I wonder what would happen if you told them you had no social media accounts. The first time we went to New York, 1999, at the hotel check in the receptionist asked for my credit card, when I told them I didn't have one he looked at me as I f I was an ET traveller, door ajar. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
Dragged there kicking and screaming, after years of resisting I was the last of our City lot to get a mobile phone. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
You get granted the ESTA if you're telling the truth about not having social media accounts.. as I got mine last year ok. i assume they use AI to check if you have and this would flag up a query if you do and why you lied, so you'd get a delayed answer whilst there was a check.
Just back from a week in France, St Nazaire and Orleans, not the most exciting places to go to in March but it was ok. Couple of things stood out though. What a pleasure to drive in rural areas, very little traffic and decent quality roads, makes you realise how big France is for a relatively small population. Toll roads aren't cheap but you can go for miles without seeing a red cone or another car and services serve up half-decent food. Speaking of which it's still possible to get a good 3-course lunch with half a bottle of wine for less than 20 euros.
Just back from a week snowboarding in Mayrhofen in Austria. Cracking time as ever. Tend to go the same week every year though, and if people don't think global warming is real...they're wrong. Resort teams do an amazing job keeping everything open, but there's less and less snow low down each year. How they kept the black down into the village open I don't know. It was in good nick, but no other snow anywhere near it. Food and drink not bad price really considering you're in resort, and as ever its good to see they don't screw you when you're a captive audience like some places, so the price of a beer at the top of the mountain is pretty much exactly the same (in fact cheaper sometimes) than in bars in the village. 500ml decent lager (Zillertal Marzen for example) is 5.2 to 6 euros. Large pizza or burger maybe 14 euros etc. I like going late in the season and riding in the sunshine and with the exception of the start when we had snow and poor visibility it was blue skies and no clouds all week. Got some good riding in with some great people.
But is the global warming man made or just a natural blip thing in the billions of year old planet earth which is going to happen anyway?
A real lot of years ago, went to France for two weeks touring round Brittany. We paid a call to St Nazaire to see the lock gate that's featured in the greatest raid of all and go into the UBoat pens. The pens where shut that day so missed that one. Went to Mont san Michel as well on the way back to the coast, that's worth a trip to France on it's own, beautiful place. The Greatest Raid of All Is a brilliant story of the Commandos raiding the lock gate and pumping stations that was only big enough to hold the Tirpitz, five VC's was earned in the raid. Watch it on youtube presented by Jeremy Clarkson, even if you don't like Clarkson, he tells this story brilliantly. Enjoy.
Brilliant job done by Clarkson to highlight the achievements of some very brave men. Americans who have never heard of this are amazed by it.
Clarkson's really good at this sort of thing. If you haven't seen it yet, watch his documentary on the origins of the VC and the story of one soldier in particular. It's on youtube as well.
I think it's fairly obvious that human activity in the last 70 or so years is increasing warming, even if there might be some naturally occurring without humans. The vast majority of scientists agree on that, even if there are some dissenting voices, but I was really commenting about people who don't believe it is happening at all, regardless of cause. It is. Funnily enough I was chatting to a Scottish lass who lives near Aviemore and she was also saying how little snow there is on average and that she thinks snowsports in Scotland might be finished in 10 years. I'm not evangelical about it. I'd be a huge hypocrite of I was since I've just been pumping CO2 into the air by flying somewhere that uses huge amounts of energy to drag people up mountains just so they can slide down them again!
Some from Hull have never heard of Thomas Boyd DSO OBE, Hull trawler owner. He was awarded his DSO for the raid on St. Nazaire.
First paragraph, it's fairly obvious human activity is increasing warming, even if there might be some naturally occurring. Some debate to be had there. Obviously it's not a good thing to pollute the planet we live on (or it's moon and other neighbouring planets) but how much damage we are doing is always going to be questionable. Over the billions of years the planet earth has done many weird and wonderful things all on its own.
I agree the planet may do all sorts, but I think it’s highly unlikely that what humans are doing isn’t making warming worse, at least in the short, by the planets age, term. Given the vast majority of scientists say exactly the same I’m happy with my assertion and I don’t think there’s much debate to be had on that at all.
I get to St Naz usually once a year now for family reasons, they're doing a cracking job of regenerating the whole place, blending leisure facilities alongside the dock workings and the old submarine pens. The docks are thriving and that prosperity has spread across the whole town. It's much like Hull could, or might, be except it's a bit smaller so easier (cheaper) to do wholesale renovations, having a succession of socialist mayors helps too... Yes I went to Mont St Michel many years ago and yes it was fantastic. Went in 2023 and it was dreadful, victim of it's own success. They've built car parks about an hour's walk from the site, or you get a shuttle bus, costs a fortune and it's absolutely heaving with visitors. Thoroughly **** experience.
Must of been 30 years ago I went to Mont san Michel, not so popular then, beautiful. Sorry you didn't enjoy your last visit, shame it's gone the way it has.
