May
14
2008
Lament for Michael Kilburn (Part II)
E-Mail
Print
For Part I of Lament for Michael Kilburn click here
THE UK has an efficient rail system with comfortable high-speed trains that run frequently and on schedule. While last-minute ticket prices are unreasonably costly for long distance travel, one can travel inexpensively by booking a seat several weeks in advance. In this sense, the trains operate much like air flights. Should you book ahead and later decide you want to alter your travel date, you must pay a change fee as well as the difference in price between the old ticket and the new. This pricing scheme benefits those who plan weeks in advance, but obviously disadvantages off-the-cuff travelers, who must either opt for slower and less agreeable bus travel or dig deep to cover those hefty last-minute ticket fares, which seem like little more than subsidies for the well-organized. Keep reading…
Apr
4
2008
Lament for Michael Kilburn (Part I)
E-Mail
Print
ANYONE who regularly reads an English-language newspaper in a former British colony-where there are inevitably large numbers of English expats and tourists-will on occasion encounter the phrase ‘whinging Brit’ in the Letters to the Editor section. Since ‘whinging’ is a British variant on ‘whining,’ the phrase is invariably used, often with ironic self-disparagement, by the British about the British: generally from expats mortified at those compatriots of theirs who seem to spend their entire vacation abroad complaining about the host country and making unfavorable, imperious comparisons with the motherland. Of course, this notion begets another sub-category of those who do little else but whinge about whinging Brits. In short, there is plenty of complaining to go around, some justified, most of it tedious banter. Keep reading…
