Heathrow Express

I wonder is this still the most expensive train in the world, based on ticket cost and distance traveled?

It doesn't make sense for tourists, but I've used it plenty of times to get to and from central London (albeit the wrong side of central London for me usually - I then have to connect by Tube to get where I want to go) .

Two views from the same street corner in New York City

Look right and you see the Chrysler Building. Look straight ahead and you see the Empire State Building.

Travels with the Minotaur

One of the benefits of living in the US is the availability of cheap subscriptions to good magazines. But my travel schedule means that copies of the New Yorker and Economist often pile up. But travel also helps, because I read through the magazines on airlines. Last week I read the story "Ziggurat" by Stephen O'Connor in the New Yorker.

It's an adaptation of the story of the Minotaur, a story which used to terrify me as a child. In "Ziggurat", the Minotaur wanders a labyrinth of empty spaces. Some are empty because he has eaten the people who he encountered there. But others are just empty. He encounters, "in the pine-panelled section of the Labyrinth", a girl playing computer games.

The description of wandering, dislocation, events out-of-kilter, furnished places - all this hit home with me as I read it on a twice-canceled flight over a thunderstorm over New York City.

"The central aisle of an airliner, the back seat of a car (stale popcorn crammed into cushion cracks), a coal mine, a hospital waiting room, a long tunnel in which a hot breeze blew first in one direction and then the other. So many varieties of emptiness. For centuries. Millennia."
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/06/29/090629fi_fiction_oconnor?currentPage=all

Marine Terminal at La Guardia airport in New York

What a nice, quiet, relaxed place to wait for a plane. Even though the Delta shuttle flight was delayed (due to problems in Boston).

This is the only original air terminal from the first generation of passenger air travel in the US.

Problems at Boston Logan Airport to last all summer?

When I flew into Boston from New York on the shuttle from La Guardia last week, the Continental pilot told us that the instrument-landing system at Boston was not working, and that was slowing down the rate of landings there.

Last night the Boston Globe reported that the "instrument-landing system at Runway 4R failed Tuesday for reasons that are still under investigation". Well, I'd understood it had failed last week, when the Continental pilot announced it. But in any case, this meant that I had two different flights into Boston canceled yesterday, and only just about managed to get onto the last flight out of Washington Dulles to Boston around midnight.

Apparently this landing problem will last all summer :-( . I have no way to avoid using Boston Logan airport, so this will not be fun...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/weather_equipme.html

Duty Free hut on the New York / Quebec border

I drove up to Canada recently through Vermont, and took the route over the islands in Lake Champlain, past farms and boating jetties. This linked me up with I-87 in New York State. I then crossed the border into Quebec, and was surprised at the small rural roads and this tiny Duty Free store:

Sitting out in Times Square

Part of Times Square is now set aside for walking and sitting around on chairs. A nice way to spend a summer evening in New York City:

Just what we needed - new TSA rules

News from United:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced the implementation of the Secure Flight program. This program is intended to enhance the security of domestic and international air travel for all passengers through the use of improved TSA watch-list matching, as well as reduce the instances of passenger misidentification.

In accordance with this new policy, United® will be making changes to its reservation process that you, as a valued member of Mileage Plus®, should become familiar with.

How will Secure Flight affect you?

In the coming months, United will begin to request the following information from all customers when making a reservation:

• Full name (first and last, as it appears on the non-expired, government-issued photo ID you will present at the airport)
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Redress number (if one exists)*

If you use a travel agency or an online booking agent to purchase a ticket, you may be asked to provide all of the above information; including your full legal name, as it appears on your non-expired, government-issued photo ID.

Please note the importance of the name on your ticket matching exactly the name on the ID you will present at the airport.

Monolith Festival in Colorado in September

Isn't it ironic that this oh-so-indie boutique music festival is so overtly sponsored by Esurance?

That said, the line-up is pretty good:

http://www.monolithfestival.com/lineup

And it's good to see boutique music festivals springing up in the US. If it takes insurance companies to make that happen, I guess it's good.

Mother and daughter flight attendant team on JetBlue

I flew JetBlue down from Boston to Virginia last night. Great service as usual, and the flight was only $76 [I'm paying 4 times that to fly back to up to Boston from Newark tomorrow on Continental].

The flight attendant (or "air hostess" as I would say) team was a mum and daughter. Never seen that before. Funny to hear "and in the back of the cabin, my mom".