In the meantime the news broadcasts hundreds of articles and TV programs about people being stuck who are going to- or leaving from cities in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Obviously a lot of the stories focus on sensation – like four French business men who were stuck somewhere in Denmark and "had to" hire a taxi to get home to Paris for 15.000 crowns (2700 USD). But really my question is: What happened to people’s logic? Did it disappear with the availability of cheap flight tickets?

Before the days when we were all able to pollute the atmosphere with CO2 (from flights) on a regular basis, we used to travel on buses and trains: OVERLAND TRAVEL. Doesn’t anyone remember that?

There are still regular buses and trains connecting all the capital cities in Europe!!! I understand that you can be "stuck" if you are travelling to or from Asia and South America. But to say that people, who are "merely" travelling from Paris to Copenhagen, are "stuck" is ridiculous.

Google "bus Europe" or "train Europe" and you will get thousands of entries. I went to the following website: http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml This website combines all train travel all over Europe – from the very South of Barcelona to the north of Norway.

I decided to figure out how long it takes to go from Copenhagen to Paris. Well I can leave tomorrow morning at 07.45 from Copenhagen and will get to Paris tomorrow evening at 20:53. The trip takes 13 hours and 8 minutes. That’s 10 hours more than flying. But honestly – we are NOT "stuck" in Europe. It’s such a small area that being stuck is for the most part more a question about comfort.

Thomas and I travelled for 9 months in South America. We did all our travel overland. This often meant 20 hour bus journeys and as you can imagine travelling from Guatemala to Bariloche in Argentina overland takes many hundreds of hours in buses. I never thought about flying.

I do sympathise with people who have engagements to attend to etc. But why not use this opportunity to reduce your carbon footprint and get back down to the ground – take the train or the bus in Europe

Having been living in Spain now for nearly 8 months, I was really looking forwards to the first visit from my sister Hannah. We’d begun planning her four days here months ago, back in late October or Early November, organising work schedules, sightseeing tours etc.

With her due to arrive at 7.45pm last Saturday 13th February, by 6pm I was in the house preparing a tasty meal for her arrival and about to leave for the airport.

That was when things took a turn for the ‘Easyjet worst’.

I began receiving a series of text messages from my sister in Gatwick airport saying things like “I’ve been queuing 3 hours at Easyjet check-in, they say all their systems are down throughout Europe”…so I began checking the Easyjet website (nothing), and the Gatwick and Barcelona airport websites (nothing).

Cutting a long series of anxious texts short, having got them on the plane about 7 hours late, they left them on the plane for hours – no one knowing anything about what was going on, and finally turfed them off at about 10pm.

In Hannah’s own words:

“The pilot updated us first saying the bags were being put on and that he was just waiting for paperwork etc. second to tell us that some people had chosen to get off so we were having to get their bags (although we saw no one get off and no noise of baggage being removed from the hold).

Then he updated us telling us that they were in talks with head office (and via one of the air hostesses who also had no idea what was going on…we were told that she thought the captain was in talks to head office regarding negotiating a day off in lieu for the cabin staff who were now working into their day off (because of the original delay). That came from her but not sure she knew much)

He then came onto to tell us that the flight was cancelled due to some sort of very vague baggage problem…load of rubbish if you ask me. He told us to go to the ‘Menzies aviation group’ desk in the arrivals hall to rebook on another flight. Got there and there were about 300 people and absolutely no one at the desk. When someone did arrive there was basically a rugby scrum to get to them…the guy said absolutely nothing except rebook online and he handed out about 20 pieces of paper with customer rights on it….I didn’t get one!”

There was noone in the airport to help them, noone to tell them where to get their bags, how to re-book, or how to get a refund. In the end, instead of enjoying the first hours of her holiday in Barcelona, my sister was left wondering alone around Gatwick airport in tears on a Saturday night, then was forced to get the train back into London alone late at night, followed by a night bus home (as she got back too late for the tube).

Staff overtime request causes cancellation

The long and short of it is that there never was a Europe wide system failure (200+ other Easyjet flights took off fine from Gatwick that day), but what happened was almost certainly this: due to Easyjet’s sheer incompetence there was a problem with check-in. The delay meant that Easyjet (being a cheap and very crap airline) lost a few of its takeoff slots at Gatwick. This meant a few of the planes were delayed even further, by which point the Easyjet staff began complaining to their superiors about overtime pay. When their wishes were refused, they refused to fly the plane, and they and all the airport staff walked out of the airport, leaving the passengers stranded late at night.

The next day she tried to change her flight for another one, but Easyjet weren’t answering their customer services line (does this surprise you?), and the only flight available was flying to Spain on Wednesday, the day her return flight was bringing her back!

So, in future (and especially because Easyjet did it to ME too in January when I tried to get back to Spain) I will certainly pay a bit more and fly with British Airways or Iberia.

Claiming compensation

One final thing, did you know that in the EU, if an airline company like Easyjet gets you to your destination more than two hours late you are entitled to a minimum of 250 Euros compensation? Rather than try and pursue Sleazyjet through the courts, we’re going to put in a claim through this company EUclaim.

And my sister will be trying again in late April – her next available holiday. She won’t be flying Easyjet .

With temperatures as low as -22 Celsius, and a decent covering of snow: 10,000 schools are shut, the economy is losing 600 million pounds a day, old people are burning cheap second hand books to warm their houses (it’s cheaper than coal!) and the RSPB is regularly publishing warnings about imminent irrecoverable bird deaths.

So what did I do (apart from feeding the birds)? I tried to get back to Spain, on Easyjet, from Gatwick. Not a very sound plan. I ended up wasting the day in queues of people whilst waiting for the inevitable “Flight cancelled” confirmation. In the end it came, and I headed back to Oxford, only to try again another day…

You’ll perhaps be pleased to know (I was) that I made it back to Spain having rescheduled my flight for 3 days later. I got to Barcelona, wasn’t as pleasantly surprised as I’d hoped by the ‘warm climes’ here, and have promptly set about sorting out my crap Sony Vaio (sounds like it has chronic wind) so that I can get on with my IVOZI audio work soon.

On that note, I finally got my hands on the Zoom H2 Recorder and will be starting recording again in a couple of days.

I’ll leave you with a photo of my mother’s back garden in Eynsham, England where I stayed during my weather related incarceration. I tried to feed the birds, but my nuts promptly froze.

Here’s a photo from today – Boxing Day – where we went for an afternoon walk (and sledge) in the grounds of the 12th Century Jervaulx Abbey.

Since returning from Vejer de La Frontera at the end of September, I have been based continuously in Barcelona, or rather in Castelldefels – 24KM to the South of Barcelona on the coast.

View Larger Map

During the last few months we’ve been working on setting up the IVOZI website and have most of the main systems working and in place. We’ve started to sell a couple of books, our audios en inglés podcasts have quickly entered the iTunes directory, and we’ve launched the Weekend Club – a live event for English conversation practice in Barcelona.

In the new year, I’ll be returning to Barcelona and the aim will be to get a team of people together to hugely increase our productivity – especially in the area of new product development, and with a focus on audio and multi-media products. We’ve already been advertising and have had a promising response.

I promise to try and keep Earthoria more up-to-date in the future, and I’ll leave you with a photo of where I am now in a small freezing village called Eynsham, 10km West of Oxford in England.

Merry Christmas!

The palace itself (top right in the photo above) is one of England’s largest houses, and was built between 1705 and 1724 as a gift to John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough, from a grateful nation in return for military triumph against the French and Bavarians. It was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

The grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown, a famous landscape architect sometimes referred to as “England’s greatest gardener”. It’s not hard to see why.

Map of Blenheim

View Larger Map

The meadow is an ancient area of grazing land, still used for horses and cattle, and has never been ploughed. In return for helping to defend the kingdom against Tina’s marauding Danish ancestors, the Freemen of Oxford were given the pasture next to the Thames by King Alfred who founded the City in the 10th Century. The Freemen’s collective right to graze their animals free of charge was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 and has been exercised ever since.

It’s a great spot to go for a walk or just sit by the river and watch the boats cruising past to the soundtrack of cackling geese.

Cornwall is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its extensive and varied coastline and its mild climate. Also notable is Cornwall’s stone age and industrial archeology, especially its historic mining landscape, a world heritage site. Tourism therefore forms a significant part of the local economy; however, Cornwall is one of the poorest areas in the United Kingdom with the lowest per capita contribution to the national economy.

Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and is also considered one of the six “Celtic nations” by many residents and scholars. The Cornish language is closely related to Welsh and Breton, and less so to Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx. A study in 2000 suggested that there were around 300 people who spoke Cornish fluently. Cornish however has no legal status in the UK. The language is still taught in about twelve primary schools, and occasionally used in religious and civic ceremonies.