for the worry beads and thinking that, actually, you do believe in God after all.

We had hardly progressed at all having waited for an hour, when our flight was actually called, so we were directed to the front by the harrassed looking staff, who were trying to make some order out of the chaos.

Finally, we got to the check out. Now, due to my computer incompetence, and the lack of clarity of the Easy Jet website, I had done three separate bookings. The first was supposed to be for four of us, but ended up having only my name on it, so I'd done another for my husband and two children, and a third when our other child finally decided he could come too (I find you can always persuade your grown up children to come on holiday with you if you pay for them. Call it bribing, but it works every time).

I had paid for two bags on the first booking, and not added any subsequent bags on the other bookings because both our sons travel light and could manage with only hand luggage, and my daughter was persuaded that she didn't need any evening dresses, evening shoes, or half a ton of makeup, since we were so broke having paid for the holiday, we would not be going out at all.

Feeling quite smug that we'd managed to limit our weight to 40 kgs, I was astounded when the lady told us we were some 7 kilos overweight.

'How can that be?' I protested, the panic rising like bile inside me, as I calculated the cost of this. She explained, slowly, and several times, that you only got 20kgs per booking, and so we could have only 20kgs for the whole lot of us, even though I had paid for two bags, anc clearly all of our stuff was distributed between them. Eventually, I understood, and conscious of the queue of people still waiting to check in behind us, we started to try and cram as much into the boys' rucksacks as possible, but only got it down by about 3kgs, with the rucksacks threatening to burst at the seams.

She must have seen the hot flush come whooshing up into my face, and the caffeine induced shaking hands (causing the children to temporarily disown me) for eventually she took pity on us and shoved one of the bags over onto another of the bookings. I couldn't help wonder why she hadn't done this straight away, since it was obvious we were all one family.

Still, I was eternally grateful.

More lane rage

I haven't had a good old moan about swimming for a long time, but recently I was reminded of the frustrations which swimming engenders.

I thought Sunday morning might be quiet. How wrong could I be? It was like the M4 on a Bank Holiday weekend. Having scanned the horizon for any possible spaces, I decided my best bet was to follow this (nice)woman who looked to be going about the same speed as me. A bit like dolphins at the wake of a boat, the only time you have to divert from your path is when you pass them coming towards you as you go the other way. My own invented swimming etiquette demands that I be the one to take avoidance action, since I am encroaching on her lane. Ergo, someone who comes in after me should do the same for me.

Oh no. In comes this exocet missile of a woman and I realise, almost too late, that her etiquette (or lack thereof) does not follow the same rules as mine. There is no way she is going to move, which means I then have to avoid a collision with the nice lady who let me follow her. I dodge round, doing my speediest crawl, before getting back into my very narrow lane and resuming my more leisurely breast stroke. The next time I ended up at the rail with Nice Lady (which only happens every ten lengths or so) I apologised for my actions, and she was very gracious about accepting, commenting that this kind of swimming wasn't 'very relaxing'. I agreed wholeheartedly. I really wanted to stay at the rail a while and have a good old bitch about Madam Exocet and her lack of manners, but swimming isn't really the time to do that. We're all on a mission, which is to do our lengths as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there.

I tried to send subliminal evil thoughts to my enemy, to make her have some kind of guilty conscience for what she'd done to me, but I don't think it worked. And I did wonder what would happen if we all took her stand and simply refused to compromise (ie divert our course). There'd be a multiple pile up before you knew it. At least the lifeguard, commatose with boredom and bitter and twisted about having to sit there on a Sunday morning after a hard Saturday night's clubbing, would have something to do.

Can I talk to a human?

I recently bought 5 airline tickets on Easy Jet. THis, in itself, is a bit of a mission because what starts out seeming like a good deal ends up at least £50 per ticket more expensive than you originally thought, but that's not what I'm moaning about today.

When I had finally trawled through the pages and came to the point of printing off the tickets, (something which always makes me nervous, being of the generation where you had a nice card ticket enclosed in a handy wallet, which arrived by post. Most reassuring) I noticed an alarming message in red alert print:

URGENT! You cannot fly without providing this information.... which turned out to be the passport numbers of all the passengers. Unfortunately, two passports were not available to me, but I figured I could get back into my booking and alter it once they were. This was my first mistake.

Having found out all I needed from one of the passports, I steeled myself and re-entered the EJ website, eventually finding something called api (or something like that) which I figured out (several hours later) might mean: additional passenger information. I entered everything that was required and waited for a confirmation email. This did not arrive, so I had no way of knowing whether I had been successful or not. But it didn't stop there.

Passport number two became available and I tried again. This time the web page would not come up and no matter how many times I tried, the same message of doom appeared. It said something about a cake and a browser, and something about an ej/2 error. Needless to say, this was meaningless gobbledygook to me.

In a panic, I perused the website for a phone number, so I could speak to someone, anyone, a human voice, and ask for their help and reassurance. But the closest thing I could find was an on-line chat type thing. I duly typed in my problem and waited for the anonymous 'voice' to type an answer.

I was promised a prompt response to my question and this is the 'conversation' I had.

(Me) I am trying to add the passport information of all passengers I am travelling with. I cannot do this and am worried you will not let us on the flight, as your warnings are clear. What am I supposed to do?

Several minutes later...

(Mr Yassine) Hi

Five minutes later..

(Mr Yassine) May I ask you why you can't add the ID details please?

(Me - immediately) Because it keeps coming up with a page that tells me there's been an ej/2 error.

(Mr Yassine) Allow me one minute please+

Twenty minutes and still no answer.

(Me) Where are you?

Mr Yassine did not reappear, and I eventually told him I had a life and had to go.

Discussing my dilemma with a self confessed computer geek, I was reassured that what had in fact happened was that the cookie was in the browser.

Ah, now it's all clear. (???? WHAT?)

I was also advised what to do about it, but I didn't understand the instructions for that either.

So, I'm no further on and am mentally preparing myself for another conversation with Mr Yassine, hopefully with a more fruitful conclusion. Otherwise, there's going to be some very disgruntled passengers when we turn up to fly on our two week summer holiday and they tell us we can't get on because we haven't provided the information they needed.

If anyone from Easy Jet reads this, or anyone who knows what I can do, and can communicate in English and not computer speak, please get in touch!

Pizza eating competitions

Apparently, they are trying to make pizza eating competitions into an Olympic sport. Their arguments run along the lines that it requires jaw strength, hand ability and stomach capacity, therefore it qualifies as a sport. Dan 'Deep Dish' Doherty is the current world champion.

I'm sorry, but I think food eating competitions are not just sick, they are actually immoral. Whilst a great deal of the people in our world don't have enough to eat, we in the West are busy stuffing our faces until we literally puke, to win a bloody trophy. It's really not funny.

It makes me sick!

Name droppers

I recently had the opportunity to meet a couple of brothers who seemed to, between them, know every famous person in the world, most of whom I'd never heard of, so it was hard to be impressed. Still, dinner with Kissinger does sound quite cool. Although I thought he was dead. I'm not sure about Nixon being a 'nice guy', but who am I to judge? I've never met him.

The stream of name dropping quickly grew quite tedious and I wondered why these men felt compelled to do this in such a compulsive way. Do they really think ordinary lives are so dull that others will only be interested if you can pepper your conversation with celebrities? It ended up making them look rather sad and pathetic, as if their lives were so empty they could only get off on the backs of other people. Actually, they'd both had quite interesting lives without having to mention anyone well known.

Or maybe it annoyed me because they didn't ask me any questions about my life? I mean, I'm not a bad listener, but this was not conversation, it was a monologue. I can handle Alan Bennett's monologues, but that's about it.

Or, even worse, maybe I resented the fact it brought out a side of me which wanted to compete by listing any encounter I've had with anyone vaguely well known, thereby lowering myself to their level.

Chihuahuas

DOn't get me wrong, I love dogs. I love their loyalty, and their eagerness and their affection. But chihuahuas are grotesque. They look like little gremlins, and when I see one, I have this horrible urge to tread on it, as if it's some sort of vermin. I am not normally violent, and this compulsion worries me.

Plus, chihuahua owners treat them as if they're babies, dressing them up in foul little outfits and talking to them in gaga language. So, perhaps it's not the poor little dog's fault, but their owners who should be trodden on.

This is a Happy Place

Recently I have noticed a strange phenomenom springing up in Wellington, our nearest town. Many of the shops have taken to putting signs in their windows declaring 'This is a Happy Place'. I walked into one not long ago, and the woman was miserable as sin, and rude to boot. So I don't believe them. You don't need to tell people you're happy, just show them!

If we all smiled a bit more, I'm sure the world would be a happier place.

Sandra's words of wisdom.