Grumpy Old Man
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@MajorRage said in Grumpy Old Man:
@MN5 being first on this is pivotal.
All the large ones will cry whilst all the light ones will sign up to fly.
Gotta get your pricing right tho. If you expect average of 85kg but end up with 78kg then you’ve lost 10% in ticket sales.
I don’t really see that being an issue in Samoa
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@Dan54 said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Catogrande said in Grumpy Old Man:
Life is too short to drink cheap wine.
If you want to serve Two Paddocks at an impromptu BBQ with Tesco sausages you should feel free, I say.
Just saw this, what the hell are Tesco sausages??
Supermarket snorkers.
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@Kruse The entire façade of air travel security at airports shits me to tears. It's just unnecessary additional cost and a gross embuggerance from people who look vastly more likely to hijack the flight than me.
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@Dan54 said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Catogrande said in Grumpy Old Man:
Life is too short to drink cheap wine.
If you want to serve Two Paddocks at an impromptu BBQ with Tesco sausages you should feel free, I say.
Just saw this, what the hell are Tesco sausages??
A nutritional free alternative to the sausages you know and love.
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@Catogrande said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Dan54 said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Catogrande said in Grumpy Old Man:
Life is too short to drink cheap wine.
If you want to serve Two Paddocks at an impromptu BBQ with Tesco sausages you should feel free, I say.
Just saw this, what the hell are Tesco sausages??
A nutritional free alternative to the sausages you know and love.
Underrstnd! -
@antipodean said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Kruse The entire façade of air travel security at airports shits me to tears. It's just unnecessary additional cost and a gross embuggerance from people who look vastly more likely to hijack the flight than me.
It's ridiculous and often a power trip for some of them. Years ago I travelled from Oslo to Brisbane with my then 2 year old son. You can imagine what state I was in when I got to Brisbane. Had to stand for ages in the immigration queue and was of course weighed down by toddler shit and said toddler. Finally get through immigration, pack the passports, lift the gear and toddler, then walk about 5 metres before some old bitch standing together with about 5 other customs people pretending to work and who probably hasn't had any action since the Beatles were together asked to look at my passport. Why? Who the fůck knows. After unloading my shit again, the repulsive old bint barely glanced at the passport and then continued to act like she wasn't wasting tax payer dollars. Bitch.
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@Rancid-Schnitzel getting in to Australia is a nightmare of barely trained assholes on enormous power trips with a nanny-state mandate of making your life as shit as possible while actually adding fuck all
Arrive at Heathrow after 24 hours of flying? scan passport. Walk out. Collect bags. Walk out unless you want to volunteer to declare anything to bored customs officials who only really want to ask if you have Tim Tams
Arrive in Australia after 24 hours of flying? Fill out arrival card. Go to kiosk. Scan passport. Answer questions that are on the arrival card. Take ticket. Go to border gate. Scan ticket. Get through. Have at least one other person ask to see the ticket when you are out the other side.
On way to bags have some biosecurity dickhead inspect the arrival card.
Collect bags. Find they have taken the big box containing a hat, and clearly marked fragile, torn it open, rummaged around (damaging said hat) then just fired it on the conveyor belt to get smashed by all the other suitcases. Form another queue where you will then hand over the fucking arrival card, get asked a few questions again that are on the fucking card. Have some fuckwit then ask about the trashed box that has clearly been inspected. then it's luck of the draw if you are putting your bags through the x-ray one more time or not.
Customs, biosecurity and border force are proof-positive of bureaucracy gone wild
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I like a good sticking the boot into Australia as much as the next fulla, but I just did a trip to NZ over the weekend and it was all smooth sailing (and the same on my last trip back in April). Even getting through passport control in in Sydney when leaving was smoother than usual and Murphy's Law meant I chose the queue with two idiots trying to scan non e passports but even that didn't hold me up.
I haven't checked in luggage since 2013 so that always helps get ahead of the queue.
Both Sydney and Auckland airports are way quieter than since before Covid which sucks for the airport and airline businesses but great for travellers.
Weirdly I had to take my belt off at Sydney which I don't think I ever had to do in the past. But I'm happy to trade that for not needing to take out electronics and toiletries. Although in NZ it's no belt and toiletries but electronics need to be taken out.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:
Pistonwristedgibbons who can't drive their 4x4's on country roads.
Even worse are those that have 4x4 but only ever drive on roads. Get a car then, you tool
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@Nepia Re Aussie officials at airports. I find they really appreciate it when you tell them in response to the any criminal convictions question that you didn't realise it was still mandatory. Coz they won't have ever heard that one before....
What shits me is the calibration of the scanners at security.
I always have to remove my belt and pretty much do the full cavity search at Auckland.
Later the same day wearing the same clothes and carrying the same shit, I never have a problem at any other airport.Same internationally - only ever have an issue at Auckland. Well apart from the time I did have a full cavity search at San Francisco, but I figured that was probably the local custom.
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@mariner4life said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Rancid-Schnitzel getting in to Australia is a nightmare of barely trained assholes on enormous power trips with a nanny-state mandate of making your life as shit as possible while actually adding fuck all
Arrive at Heathrow after 24 hours of flying? scan passport. Walk out. Collect bags. Walk out unless you want to volunteer to declare anything to bored customs officials who only really want to ask if you have Tim Tams
Arrive in Australia after 24 hours of flying? Fill out arrival card. Go to kiosk. Scan passport. Answer questions that are on the arrival card. Take ticket. Go to border gate. Scan ticket. Get through. Have at least one other person ask to see the ticket when you are out the other side.
On way to bags have some biosecurity dickhead inspect the arrival card.
Collect bags. Find they have taken the big box containing a hat, and clearly marked fragile, torn it open, rummaged around (damaging said hat) then just fired it on the conveyor belt to get smashed by all the other suitcases. Form another queue where you will then hand over the fucking arrival card, get asked a few questions again that are on the fucking card. Have some fuckwit then ask about the trashed box that has clearly been inspected. then it's luck of the draw if you are putting your bags through the x-ray one more time or not.
Customs, biosecurity and border force are proof-positive of bureaucracy gone wild
My favourite is the Incoming Passenger Card. It has a section you have to fill in if you're not an Australian Citizen. So only having a NZ passport, this confuses them endlessly. Wife learnt to walk off and wait for the bags while I have an argument with the Schutzstaffel monkeys about whether I have to sign it or not.
I once had a BF person tick it for me and I told her she'd just committed a federal offence. After explaining the consequences of altering someone else's signed declaration, she couldn't wave me on through quickly enough.
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i made the mistake of not filling that out once (by accident, i was hungover and saw citizen but read "resident") on a day when they were filming Border Force
They could not WAIT to get me in a room with a camera. the look of disappointment when i said "oops my bad", made two crosses and walked off
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@dogmeat said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Nepia Re Aussie officials at airports. I find they really appreciate it when you tell them in response to the any criminal convictions question that you didn't realise it was still mandatory. Coz they won't have ever heard that one before....
What shits me is the calibration of the scanners at security.
I always have to remove my belt and pretty much do the full cavity search at Auckland.
Later the same day wearing the same clothes and carrying the same shit, I never have a problem at any other airport.Same internationally - only ever have an issue at Auckland. Well apart from the time I did have a full cavity search at San Francisco, but I figured that was probably the local custom.
I don't think I've ever had to take my belt of in Auckland. What are you hiding in your belts?
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@Nepia said in Grumpy Old Man:
@dogmeat said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Nepia Re Aussie officials at airports. I find they really appreciate it when you tell them in response to the any criminal convictions question that you didn't realise it was still mandatory. Coz they won't have ever heard that one before....
What shits me is the calibration of the scanners at security.
I always have to remove my belt and pretty much do the full cavity search at Auckland.
Later the same day wearing the same clothes and carrying the same shit, I never have a problem at any other airport.Same internationally - only ever have an issue at Auckland. Well apart from the time I did have a full cavity search at San Francisco, but I figured that was probably the local custom.
I don't think I've ever had to take my belt of in Auckland. What are you hiding in your belts?
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@Nepia said in Grumpy Old Man:
@dogmeat said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Nepia Re Aussie officials at airports. I find they really appreciate it when you tell them in response to the any criminal convictions question that you didn't realise it was still mandatory. Coz they won't have ever heard that one before....
What shits me is the calibration of the scanners at security.
I always have to remove my belt and pretty much do the full cavity search at Auckland.
Later the same day wearing the same clothes and carrying the same shit, I never have a problem at any other airport.Same internationally - only ever have an issue at Auckland. Well apart from the time I did have a full cavity search at San Francisco, but I figured that was probably the local custom.
I don't think I've ever had to take my belt of in Auckland. What are you hiding in your belts?
Every damn time. It's crazy. Picking up iron in my blood or something
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@Nepia said in Grumpy Old Man:
I haven't checked in luggage since 2013 so that always helps get ahead of the queue.
That actually got me in trouble once. Nice easy flight Auckland-Melbourne.
But - early morning flight, and the Black Caps were playing the previous night - so I had the genius idea of going to Auckland airport the night before, staying up all night watching cricket, then catching flight.
Turns out fucking Auckland airport bars are NOT open 24 hours... so I bought a couple bottles of wine, got smashed, slept on a bench, woke up still drunk, got on flight.
Arrived in Melbourne, with zero check-in luggage... every fucking Aussie kept asking me where it was, I'd say I don't have any, they'd ask "what about clothes", I'd say "If I need shit, I'll buy it"; they'd ask "what about toiletries and stuff", I'd say "If I need shit, I'll buy it"; they'd ask "but what about... "... "If I NEED shit, I'll BUY it!".
Didn't go down well... until eventually, at Customs, after having that conversation for the third time... they sent me down Aisle 1. Aisle 1 went to a pristine white empty room with only a single table as furnishing... where above conversation played out for the 4th fucking time... and then a new one began... "We're going to need to call Customs to figure out what to do"... "So hang on... Who are you?"... "Customs"... "So WHO do you need to call...?" .... "Customs - they'll know what to do."... "What the... sigh"
And just remembered - the entire time, wearing a t-shirt I'd designed myself: a map of NZ comprised of a pornography montage.
To be fair to the Customs (???) guys in the Aisle 1 room - they did ask me if I could make a similar t-shirt for them, using the map of Greece. Melbourne, huh? -
@Kruse said in Grumpy Old Man:
@Nepia said in Grumpy Old Man:
I haven't checked in luggage since 2013 so that always helps get ahead of the queue.
That actually got me in trouble once. Nice easy flight Auckland-Melbourne.
But - early morning flight, and the Black Caps were playing the previous night - so I had the genius idea of going to Auckland airport the night before, staying up all night watching cricket, then catching flight.
Turns out fucking Auckland airport bars are NOT open 24 hours... so I bought a couple bottles of wine, got smashed, slept on a bench, woke up still drunk, got on flight.
Arrived in Melbourne, with zero check-in luggage... every fucking Aussie kept asking me where it was, I'd say I don't have any, they'd ask "what about clothes", I'd say "If I need shit, I'll buy it"; they'd ask "what about toiletries and stuff", I'd say "If I need shit, I'll buy it"; they'd ask "but what about... "... "If I NEED shit, I'll BUY it!".
Didn't go down well... until eventually, at Customs, after having that conversation for the third time... they sent me down Aisle 1. Aisle 1 went to a pristine white empty room with only a single table as furnishing... where above conversation played out for the 4th fucking time... and then a new one began... "We're going to need to call Customs to figure out what to do"... "So hang on... Who are you?"... "Customs"... "So WHO do you need to call...?" .... "Customs - they'll know what to do."... "What the... sigh"
And just remembered - the entire time, wearing a t-shirt I'd designed myself: a map of NZ comprised of a pornography montage.
To be fair to the Customs (???) guys in the Aisle 1 room - they did ask me if I could make a similar t-shirt for them, using the map of Greece. Melbourne, huh?Legend
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@dogmeat said in Grumpy Old Man:
.. apart from the time I did have a full cavity search at San Francisco, but I figured that was probably the local custom.
Always best at airport security / customs NOT to say that you are Elton John's celebrity stunt bottom and you support anything to do with Arsenal.
