Jul
Travels with my i-Phone or Mr O’B changes trains (1).
Filed Under (General) by ronan on 13-07-2010
Having booked onto the Library and Information Science Research Coalition’s inaugural conference at the British Library and then realising that I had already booked a weekend in Dublin I needed careful planning to get from Dublin to London on the morning of Monday June 28th in time for the 10:30 conference start. This involved exquisite timing all enhanced by realtime information on my iphone! The Aircoach trip across a waking Dublin to the newly built Airport; the chaos of a full security check – belt, shoes – “switch on your laptop please sir”. “Switch off your phone – please sir” All surrounded by sleepy holiday makers. Then to the debacle of the RyanAir non-queue then onto the aircraft and the relentless up-selling of products ranging from a full breakfast through to smokeless cigarettes. Our landing in Luton Airport amid some minor turbulence was greeted by spontaneous applause from some less weary passengers. Monitoring our speed using my iPhone’s GPS I noted we hit the tarmac at about 120mph! The shuttle bus from the airport to Luton Parkway rail station is a bendy bus – nothing against such vehicles except there are 4 mini-roundabouts which we negotiated at snails pace (sort that out please people of Luton) thus upon leaving the bus required me to dash to catch the Brighton bound train – packed and overheated – to St Pancras reaching an impressive yet shaky top speed of 111mph near St Albans. A purposeful walk through crowds clinging to their coffee-cups took me to the British Library where, on entering the auditorium the facilitator was asking the audience to switch-off their mobile phones. Now that’s timing. Phew.
(1) Greene, Graham (1969) Travels with my Aunt and Isherwood, Christopher (1935) Mr Norris Changes Trains
