My crazy life of aeroplanes and airports

I foolishly said to Lucie at the end of 2010 that I would travel less in the future. My 71 flights in 2010 meant that I was away from home far too much. I really did have good intentions about 2011 but as it turned out I actually did 76 flights in the calendar year.

Each flight starts at an airport (shall we say 2 hours for check in and boarding?) and ends at an airport (could be an hour or less, but could be a transfer of up to 4/5 hours - shall we say 2 hours again?). On that basis it's getting close to a fortnight spent at airports in 2011. That's a lot of queing up, waiting around, overpriced coffee and airport lounges. Who said international travel was glamorous.

So where did I go? Well the final tally was

Austria         1
Belgium        1
Brazil           1
China           4
France         1
India            1
Italy             1
Netherlands 1
Singapore    3
UK              8
USA            3

There were of course plenty of other "transit" countries but I'm not counting them. The sad news for me was that none of them were new countries, and yet the year before I had been to Brazil and Russia for the first times. The good news was that I really enjoyed New Orleans (as I've written about on this blog previously). The "Big Easy" is my favourite place in USA at the moment.

The sad news for the planet, if you buy into the global warming myth, is that my carbon footprint is absolutely enormous, but the airlines I flew with have handed a significant portion of my airfares over to respective governments in taxes and duties so let's hope they have done something useful with the money.

So what about travel in 2012 - let's see what happens

Simon, in his office in Prague

The Big Easy

I've just got back from visiting PESTWORLD, the annual conference of the NPMA. This year it was held in New Orleans and for me it was my first Pestworld and my first visit to New Orleans. I was disappointed in one and impressed by the other.

The US professional pest control conference

NPMA Pestworld is known as the premier conference for pest control professionals in the world. I was visiting for the first time and supporting our good friends BirdBarrier and PestBarrier on their booth at the show on behalf of SPM Europe and SPM Asia. Also with me was Rob Fryatt from Xenex Associates. Opinion from the floor was that the show was well attended and significantly improved from Hawaii last year. Certainly the BirdBarrier/PestBarrier guys did good business and had a busy booth during the whole event. I guess I was disappointed because my expectations going into the event were too high.

New Orleans - The Big Easy

Now I'm not a huge fan of visits to the US generally. No real reason why, it's undoubtedly a country with some beautiful scenery, some great cities and a really positive attitude. We've also got some great friends there and I've met other great friends from the US over the years. New Orleans is now my favourite city in the US.

The capital of Louisiana, which was sold to the Americans by Napoleon in 1803, New Orleans has most recently been in the headlines because of the immense damage done to it by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Why did I like it? A combination really. The influence of its French heritage on the architecture, the great seafood cuisine, the music, the weather, the water (Mississippi Delta and Mexican Gulf). Mostly I liked that the city is not part of a homogenised USA but retains, and is proud of, its roots and of being different.

Don't take my advice though, go there and sample the Creole culture for yourself


Simon
Back in Prague after a week in New Orleans

Prague to establish foreigners' integration centre | Prague Monitor

I think I'm integrating quite well here in Prague. My beer consumption is increasing, I'm single handedly responsible for the increase in sales of Gulas and apart from rampant bureaucracy in almost all Czech state institutions there is not much I don't like about living here.

I suspect (but hope not) that this new "Foreigner Integration Centre" will be of little benefit but the language courses might be interesting.

Prague to establish foreigners' integration centre | Prague Monitor:

'via Blog this'

BBC E-mail: Apple 'visionary' Steve Jobs dies

RIP Steve Jobs - he built three different billion dollar plus businesses - amazing achievements

** Apple 'visionary' Steve Jobs dies **
Steve Jobs dies, aged 56, after transforming digital technology at Apple, the firm he co-founded, with President Obama saying "the world has lost a visionary".
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15193922 >

Sunset on the beach in Goa

We're just back from a lovely relaxing few days in Goa - great sun, great food, empty beaches and cold cocktails.


If you go to Goa at the end of September or start of October you risk the weather (it's the end of rainy season) but you miss all the crowds as the charter flights don't start until the middle of October.


If quiet is your boat (and it is ours) then my advice is to risk the weather. Even if it does rain it doesn't last long and besides, it's not cold rain.


For more pictures of our holiday check out this


Simon and Lucie (back in Prague)

BBC News - Greek default now 'unavoidable', says Ernst & Young

BBC News - Greek default now 'unavoidable', says Ernst & Young:

'via Blog this'

Would you rather be in the Eurozone or not at this stage? I can't help but feel that there isn't sufficient cohesion amongst the members to solve these problems and there will be some structural changes aimed at saving the skins of the stronger members.

Before that happens though they will be putting huge pressure on non eurozone countries to put their hands in their pockets. An interesting dilemma for non eurozone countries - should we be supporting (financially) non-performing economies within Europe or is that the role of IMF, World Bank etc?

Human Capital vs Strong Government for developing nations

Last night I watched Yasheng Huang on TED TV give a presentation entitled "Does Democracy stifle economic growth?" My opinion is yes, but he maintained, especially in the case of India vs China, that it was Human Capital that was the difference and that better education in China gave them the "human capital" to have stellar growth.

Check it out on http://www.ted.com/talks/yasheng_huang.html

Are you convinced by his arguments? I still believe strong government is a major factor and democracy (imposed or invited) is not necessarily the best medicine for emerging economies

Simon (currently in India and contrasting it with China)