The wonders of modern technology mean that I can add an entry while flying to the US. I'm taking a break from work. Yes... I'm working on the plane, sad individual that I am. Am flying to Nashville to give a talk to the Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, and I'm preparing the next talk I have to give - at the European Conference on Eye Movements. And even if I wasn't working, I'd have no idea what movies are showing, because today's 1st August, so the program in the seat pocket is showing the August movies, but the plane's movie system still thinks it's July...
Flying always reminds me of the knee-jerk reaction to terror threats. So here I am, in business class (thanks to a mileage upgrade), with plastic knives, but metal forks. So I'm wondering what the logic here is. True... I wouldn't be able to strip the plastic insulation from electrical wiring with a fork (I figure that's why I brought my teeth along). And I'm assuming it's nothing to do with the threat to flight staff (my guess is a fork can be pretty lethal). Who knows what the logic is, but no doubt it's been carefully thought through...
Two hours to go, and I've finished the talk. Now I can go back and finish the talk I'm supposed to be giving in a couple of days' time. Maybe I'll just take a sneak peek at the movies instead... someone in the row in front is watching a movie on her ipod. Tiny screen. But held up close it's still bigger than the tiny screens on the plane. And unlike those tiny screens, the image isn't flickering or blurry, she's probably getting sound to both her ears, and she can pause the movie to go to the toilet... but why bother pausing it? She can take it with her.
Those two hours came and went, and I'm now sitting in an airport somewhere waiting on a connecting flight to Nashville. A United Airlines official is just announcing that the flight is over-subscribed, and could volunteers please come forward and offer to take another flight 5 hours later. Am willing to use my highly-honed Karate skills (as if!) to get on that plane...
Sign in the baggage hall: "All passengers MUST collect bags". It wasn't clear what those of us who didn't have any bags to collect should do. After a few moments' indecision, I picked up someone else's bag and pretended it was mine. No one noticed, and they let me in to the Land of the Free... even the bags are free over here...
And finally, I arrived. The Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. An amazing place. Not least because my room had no bed. When I discovered that I was supposed to pull it down (it was a fold-up), and re-make it up myself (the bedding, or what there was of it, came away when the mattress stuck in the foldaway cupboard), I was surprised. All the more so when, having asked if I could have some pillows, they said "have you looked in the drawers"? I don't know... call me old-fashioned, but I do like a hotel room that has a bed in it that I don't have to make up myself. Only after three phonecalls, and some hours later, did they come and help out. And there's no desk, or bedside lights (essential if, as with most UK travellers to Nashville, you wake up at 3 in the morning and want to avoid stumbling across the room and fumbling with a desklamp). I just wish that, like others at the same hotel wishing the same, I'd decided to stay across the road at the Radisson. Maybe it's not too late to cross that road... UPDATE (the next day): despite being told there'd be no workmen renovating before 10am, my clock showed '07:18' when the hammering started. When I called up to complain (not that I'm the complaining sort, you understand..) they told me that 7am was the regular starting time. Somehow, they believe this is acceptable. Folks.... unless your life/career depends on it, do not stay at this hotel.
