Complaints and How to Answer Them

After a recent travel debacle, I decided to complain. My letter and the response are below. Sometimes being manly is about knowing when you've been wronged as a paying customer and standing up for yourself, within civilised bounds, of course. It clearly hits home. I congratulate Delta for the tenor of their reply.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to describe to you my journey from Montreal to Berlin on Air France on the 28th-29th June, 2011. I would like to ask you if you would yourself tolerate such an experience. I further wish to know why, given the competition in the airline market, I should ever choose to fly with Air France again? You should be aware that this is a trip I have made about three times per year for the last five years or so on different airlines. Of all of these experiences, my recent Air France trip was the worst. I hope you will reply promptly to this letter. In two weeks time I shall publish this letter on a blog that receives about 12,000 page views per month. I should very much like to include your reply.

My trip began with a delay. The scheduled departure time of 17.20 was put back to 19.00. No explanation was offered. In the event, we did not depart until 19.45 because of “boarding difficulties.” This delay occurred even though boarding began at 17.30 – a full 90 minutes before departure. The first load of passengers, myself included, were driven to the aircraft in a vehicle that raised and lowered itself. When this vehicle arrived at the aircraft it stood there, suspended thirty feet in the air, for 40 minutes. There was nowhere to sit, no ventilation, and no explanation.

Once underway I realised immediately that the screen in my seat did not work. I informed a flight attendant who said he would “re-set” it. He forgot. When I could next attract his attention I asked again and he saw to it. It was one hour into the flight before I was able to avail myself of the in-flight entertainment. I watched a movie. As soon as it was over, the screen went black and the system remained inoperable for the remainder of the flight.

At no point before being served a meal was I (or anyone else) offered a drink. What happened to champagne in economy? It was your proudest boast in former times. By the time I was served my meal I had been sitting in my seat for three hours. The man next to me repeatedly asked for water and was either ignored or told explicitly to wait for his meal.

The quality of the meal was very poor. I’m not sure of the wisdom of serving scallops in economy even under the best of circumstances, since they are dangerous when re-heated. In this case, however, it was completely inedible. I actually wondered if a small piece of hard rubber had accidentally landed in my salad by mistake, until I realised that everyone had one. In addition there was no choice of meal offered. It was a questionable beef and pasta dish or nothing.

My connecting flight was in Paris. Unbeknownst to me, I arrived in chaos. When I first checked the boards, my 10.20 flight to Berlin was showing “on time.” At 10.00 it changed to “delayed until 10.55.” At 10.30, the flight disappeared altogether from the boards. I asked three separate Air France members of staff at the gate what was happening, and all three assured me that the flight was not cancelled.

At 10.50, it was announced that the flight was, prior assurances notwithstanding, cancelled. At this point, the Air France member of staff at the gate began to communicate without a microphone and only in French to the assembled crowd. I could neither hear nor understand her. Confusion was extreme. Eventually I managed to get re-booked onto an earlier flight that was about six hours (!) delayed.

No reason was given for any of this. Rumour was the only source of information: a French strike? A lightning strike? Only at 12.00 did the pilot of the next flight tell us of a massive systems failure in Paris, but it is hard to believe that this can be allowed to happen.

I arrived in Berlin shortly before 14.00. The baggage did not arrive for nearly an hour. No reason given; no communication. Needless to say, when the bags did arrive, mine was not there. I went and joined what turned out to be a very long queue of disgruntled Air France customers reporting missing bags. Mercifully, I was near the front. I reported my case, and was assured the bag would be with me the next day. That should have been today (June 30th). I called the service and was told that my bag had been found but was still (!) in Paris. I am now expecting delivery tomorrow. Of course, I am without clothing, and without some important items in my case.

I left the airport finally at 15.30. The total travel time, from scheduled departure until leaving the airport at my destination: about 16 hours. From Montreal to Berlin, that is completely ridiculous.

In all, my trip was a series of delays, with poor service, poor communication, poor food, and lost luggage. I highly recommend that your senior customer services representatives try flying Air France Economy some time and see how they like it. I wouldn’t wish this trip on my worst enemy, and yet I undertook it voluntarily! I even paid hundreds of euros for the privilege! It seems that Air France needs to be reminded that its customers are neither cattle, nor are they cargo. Your passengers were sorely let down by this frankly brutal experience.

I hereby challenge you to make amends: what assurances, or compensation, can you offer me that might once again induce me to purchase an Air France ticket? I promise you I will not be easily tempted to return.

Sincerely yours,

[VB]

Dear Dr. [VB]

Thank you for your communication.  I would like to inform you that Delta Air Lines represents Air France and KLM in North America.  Therefore, on behalf of Delta Air Lines and our SkyTeam partners, I would like to extend our sincere apology for flight disruptions causing your late arrivals and our service failures on your trip to Berlin on Air France.

After reading your email, I can only imagine your frustration when the Air France flight from Montreal to Paris was delayed.  I am so sorry for this inconvenience of leaving over two hours late.  To make matters worse, the connecting flight to Berlin was canceled and you were rebooked on another flight that was delayed six hours.

We all take on time performance very seriously and despite our tough economic conditions are not sacrificing these goals or safety in any way.  At the same time, we realize travelers want an airline they can count on to reach their destinations in a timely manner and how upsetting it is when plans are disrupted.

Additionally, it is disturbing that you were not offered explanations by the Air France staff regarding these flight disruptions.  We expect our team members to provide prompt flight information updating our passengers at the gates, but I apologize your experience in Montreal and Paris was to the contrary.

Also, I am truly sorry for your disappointment with the inflight service received on our flight from Montreal to Paris.  I deeply regret our video system was malfunctioning  on this lengthy flight, you were not offered a beverage prior to our meal service, and the food quality served was unfavorable without being offered a choice of meals.  We want our partner's inflight environment to be pleasing to our customers, but I understand your disappointment with the inadequate service you received on this flight.

Finally, after waiting one hour for the checked in baggage to arrive, I am so sorry your checked in luggage did not arrive with you in Berlin. Like you, we certainly wish that instances of mishandled bags never occurred.  Your frustration is understood considering you were without clothing and some important items during this delay.  Please know we have dedicated goals for delivering bags, but I apologize, again, for this inconvenience.

We appreciate you taking the time to advise us of this unfortunate experience.  It is important for us to know any instance where our partner's service is lacking.  Please know your concerns are taken very seriously and have been thoroughly documented.  Be assured, I will be sharing your comments with the Air France Airport Customer Service leadership teams in Montreal, Paris and Berlin for their internal follow up.

As a gesture of sincere apology for our flight disruptions, our inflight service failures and your mishandled baggage,  I have issued an Electronic Transportation Credit Voucher (eTCV) in the amount of $200.  Please note the voucher number and associated Terms and Conditions will be arriving in a separate email.  I encourage you to add Delta Air Lines to your receiver list so the voucher document is not misdirected to your spam folder.  Please keep the voucher number and the Terms and Conditions since the number is required for redemption.  It is also important to remind you that there is no Direct Ticketing fee for reservations confirmed online at delta.com.

Dr. [VB], thank you for your support as an Ivory Flying Blue member and for trusting your business to us. We hope you will continue to choose Delta Air Lines and our SkyTeam partners, Air France and KLM, for your future air travel needs. Please know your comments will not go unnoticed.  We will make every attempt to serve you better in the future as we look forward to our continued business relationship.  Thank you for writing to us.

Sincerely,

Thomas Wyborski
Coordinator, Customer Care
Delta Air Lines

Harlem Globe Trotter

Ten years ago I stayed in Harlem for the first time. Actually, it was right on the edge, at Amsterdam and 103^rd, in the worst (only?) youth hostel in New York. That particular experience is one I would have been happy to forget, but it is seared into my mind for a variety of reasons: being ripped off by a ‘taxi driver’ on the way; being aggressively propositioned in the communal bathroom; navigating the shelfless glass-doored refrigerator that served 1,500 people, etc. And at no point when leaving the building did I have any desire to head farther north. The neighbourhood was bad enough where I was, and promised worse.

A lot can change in ten years. I’m certainly no longer a ragged backpacker, for one. Experienced eyes would have looked on that neighbourhood differently even then, but now they do not recognise it as the same place. Doings at Columbia took me back to Harlem, and I hereby recommend it as your destination, the next time you choose to trot the globe.

This time Mrs. VB and I stayed in a proper brownstone house on 118^th and Malcolm X. The post-Giuliani neighbourhood is a charming place, full of relaxed yet busy people. The welcome is the warmest in New York. The community is vibrant, mixed, young, and (to judge by the food on offer) demanding of high standards. Ten years ago, I doubt I’d have been consuming home-made and authentic Italian food in a restaurant street terrace at 120^th Street. I might have been welcomed into the bosom of Sylvia’s soul food restaurant (it’s been there for decades), but I somehow think it unlikely that the waiter would have been able to try out his German on me back then. I also suspect I wouldn’t have wandered home calmly at a saunter at around midnight. Friends, the cosmopolitan dream is alive. In these streets America is doing quite nicely, thank you.

The 100ft climb through Morningside Park to reach Columbia on the Upper West Side no longer represents an ascent to civilisation in the stark manner of yesteryear. Ivy League cosmopolitanism is its own peculiar brand of soul-sapping homogeneity. After lengthy days in the rarefied air-conditioning of the Ivory Tower, it felt good to descend again and return to what I happily thought of, for a few sultry days, as home.

The Adirondack

Jolting and jogging and shunting and stop.

Crawling and tilting and sprinting and stop.

The gilded-age rails are fixing to rot

And to judge by the rolling, so is the stock.

The train whistles progress, but the points are all shot:

Two hours at the border, and stop, stop, stop, stop.

Lake Champlain glistens for hundreds of miles,

To the West Adirondacks; to the east just a mire.

There is beauty here of Arcadian kind,

But the route is industrial, brutal, and wild.

A river, a bridge, a ubiquitous flag.

Eleven hours of sidings, and freight trains and drag.

We yawn through New York, creeping or stalled

In a chariot of steel, obesity withal.

Past Plattsburgh, Westport, Fort Edward-Glen Falls.

Through Schenectady, Hudson, Poughkeepsie we trawl.

A river, a bridge, a vertiginous sight.

We pull into Penn and escape with the night.

Manly Haunts

I have de-camped to Manchester, where it is still winter. Normal service will be resumed here next week. Thought I’d keep you going with some images of my favourite character-filled haunts in North London. I love being in these spots, for in these places are things almost extinct – a sense of tradition, of place, of old communities, of conviviality, and of movement.

 Bedford Place

 Bedford Square

 The Princess Louise pub

 The newly opened St. Pancras hotel

St. Pancras station

Bloomsbury Notes

Outside the window is a sweet-chestnut tree, inhabited by blue tits, doing what birds do in Spring. The window belongs to a characterful room atop a Georgian hotel in Bedford Place, which is probably the best street in London to bed down. In the evening a dog fox’s bark is the only sound of the city, looking for some vixen nightlife. Down the street in Russell Square the tulips are wide awake, and the British have loosed their stiff collars and inhibitions and are sprawled out on the grass. It’s twenty degrees, which feels like melting point after six months of frost, and the kids are jumping naked in and out of the public fountain. People are smiling. English people, even in times like these, are smiling.

The poet is here on a flying visit, having had long-stay ambitions curtailed by unforeseen circumstances. He has been re-united with his wife, after an unexpectedly long visit to the Americas, and she has brought with her the necessary accoutrements of his summer: linen and loafers. Life looks very well with linen and loafers, after the London winter shroud has lifted. The poet now pads around his favourite neighbourhood, marking his territory, on a lazy Sunday.

First thing this morning, while foraging for food, an elderly man called out ‘hello’ to the poet, and as he looked up the old man took his photograph. ‘Hello’, said the poet, somewhat surprised.

‘Are you British or foreign?’ aksed the man, in the friendliest manner possible for such a question.

‘I am English’, replied the poet, wondering why it mattered (and, for that matter, how there could be any possible doubt).

‘Well’, the man went on, ‘you look very smart. Don’t tell me you haven’t been home yet’.

‘Alright,’ said the poet, enigmatically, ‘I won’t tell you’, and they parted smiling.

This kind of encounter happens more regularly than it used to do. Our bard does not know whether it’s him becoming more approachable, or the world getting nicer, but he dares to hope it’s something of both. In any case, it’s the kind of thing that happens to him in Bloomsbury, on sunny Sundays especially.

He arrived here yesterday afternoon and immediately indulged in some St. Austell beer and haddock and chips at the Marquis Cornwallis. British pubs, especially in London, have become so reliable in recent years for the quality of their food. He returned today for a healthy dose of roast beef, followed by a peek in the local second-hand bookshops, a stroll around the neighbourhood, and finally returning to his Georgian perch for an afternoon nap. Outside the window there is a chatter of beaky friends, and the distant hum of life. For once he will sit still: sit still and write, and wonder what the Bloomsbury set were so upset about.

Barcelona Masculine: Some Observations

The most common image on the door of gentlemen’s bathrooms in bars and restaurants in Barcelona is of Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in Godfather II. We can debate the manliness of this character, but not if he only marks the way to basic biological functions.

The nearest, and most lavish, den of iniquity to my (rather nice) hotel was called ‘Bagdad’, and offered an ‘Arabic porn show’. I deigned not to penetrate its inner sanctum.

The Olympic needle is enveloped by a feminine O, and the crucible of the Olympic flame sits atop a rather flaccid looking upright.

One of the principal city displays is the magic fountain, which gushes on a precise timetable, to the strains of Pavarotti. It’s an illuminated circle of water, fed by a lavish terraced waterfall that descends from an art museum.

At the Picasso Museum, the art is slavishly laid out in chronological order, with no mind to the apparently enormous gaps in the collection that this method reveals. And thus we get the man’s loose sketches of his arty friends alongside his cheap smut. You’ll see some gems here, but the feeling you’ll leave with will be that of Picasso’s women: the man was a stylish cad.

And finally there’s Gaudi, who was pathologically afraid of the straight line so far as I can tell. Barcelona is the best planned city in Europe, all neatly laid out in beautiful tenement blocks. But the chief attractions among these solid piles are Gaudi’s visions, giving the distinct impression that all his bricks melted in the Mediterranean sun. Twelve Euros to enter, no less; more for the premium shack.

All told, a city of the exotic and the feminine, the organic and artistic. What manliness abounds in the visible city is cast in questionable light. But I would aver that these attractions are not where people live, nor work, but are the mere attractions for the touristic gaze. In its stoic planning, the rest of the city conceals its strength in a sober anonymity.

*4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th pics are mine.

Sangria and Spice in February; Or, Vagaries of the Weather

The greatest thing about being in Europe is that one can hop on an aeroplane and in two hours find oneself immersed in another culture, another language, another climate. Last Thursday morning in Berlin, as I made my way to the airport, the temperature slipped to minus eleven Celsius. By 2 p.m. I was sitting in Plaça Reial, just off La Rambla in Barcelona, where it was a comparatively balmy twenty degrees. Some of the locals, enduring their own winter, were wearing coats, gloves and scarves, but I’ve long since realised that how one feels in the weather is entirely subjective. In Englands old and New, everyone is so fed up with winter by April that the first hint of warmth brings out the shorts and espadrilles. The very same temperature in September will see the donning of woollens and scarves. A wise man once said that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. In any case, the weather is always refracted through the psychology of the individual and his crowd.

A thirty degree temperature differential in a matter of hours will make the most objective meteorologist sweat, and I took the opportunity to shed all the accoutrements of winter and bask in the sunshine with a litre of sangria. In a place like this, so driven by tourism, it’s pretty difficult to isolate the Catalan ‘look’, especially in such a weird season as the Western Mediterranean winter. The people on the streets had generally just arrived from colder climes, and seemed altogether overdressed. The locals also represented a range of climatic origins – plenty of Latin American, South Asian and Middle Eastern natives here – and each had their own interpretation of what fifteen-to-twenty Celsius felt like. Disappointingly, very few jaunty hats were on show. I really thought I’d see some debonair headwear in Spain, but I’m afraid I rather stood out in that regard. Then again, there’s nothing so very wrong with standing out.

Best encounter I had in Barcelona: a broken conversation with a young Bangladeshi man about Irish cricket, while he sold me a Turkish kebab. He was very excited about it all, and told me, as he poured a liberal ladleful of chilli sauce on the kebab, that spicy was normal. I rather fancy that, in Barcelona at least, he was more right than he knew.

What People Do In Pubs; Or, The Berlin Kneipe

Rejoice, all ye young choiring throats, round our table rings a roundelay, hey-dey-dey-hey-dey-dey, round our table rings a roundelay. Three times three is ni-i-ine, we swig our drinks like swi-i-ine, three times three and one is ten, let’s swig another one like men – two, three, four, six, seven.

            Who is that standing at the milling-bar, the swilling-bar, the rilling-bar, who is that smiling into the smoky stink-hole? (Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz).

Any man who lives in a city, and I mean really lives in a city, rather than merely working or commuting through such a place, will own that a city can always surprise. In a major capital one can never know everything, and while we may think of certain networks of streets as forming ‘our’ patch, we are nevertheless driven by the mystery of the place. Beyond the well-trodden path of tourists and the attractions they seek lies the dark urban world of the inhabitants, made bright by the light of their spirits. Let us follow a Berlin local now, and see where we end up.

We are at the door of a pub, an Irish pub apparently, in Kreuzberg, in the south. The door is iron, the frontage shabby and uninviting. No tourist would ever come here, but nor would the Prenzl’berg hipsters and, we gather, that is why it is good. There is a moment’s hesitation, for we know of only two kinds of Irish pub: the kitsch plasticity of the formulaic boozer, bedecked in made-in-China ‘authentic’ Irish breweriana and giant TV screens, and real pubs in Ireland. This one is called Mrs. Lovell, and we wonder if there is an intended illusion to Mrs. Lovett, the meat-pie making accomplice of Sweeney Todd. For a moment we are glad that we have already eaten. Suspicions fly away as the door is pushed inwards and a cloak of smoke envelopes us and, through the gloom, smiling eyes and mouths greet us as old-friend newcomers. This is not an Irish pub; it is a living room with a bar, and the hosts are happy we came.

People in pubs these days typically are there only to drink. There is nothing else to do. Gone are the days when a man met his chums at his local in order to recapitulate the terms of friendship through play and camaraderie. Cards, dominoes, even darts, are now things of the past. In the age of ‘Rockband’ nobody can play an instrument, and we sit and stare at plasma screens without sound, voluntarily hypnotised by the moving images, for we have nothing to say. Men used not only to smoke and to drink, but to philosophise about smoking and drinking. A pipe or a cigar was not idly consumed but relished; scotch drinkers and real-ale drinkers savoured. Now we drink to excess the ditch water served up to us so as not to taste it, and we occupy our mouths with the acrid tar of whatever comes cheapest simply because our jaws are idle.

Not so at Mrs. Lovell, whose proprietress is, we gather, a Berliner of said name. The man of the house, English so far as can be gathered, says only that he is ‘from Mum and Dad’ when probed about his origins. Between them, they orchestrate an evening full of song and laughter, in two languages, based squarely on a steady rhythm guitar, the raspy voice of a smoky larynx, and the percussive innovations of a man in leather and snakeskin trousers, whose kit included a single tom, a wooden table and a glass ashtray. From the darkness of a back room a man emerges with a saxophone, breathing heavily through it at first and then bending it up through the smoke and finding a clear soprano tone that shines like a light through the fog. Two men at the bar produce ukuleles and join in, and shortly enough the room fills with locals, who greet each other as long-lost pals and immediately join in song. The evening is not planned. A capella renditions of Mackie Messer and Goodbye Johnny are incongruously mixed with a choppy Dirty Old Town and a weirdly out of place Another Brick in the Wall. Everyone is experiencing an unadulterated, unregulated delight. The room smiles. The pub dog pads from table to table, wet-nosing the guests as if to say ‘stay’, and dancing barmaids – dancing because they can’t help it, not because they’re supposed to – keep the glasses filled. The Guinness is as it is meant to be, and all is right with the world.

We leave with reluctance, for soon the trains will stop running. Savouring the outside air for a minute, we duck underground and head home. We miss the last connection from Alexanderplatz, but somehow having to walk home from here, on this night, seems only right.

Scotch Myths

A boy of twelve, fair-haired and freckled, essentially innocent but with suspicions, went to the Highlands of Scotland. He lamely fished for salmon in river and loch, and later saw them spawning in their thousands. Fat-bellied monsters threw themselves against rocky waterfalls, and he was impressed by their determination. He gathered mushrooms in the woods, and learnt which ones not to pick. He went all the way to the Northern coastline, to eat a fish supper with the gulls, and over to Skye to see that there really was nothing there. Winding through glens on narrow roads, craning over dizzying precipices, noting eagles and ospreys, he discovered a hallowed trail. It has stayed with him since, although he does not appreciate it. The amber reward at the end of this trail that thrust him into adulthood is with him yet.

It was the distillery trail: a marked route that networked the producers of the stuff of libations since time immemorial; the noble spirit that Scotland may consider its most worthy contribution to the world. Nestled in heady country, higher than any other, was the Tomatin distillery. The boy looked around at row upon row of barrels of oak, some of which once contained Spanish sherry. A dram was passed around, of their standard twelve-year-old single malt, and he was not overlooked. Two things the same age, one mature, the other fresh, met. The moment of imbibing brought blood to the lips and the cheeks, a momentary numbness, a rush of aroma – malt, apples, pears, bonfires – and then sheer joy, followed by a molten feeling of the generation of internal heat, as if he had swallowed an exothermic elixir. The moment passed; the world began again; the boy had taken a step towards manhood.

It is many years later. The boy is a man. He has not thought of these things for a long time. He is in a foreign land, surrounded by unfamiliar things, and he is walking. It is winter; a harsh winter. He passes a liquor store that seems to have an air about it. He stops in his tracks, agog, and presses his nose against the plate. When the fog of his breath clears he sees what his mind had told him must surely have been an apparition: a row of bottles labelled Tomatin. There are twelve-year-old and fifteen-year-old varieties. He is transported; connections are made; synapses in the brain tripped. He is twelve again, taking steps into an incipient manhood. How came he here? By what route? The man enters the establishment and purchases a bottle. It feels like buying a memory, but somehow more substantial than that.

The man writes to all his friends. ‘If you can find it, I strongly urge it upon you. It makes men of boys’.

Keeping It In The Family

‘Tis said that tweed only comes into its own when passed down to the next generation. Generally speaking, it’s worth hanging on to well-made, well-cut clothes, so long as there is someone on hand to wear them. The following example is a case in point. No longer doing quite the job for my father-in-law, this Aquascutum lovely has come my way, just as I was needing a new overcoat. Its splendidness is matched only by its having come freely my way, from one who was pleased as punch to see its life not only extended, but kept in the family to boot.

Oddly enough, I was wearing this coat on the plane back from Canada, and as I was disembarking in London, the purser (male) looked me up and down, sighed, and exclaimed, ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about! A proper Englishman!’ I was tempted to reply in German, but as always when this kind of thing happens, I offered humble thanks and went on my way, wondering what, precisely, makes me look so English. On this occasion, wearing an entirely Canadian coat built on the foundations of English sartorial heritage, I wondered how my father-in-law would have reacted to such a statement (he is ancestrally French, with a touch of Scandinavian; until now, the family has been unsullied by English blood). Sacrebleu!

The Grand Tour

If it were possible, illustrious philosopher! to write to you without that respect which hinders the imagination by introducing a degree of fear, I should flatter myself that I could entertain you with an account of my tour of Italy. I shall do my best; and if I am not successful you will know what to ascribe my failure to.

    You were indeed right to congratulate me when my father gave me permission to travel in Italy. Nine months in this delicious country have done more for me than all the sage lessons which books, or men formed by books, could have taught me. It was my imagination that needed correction, and nothing but travel could have produced this effect (Boswell to Rousseau, 1765).

Athens, 1813

Aristocratic I am not. But then, seldom few are anymore. And yet, as only an aristocrat could in days of yore, I have travelled and learned, consuming culture as if I were entitled to it. I am not alone in this. Travel has been democratised to an impressive, if not alarming, level. What, for the millions who pack up and jet off, is it for?

I have a sense of loss, or rather, of opportunity lost. For modern travel is an empty experience for most travellers. The masses who line up to escape set about recapitulating the things from which they run as soon as they arrive at their destination. In the West, we tour in crowds of our peers, consuming kitsch that has no bearing on its location other than that it is sold there. For years, as an undergraduate living in the north of England, I sold Christmas decorations in the shape of Royal Guards to Americans. The decorations were made in China, and marked up 300 per cent. And now they sit, in their thousands, annually adorning the plastic trees of Texans, as memorials of their European tour. The English (not all of them, naturally, but as a composite generalisation) seek only a warm place to eat the same greasy food, drink the same bland lager, and engage in the same meaningless ‘relationships’ as can be found in any sleazy nightclub at home. From what I can gather, the discerning classes (a term I use to denote a relatively rare cosmopolitan intellect) of each Occidental nation carry a degree of shame with respect to their countrymen who, when abroad, represent their respective national characters in the worst possible light.

Emil Brack, Planning the Grand Tour

The world is small to us, but has become so only in proportion with the narrowing of our minds. When it took purpose, planning, and considerable effort to travel, it was undertaken with a view to enrichment – of the mind (and perhaps the purse, for some). For certain, there have always been voyeurs and opportunists, but the ideal of travel was to complete one’s education; to be enriched by cultures and histories richer than one’s own; and to return with a broadened, a more experienced mind. This possibility is upon us now, and with a simplicity of execution hitherto unknown and, for aught we know, for only a small window of time. Most of us spurn this opportunity, instead wreaking havoc on the lands upon which we trespass, in both senses.

The world, despite its borders and restrictions, is, to the privileged West, largely open. What if we were to visit it with an open mind?

Travelling, Mac? Or, An Itinerant’s Wardrobe

You’re probably aware that I’m something of the peripatetic sort. If you were polite you might call me an itinerant intellectual. If you were less guarded you might call me an academic vagrant. In any case, I travel a lot, and that presents its peculiar problems, sartorially speaking.

For years now, with only the occasional exception, my clothes have been separated across international borders. Each time I hop on a plane/train/bus (depending on which country I’m in and going to) a selection must be made, which varies according to the season, duration of stay, and purpose. Clothes are like old friends and, like my actual old friends, I have to leave them behind all too often.

how unspeakably important is it to know what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one; where the footing is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or mere cloud, and may engulf us!... ‘Society sails through the Infinitude on Cloth, as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean and unclean beasts in the Apostle’s Dream; and without such Sheet or Mantle, would sink to endless depths, or mount to inane limbos, and in either case be no more’ (Sartor Resartus).

The latest German expedition has proven fraught with difficulties on the clothes front. All the wrong choices were made in September, thinking that Germany’s winter wouldn’t really get going until January. That assessment couldn’t have been more wrong, and now I have returned armed with heavier duty kit I find that the temperature is mild (for now). To complicate things, this trip will be in the order of five-months duration, meaning that somehow winter, spring and summer have to be taken account of, while staying within a two-suitcase limit. Success seems unlikely.

A rare peek inside the VB inner sanctum

Despite the trickiness of staying elegant but lightweight while on the go, I can share some basics that do work, at least in principle. I try to leave balance in my wardrobes, home and away, so that if I have two stable bases, I don’t need to pack very much for trips to and from. Right now, all the work is in Old Europe, all the play in Montreal, which means the suits are mainly here, the rakish odd jackets there. I’m kitted out here with a couple of tweed jackets, a blue blazer, and something in burgundy velvet (you never know, I might get round to having fun at some point). The other wardrobe has all the linen, cotton and silk (and I just hope it doesn’t get too hot too soon in Germany). Knitwear is evenly distributed, as are shirts, ties and hats. A smattering of cedar, in addition to the bagging of some choice items ought to keep the moths at bay in Montreal. Shoes are problematic. Anything summery is currently tucked up in bed, save for the boat shoes, which are left over from last year and might be sacrificed to a warm spring. I’m left here with winter boots, Chelsea boots (black and brown), black oxfords and brown brogues. It’s not enough, but what can you do? Scents are also evenly split, and I’ve taken to using Eau de Parfum since it lasts longer in all respects. Wherever you meet me, that place will have a corresponding smell. Coats are a pain because they’re so big, so I’m limited to three: a smart overcoat; a three-quarter length leather coat; and a leather jacket for spring. In storage lie the other overcoat, the other leather jacket, the loden coat, and the sheepskin.

The handkerchief is one way to stay distinctive while keeping the weight down

What all this amounts to is something of a split personality. One has to question what one wants to portray in a given context, and the limitations of travel force one to make sharp distinctions. I largely intend to be taken seriously in my current abode, and you will find me seriously dressed for the most part. Elsewhere, I can give full play to the lighter side, and dress accordingly. Most people get to decide these things everyday. If I get to decide once every three months I am doing well.

And of course, where would a man be without his sundry sartorial tools?

Happy travels, wherever you might be headed.

Christmas Delivery

He wasn’t in the usual garb of Father Christmas. Think more blue overalls and a couple of days’ lazy beard. He was also Arabic. Nevertheless, he came on Christmas eve and delivered all the Christmas presents, not to mention my underwear and shaving kit. Earlier, one of his elves had called (from India, apparently), and foretold of his coming, sometime before 11 p.m. All this seemed to me most unorthodox, but who am I to judge of the mysteries of his delivery methods? Rudolf (a white Ford Transit) didn’t seem too interested in my proffered carrot, and Santa himself averred that sherry wasn’t quite appropriate for a man with a lot of Christmas deliveries to make. Such modern responsibility! And he was even so good as to substitute his usual sack for the exact suitcase that Mrs VB and I had lost in transit from Germany. It must be a little miracle in Montreal.

Merry Christmas to all!

Large World, Small Odyssey

Being Manly is now coming to you from Montreal, after much trouble. After years of harping about the smallness of the world, I am now convinced of its largeness, and promise to hold my peace in future. To say that I am lucky to be here today would be an understatement. Our arrival depended, ultimately, on our ability to transfer from a domestic to an international flight at Frankfurt in only nine minutes. I wonder if I can submit that to the people at Guinness as some kind of world record?

Something else I have been given to harp about is the ubiquity of gadgetry that does its utmost to make us less human. Yesterday’s tormented journey was actually caused by such gadgetry, and not by snow, as the news would have you believe. After days of struggling, Mrs. VB and I were actually sitting on a plane in Berlin, two minutes from taking off. At that moment, somebody with the internet in his hands discovered that his connecting flight in Frankfurt was  cancelled, and decamped himself and his cohort from the aircraft. Despite the remonstrations of the crew, they insisted on getting off, which meant that their luggage also had to be removed. This caused us to miss our 8:45 a.m. departure slot, and we were then allocated the new slot of 3 p.m. These people knew that their selfish act was about to jeopardize the Christmas plans of roughly 200, but they did it anyway. I checked this morning, and discovered further cancellations from Berlin to Frankfurt. Despite my general disposition of good will, I can’t help hoping that those people remain stranded for a very long time.

Once we’d been told that we would now have to sit for six hours in the cabin without moving, most people decided to give up and get off. About thirty of us decided to stick it out, reasoning that it was better to get to a hub and take our chances than to remain in the Berlin backwater. We dug in. The spirit of the Blitz was alive on a Lufthansa craft in Berlin. A man next to us had spent nine hours in a queue the day before, and figured it was better to wait in a comfy seat with free drinks on offer, than to sit in the terminal. Turns out he was shrewd. Along the way there were rumours of earlier slots, only to be dashed, followed by a sudden flurry of movement that allowed us to leave at short notice at about 12.05 p.m. Those who had fled at the first bad news must have kicked themselves. There were no further flights to Frankfurt that day.

When the plane reached the stand at Frankfurt it was 1.15. Our onward flight was at 1.45. We knew already that if we made it the luggage wouldn’t, but thought this a fair sacrifice and ran. Amazingly, there was no second security check for connections (Heathrow take note), and we covered the distance between gates at a good click. Naturally, once the gate was closed and we were safely on board there were further delays because there aren’t enough de-icing machines in Frankfurt. And furthermore, the Jetstream headwinds that are causing all the wintery awfulness made the Frankfurt-Toronto flight time a gruelling eight-and-a-half hours.

Gillray, Britannia between Scylla & Charybdis

We naturally missed our connection to Montreal, but got lucky with standby seats on the next flight (which was naturally delayed because the pilots were absent – stuck in the US). How strange it was to emerge into the Montreal winter air and reflect that it was colder and snowier in Europe. The world is on its head: no wonder travelling around it is tricky. Between the Scylla and Charybdis of the weather and the blackberry, our Odyssey is over. For now.

Gallows Humour

Rumours of my departure have been greatly exaggerated. In true Planes, Trains and Automobiles style, it keeps on snowing everywhere and we keep on going nowhere. Yesterday we saw that our flight – Berlin, London, Montreal – was cancelled when we got up, but we had to go to the airport anyway, for there was a queue there not to be missed. Three hours in that line got us an upgrade and a new itinerary – Berlin, Düsseldorf, Newark, Montreal – for the next day. Today we left well before dawn in heavy snow, to find Düsseldorf cancelled. Queued for an hour and got bumped to a delayed earlier flight, which was about to land in Berlin. Unfortunately, at that moment Berlin went blizzard, and the airport closed. Our route out was diverted to Leipzig, I presume never to be seen again. Back to the queue for another two-and-a-half hours (and this was the first-class queue, mind), and we eventually received our new itinerary – Berlin, Frankfurt, Toronto, Montreal – for tomorrow, replete with downgrade back to economy. It’s a story full of Christmas joy.

The funny thing about all this is that it is actually funny. Or at least, one tries to make it so. Mrs. VB and I have made some firm friends in the queuing process these last two days. One nouveau riche couple – English and Latvian – were supposed to go Riga, London, Buenos Aries, Santiago, Easter Island, for some romantic Christmas getaway. Just outside of London their plane was turned back to Riga, and the Latvians, imaginative bunch that they are, thought sending them to Berlin might be a good way to get them to London. Heathrow closed in the meantime, and the Germans lost their luggage, in which they’d packed their medicine. Oh how we laughed! She chortled so much her mink coat nearly fell off.

Take my word for it, their smiles were infectious

Today we spent chatting to a motley crew of international travellers, upgraded to business yesterday like us, downgraded to chattels today. The prominent member of this group was a lovely and elegant Parisian lady, with whom we partook in devious queue strategies. She was trying to get to London, and when that failed yesterday she had been booked on the same Düsseldorf flight as us. Then, a London flight opened, but they wouldn’t bump her to that one because she was clearly booked on a flight to Düsseldorf. Why should she want to change it? We laughed so much it hurt! Another lady, from Singapore, was told to board a plane to Cologne (why not? She was going to Düsseldorf and then Munich, after all) that hadn’t even left Cologne yet. They were good enough to lose her luggage, and she re-joined us in the queue after an hour or so of staring at the space where her plane was supposed to be. We could barely contain ourselves! The third member of this group was a jolly Austrian with bad teeth, attempting to get to Vienna. Since it all seemed so hopeless, he had the idea that Lufthansa would book him into the Kempinski Presidential Suite, and we’d all be invited for Christmas on the airline’s dime. He was so thrilled by this idea that he practically begged the Lufthansa agent for more bad weather. We all looked like the prancing orphans from Oliver! singing Food, Glorious Food, and pretending that there wouldn’t be gruel. Meanwhile, the local news had sent a camera man, pushed on a luggage trolley by his director, who secured a terrific dolly shot of all our smiling faces. The viewers of tonight’s local TV are in for a treat.

We waved goodbye to everyone as we left for home (again), wishing merry Christmases and happy travels, and hoping never to see each other again, with the best will in the world. We left our little patch of muddied red carpet – seriously, the business and first-class line had red carpets covered in snow and grit – and walked back past the economy queue, which stretched from gate 10 back way past gate 7. I reckon it was at least a six-hour queue. Everyone looked so happy!

I hope not to write to you tomorrow, because I shall be travelling all day. It seems a shame in a way – cancellations are too much fun.

Going Deutsch

(Monday Night)

When I awoke this morning I did not expect this evening to be writing to you from a bus. Yet here I sit, squeezed into another inadequate Greyhound seat, listening to the aggregate of mumblings of unhappy people. Why am I on a bus? Well, dear Readers, it is high time I prepared you all for a shift in mood on Being Manly. Having spent the majority of time writing to you from Boston and Montreal, with a little London thrown in for good measure, and a small dose of New York, yours truly is moving to Berlin (again). It was not a looked-for move, but it is not an unwelcome one. Berlin was something of a rite of passage for me when I lived there previously, allowing me the time and freedom to find many things, not the least of which was a sense of sartorial independence and a burgeoning writerly voice. This time I hope for the maturation of many things, professional and personal, including the thoughts I commit to these pages.

But why am I on a bus? Mrs. VB, being afflicted with a non-European passport, cannot just up-sticks and move. Uncharacteristically for German matters bureaucratic, her relevant paperwork has been somewhat slow in coming forward, and thus we are on a last-ditch run to the German Embassy in Ottawa to apply for a visa. It is a most unceremonious journey, the end of which is to surrender a passport to German officials. We only hope it returns post-haste.

Somewhere in today’s shenanigans is a moral pertinent to our theme. For while I am perennially reminded that “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”, I am also persuaded that the best mice and men have always responded philosophically, perhaps stoically, and with imaginative alternatives to their often-ruined intentions. Today I planned to make progress with some serious literature auf Deutsch; to digest a couple of scholarly articles; and to ice a couple of increasingly creaking knees. Instead, the knees got a thorough workout as we raced around town making last-minute preparations; the articles are in hitherto unimagined insalubrious surroundings, inside a bag inside a bus; and the German learning can simply wait bis Morgen. Needs must as the Devil drives, or at least, so says this mouse.

(Tuesday night)

I am on a bus. Mrs. VB is ohne Reisepass. It seems Germany will welcome us with open arms. I shall give much thought to being manly in old Europe, and trust that you will join me in the endeavour.

The Great Stitch-Up

I’ve been on the road again. After ten hours on a bus between Montreal and Boston, it’s all I can do to persuade the blood to move around my body. At dear Hilton’s prompting, and thanks to Mrs. VB’s mother, who popped a late nineteenth-century pocket edition into my hands the other day, I’m reading Sartor Resartus this week, in gaps between more sober eye work. It has long been something of an oversight of mine not to have indulged in this great literary stitch up. Already at the forefront of my mind is the choice question: ‘A man that devotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned?’ Carlyle aside, I’m planning to make hay in the library this week.

The subject of this entry, however, is not so much the warp and woof of Carlyle’s rhetorical entanglements as it is another great knot in the smooth course of freedom. You will no doubt remember all the fuss about Arizona’s new immigration law a while back, the tenor of which might lead you to believe that Arizona is something of a desert island, and now a pariah to boot. Liberal New England tut-tutted in shame, no doubt. It would surely grow louder if they found out that such things were close to home.

The bus ride from Montreal is actually a beautiful thing, for the most part. Descending the length of Vermont in any season is to be recommended. The fly in the ointment is the border, of course, but despite a full bus containing passengers from around the world, today’s crossing ran smoothly. All those who needed visas had them; all those who needed to answer questions answered them. Fifty people were stamped up and packed off in thirty minutes. Those border guys do a great job. No one could question their thoroughness, or their seriousness. Yet, in Vermont at least, they do it with a lot of humility and a sense of humour. They also speak French – a rare quality for your average American. Two hours later, we arrived in White River Junction, Vt., where the bus terminated, and most of us boarded a new bus, along with some newcomers.

At this stage, two plain-clothes police officers – no, two shabbily dressed teenagers with badges – alighted and made their way down the bus, demanding declarations of citizenship, taking away passports, and interrogating everyone on the bus. Having found someone who looked suitably foreign, they confiscated his identification and started making telephone calls. While teenager number one carried this out, teenager number two stood at the front of the bus chatting with the driver in full earshot of us nearby passengers: you can never be sure of the Chinese, apparently; his ID could easily be fraudulent, since so many of them were; it was difficult to catch their organised crime rings, what with them being so shifty, but it’s always best to check. All of this, apart from being offensive and unnecessary, was, so far as I can tell, illegal. There is surely no requirement that ticket holders for domestic bus routes should carry proof of citizenship, and I doubt the legitimacy of the police officers’ demands to produce it, as well as their unwarranted admittance to the bus. The dubious alien, shockingly, turned out to be perfectly legitimate. Shortly, the boys’ supervisor arrived (equally shabby) and asked the driver where this bus had come from. In perfect honesty, she replied, ‘it hasn’t left yet’.

Nobody gains by such nonsense. A stitch in time saves nine, so they say. The international border is that stitch. The other nine were clearly superfluous, not to mention in poor taste.