Good morning I spent last week in and around Las Vegas. I’d quickly booked a ‘generic’ hotel on the strip for my stay, choosing based on convenient location (close to a monorail station) and price, and it was only as I was walking through the casino to their lobby that I started to get a terrible feeling of deja vue.  Then I realized – oh no, I’m back at the Flamingo. The last time I [...]

The news media lit up earlier this week with reports about Senator Rand Paul (son of would-be Republican Presidential candidate, Ron Paul) being selected for secondary screening by the TSA at Nashville Airport while attempting to fly to DC.  Senator Paul refused, and so the TSA in return refused to allow him to pass through security and escorted him out of the screening zone and back into the airport’s public zone. On the face of [...]

Too many people have already commented too much on the obvious aspects of this event, so I’ll limit myself to just three comments of my own and one borrowed from Sir Winston Churchill. My first point is that there is now a rush of people calling for better safety drills for the passengers on board cruise ships, pointing out that the foundering of the Concordia occurred before there had been any onboard safety drill for [...]

Both airplane manufacturers have now reported their results for 2011.  Both enjoyed excellent years, with orders and deliveries up on 2010. In terms of sales, Airbus reported new orders for 1608 planes, but it also had cancellations for 189 planes, which gave it a net of 1419 new planes ordered.  Boeing reported 921 new orders, with 116 cancellations, dropping its net new order figure down to 805. Both numbers are hugely up on last year.  [...]

Good morning A special hello this week to the Department of Homeland Security’s Social Networking/Media Monitoring Capability and the undoubtedly fine people who staff it. Being as how you monitor blogs that cover bird flu, news and activity to do with our borders, drug trafficking and cyber crime, I guess that means you look forward to your Friday morning read of The Travel Insider, the same as the rest of us. But, you know guys, [...]

A fascinating survey has just been released – the ‘Global Barometer of Happiness’. See if you can rank these countries in order of happiness. Here they are in alphabetical order : Afghanistan (not much that needs to be said about that country) Canada (a seemingly smug and self-assured nation that avoids most international controversy or ire) Egypt (newly liberated from its past ‘oppression’) Fiji (a nation beset by civil war, racial tensions and coups) Ghana [...]

Good news for high speed rail fans, although arguably dubious news for Britain as a whole. The UK government has announced it will proceed with the construction of its HS2 high speed rail line between London and Birmingham.  Amazingly, its earlier HS1 project (connecting London with the Chunnel and Europe) was completed on time and under budget, but that hasn’t guaranteed the popularity of its new HS2 project. The complete HS1 route was operational in [...]

By way of oblique introduction, the subject of senior executives getting paid too much has been aired quite a lot of late, and for sure, there are a lot of senior executives who seem to add no more value to their work and their company than does a person fulfilling the most mindless of routine tasks on the company’s production line. There are also a lot of senior executives getting a ‘free ride’ as a [...]

Good morning It has been a very busy week this week, but have I now got a surprise for you in return! Last week I mentioned our planned tours this year; and at the time, I had in mind something that I wasn’t sure could be achieved, but which now seems to be possible.  I suspect this is a tour which will either fill up in a flash, or be a total disaster with no-one [...]