One of the things that is hugely annoying about living in the Southern hemisphere is the huge mark up we seem to pay on almost everything just for living on the wrong side of the planet.
This is especially clear in things like airfares. As the Age reported today, Australians pay twice the price to fly from Australia to the UK as the British do to fly to Australia (this is taking into account the exchange rate, comparing $Au to $Au).
Qantas’ spokeswoman yesterday said the difference between UK and Australian pricing on the route was a result of factors including seasonality, exchange rates and passenger demand.
Britons were still recovering from the effects of the global financial crisis and special discounts were needed to stimulate UK demand to travel to Australia, the spokeswoman said.
It’s hard to think of when I’ve heard a bigger load of tosh. The airfares were priced like this before the recession, despite the exchange rates or seasons. It is absolutely clear that Australians and NZers are simply being ripped off by the airline. I hardly think Australians should be made to subsidise the travel arrangements of Brits. The fact is that airlines might say it depends on the exchange rates but they never lower the prices for Australians when the Aussie dollar is high (as it is now). And um, excuse me airlines, but if twice as many Aussies flew to the UK and back, then surely you wouldn’t need any British bottoms on the seats at all??
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Posted by Miss Maccy on Jan 29, 2010 in Gadget Love
This month we have replaced our:
Toaster
Kettle
Phone & Answering Machine
DVD player
Printer (ok, the old one isn’t strictly dead, just inhaling ink)
Alarm Clock
And added to our collection:
A mini food processor
A Wii battery remote charging pad thingie
All I can say is that I’m really glad we have two recycling bins to deal with all that packaging and it’s another good thing that we went really light on the Christmas presents this year *sigh*.
Hopefully they won’t all collectively expire in 12 months time.
Of course my first tactical mistake was to view the video showing it off in all it’s glory. Up till the point I saw it in action I had been quite convinced I didn’t really neeeeeeeeeed one. By the time they got to the calendar with the pages that flip over, I was gone. Interestingly, it was the calendar that started us down the whole slippery slope of Apple gizmos. I found I preferred to use iCal over paper and then it just became inconvenient not having that with me when I was out and about and forever having to get back to people. Which lead to getting an iPod Touch. Which lead to getting and iPhone. Which may lead into getting an iPad.
The second MAJOR tactical mistake was having a 10 year old son looking over my shoulder while I watched the iPad informercial. “Oh!” he says, “I could get that instead of a laptop”. Why, so you could my dear son. In fact in the whole “will it kick Kindle’s butt” debate (of course it will, don’t be ridiculous) and the “oh my goodness it’s not really a full tablet” debate have completely overlooked a whole market segment out there. Kids and Education. Our poor iMacs which are *gasp* ten years old sadly now have less capacity than the kid’s iPods, which is a slight technical problem when it comes to syncing. It’s much more realistic for us to consider replacing those computers with iPads than whole works-burger laptops and just having one mother ship to sync them with.
And of course, I can see the wonderful possibilities with the iPad for travel with kids – it’s a DVD player without the hassles of DVD’s, it has games, it has books and wonder of wonders it has ten hour battery life (at least initially). I can see the enormous potential too for a whole new level of interactive board games. For the adult traveller it will be absolutely brilliant for maps, guidebooks and having a full sized key board has to be better than the tiny iPhone one (sorry iPhone, great for notes but not so much for writing).
Posted by Miss Maccy on Jan 28, 2010 in Uncategorized
Dear Mrs Hilgendorf My beloved blog readers,
please excuse Miss Maccy Pants from class, for being tardy, for not updating her blog in like, a million years. Her dog ate her homework,Her dog ate her computer, Her computer ate itself and her homeschooling forum was attacked by mongrels who need an injection of sql themselves in the patootie. Plus with the general lack of internet in the whole of Europe and the unexpected arrival of Christmas yet again everything pretty much went pear shaped.
Hopefully things have settled down now and we can resume your regularly scheduled program.
We’ve already checked in online – God Bless Singapore Air. The bags are mostly packed – just a few things to squish down in our special zip lock roll bags (they have one way air valves). Italy has turned on some beautiful weather – our togs / bathers / swimsuits are ready for action! Being a geek family we had a few other important preparations – charging several million different types of batteries, syncing ipods and last minute app store purchases, and not to forget checking the Neo-pets into cyber hotels.
The boys have watched every David Macaulay DVD we could find, Cityhall has watched “Shae by Air” several times. I’ve entered all of our important details and activities into Tripit. And now we are as ready as we’re ever going to be! So Europe, ready or not, here we come!!!
Armchair travel for kids – looks like a wonderful program to accompany any geography studies. The one problem – they only ship to the States at the moment. Hey! It’s a big world out there…
The website for Parc Asterix is all in French, and as my French is a little lacking, I ran the one of the pages through the handy dandy Google-translatometer:
Gauloiseries for the whole family
One thing is certain: the Gauls have the sense of celebration. So when it comes to entertain Petibonum and their parents, Parc Astérix is small in large pots. The result is dramatic and leaves everyone Baba .. orum. At Theater of Poseidon, attend one of the finest performances of current Dolphins, where animal trainer and offers a ballet aquatix wonder that, certainly, big and small.
In good Gauls immoderation you like? So do not miss your hands on the Mona Lisa: a breathtaking spectacle that combines magnificent scenery, stunts, special effects .. An incredible show that will live as a family adventure really fantastix.
And as countries Gauls, the emotions do not expect the number of years, Parc Astérix offers several attractions like Grand Splatch wonder where feelings and make appointments to young people … but never fear them too. This is just a preview, then quickly learn other attractions to have a vision of Panoramix step in your tour de Gaule Family.
Butchered mercilessly (I think) from here: Parc Asterix
Wow, this is a woman after my own heart!!! What an amazing adventure her kids are going to have! I wonder if she would like to catch up with some armchair travelling homeschoolers down under?
The Wrong Side of the Planet Tax
