Tom Hall: travel, London, other things

Now the dust has happily settled here are a few ways in which the Eyjafjallajökul eruption can result in an improvement to the way we travel.

The least popular Ash since the one who plays for Chelsea

EU Compensation law doesn’t work for anyone
EC Regulation No 261/2004 was conceived with the best possible will, but it doesn’t work. Airlines hate it as it can force them to pay out for circumstances beyond their control. It’s also not designed for week-long delays, which are unprecedented. But airlines are transporting passengers from a to b and if they can’t get there then those passengers are vulnerable and should be looked after. Passengers have found the compensation set-up too hard to understand and it can be tough to get an airline to pay out. Ryanair’s ‘what you going to do about it?’ challenge summed up who airlines feel they can wriggle out of making payments. They had to backtrack somewhat – though not totally – but the broader point is that even when a delay is just that, rather than a crisis, getting a payout is extremely difficult. This regulation needs to be redrafted and toughened so airlines cannot avoid responsibilities to passengers in trouble.

Consumer protection needs to be looked at again
Two people from the same country in the same hotel, both stuck without the means to get home, would have found themselves in a very different position depending on how they booked their trip. If you booked your trip with an agent you probably got much better treatment and home quicker. If you booked independently, you were on your own. repatriation in a crisis should not be a unique selling point, and independent travellers should not be punished for making their own arrangements. As AITO have suggested, it is time to look again at consumer legislation to protect all customers as a point of principle.

Some companies will have gained customers for life
The above notwithstanding, there were some very impressive performances under pressure by travel companies.  Those who offered a human to speak to, a regularly-priced phone line that was open at weekends and late and who took fast action should take a bow. Included in this are insurance companies who made ex gratia payments. Hopefully travellers will remember who performed well and who let them down.

Lava

Travel insurance needs to be clearer
Buy travel insurance. Buy it because even the worst policy will help you out if you get injured overseas. Don’t expect too much more. You are buying a health insurance policy with a variety of irregular add-ons. Some policies are excellent, some have proved worthless. I don’t work in the insurance industry but a more standardised policy plus greater guidance on what is necessary and what is frivolous seems like a good way forward.

Some people are really good at travelling
One of the most astonishing things about last week was the avalanche of stories of people who had got themselves home by a series of inventive means. Not all of them involved shelling out thousands of pounds. Hats off to everyone who, by any means possible, made it home.

W G Hoskins‘ The Making of the English Landscape is one of the best books on British history I’ve ever read. Packed with detail, it takes the reader from a time when England was populated by a few tiny Celtic hamlets and covered in forest, through the creation of villages and towns under successive invasions and through to the industrial revolution and beyond.

On the way the reader learns, at times open-mouthed with astonishment, at how English people lived and worked and eventually tamed enough of the forests and heaths to grow prosperous and, sometimes, healthy.

A couple of quotes in particular caught my eye. Hoskins romanticises the late seventeenth century, or more specifically 1688, as the finest time to be an Englishman:

Few boys lived beyond easy walking distance of thick woodland,or of wild and spacious heaths, where they could work off freely the aninal energies that in the twentieth century lead too manyb of them in the foul and joyless towns into the juvenile courts. There was plenty of scope for poachers of fish and game, and plenty of fresh air and space for everybody, and silence if they wanted it. No industrial smoke, nothing faster on the roads than a horse, no incessant noises from the sky; only three million people all told, spread thinly about the country. The largest provincial town (Norwich) could be described as ‘either a City in an Orchard, or an Orchard in a City, so equally are Houses and Trees blended in it’ – how infinitely more pleasant a place England then was for the majority of her people!

And then, in the best justification for exploring what’s on your own doorstep I’ve read, he writes:

So behind every generalization, there lies the infinite variety and beauty of detail; and it is the detail that matters, that gives pleasure to the eye and to the mind, as we traverse, on foot and unhurried, the landscape of any part of England.

While this book is rightly heralded as a classic work of local history, it also is important in learning about how the experience of living in England has changed over the centuries. Hoskins’ own views, including his distaste for much of the modern world, bubble up from the pages making for a lively read. He would have made an engaging dinner guest and near-unbeatable walking companion.

The Making of the English Landscape is a fine companion to exploring rural England, and is the perfect read this springtime to herald the excitement of summer.

Moving house for the second time in six months. Putting books away unearths memories again. Well loved old favourites get dusted down and packed off, destination another bookshelf. Some catch your eye and demand a leaf-through.

Morrissey Shot

Chief among them is Morrissey Shot, Linder Sterling‘s spectacular photobook from Morrissey’s solo golden years, 1991-92. In this period Mozzer shed the seclusion of his early solo years, released a succession of wonderful singles and albums and formed an unlikely songwriting and touring partnership with a pack of rakish Kentish Town quiffed-up Rockabilly boys. The concerts, including the marathon Kill Uncle tours, were the first chance a generation of post-Smiths fans had to come together. The level of fervour and celebration has never been matched since.

Sterling’s photos capture the fun and curiosity of this time.

Morrissey looks fabulous throughout, mysterious and imposing on stage, at turns playful and melancholy off it. Boz Boorer and the rest of ‘The Lads’ as clueless critics dubbed them lark around in the background. Through it all fans provide constant inspiration for Sterling. Several shots capture fleeting, tender moments between fan and singer, a snatched moment indelible to the fan, one of thousands for Morrissey. The faces of the crowd, from Dundee to Tokyo, are potraits of wide-eyed excitement. There are a few examples here.

Morrissey went on to record two of the best albums of the 90s – Your Arsenal and Vauxhall and I – then end the decade in exile. Fans continued to believe and fight the good fight against lazy critics of a genius. His concerts are still wonderful, celebratory affairs – you’ll see quiffs, hearing aids and flowers harking back to the mid-eighties – and it would be a disaster to miss Morrissey when he passes through your town. But to see him at his most handsome, his most creative and most alive, seek out a second-hand copy of Morrissey Shot.