Notes from a not-so-small Island

Here I am at Heathrow Terminal 5 waiting for my flight back to Boston -- delayed 45 minutes. I've managed to find one of maybe half a dozen places here to recharge my phone and computer. And, here's the good news, British Airways has got off its elitist high horse and allowed us to get access to the Heathrow free wireless. Previously, there was wireless here but "only for club and first class, Sir"

So, what's changed here, especially in light of Brexit? Surprisingly, not a lot. Still the same great food and beer. Still the same excellent road system. What's really a pleasant surprise is that "Team GB" is now in third place in the medals table at the Olympics. Normally, we languish at about 10th place, if we're lucky. Even my rental car was a treat (well done, Hertz). Although they tried every trick in the book to make me pay more than the basic cost of the rental. He could upgrade me to "a very nice Mercedes... just a small increase in the rate." What about SatNav (GPS)? (turned out it was in the car already so I'm certainly glad I didn't opt for that). And then, of course all the CDW nonsense. Finally (and he tried each of these at least twice), was prepaying fuel. I was tempted because their rate was L1.03 per litre (I ended up paying L1.23). But of course I knew that anything that he was so keen to sell me must be bad for me. And of course it was. Even though I must have driven about 400 km all told, the efficiency of the (diesel) car was so good that I had used barely a quarter of the tank. So, prepaying for fuel, even at the good price, would have cost something like L70 instead of the L25 that I actually paid to refill it. That's the part they forget to point out: you probably won't use all the fuel in the tank.

Speaking of the food and beer, they were great (again). There was a time very recently when the quality of British beer had gone right down the drain. Too much choice amongst different beers combined with a general lack of knowledge about keeping the stuff meant that frequently the beer was bad. My solution is to enquire which is their most popular beer and buy that. But I've discovered that you can actually ask for a sample now! That's the way to go (next time). In the car heading to the airport, I was listening, on Radio 4, to an interview with someone who has been a director (or spokesman, or something) of CAMRA (the campaign for real ale) for many years. He pointed out something I hadn't really thought about. The decline in beer quality that the big brewers tried to ram down our throats, unsuccessfully, in the 1970s actually paralleled a decline in food quality. Big profits and lots of advertising, meant that they were getting away with passing off alcoholic lemonade and many different types of food as real beer or food. Many people weren't noticing. But some were, fortunately. I was one of those.

To all my American friends. You really don't know what you're missing if you haven't eaten/drunk in a British country pub. And, it's not just pubs. In the supermarkets, they sell real bread! And of course lots of great savory dishes and pies.

What else can I tell you about the trip? It was just great hanging out with family. Especially seeing my 91-year old mother. I wanted to encourage her to work on our family tree. To that end, I did quite a bit of research into genealogical tools. My conclusion? Very disappointing.

Ancestry, the most senior of the offerings, is still quite difficult to use. Too difficult for my mother, certainly. Plus it has several annoying bugs. It doesn't work with Internet Explorer. And, despite advertising 1 billion records, they seem to have a lot of trouble finding my family members (and, no, they weren't all shipped off as convicts to Australia!). We did discover some things she didn't already know (her mother had four more siblings than the four she knew about, for example). FindMyPast was even worse. Not so many bugs and maybe a bit easier to use. But, even with their two billion records, it was no better finding my relations. When you consider that these things want to charge you more than $10 per month, it's just daylight robbery IMO.

Well it's seems we're boarding to it's bye from me.