mike carey

Especially this! They aren't responsible for it, and if they don't seem able to help are probably being kept as much in the dark as you are.

But remember, for you to repeat it you'd have to go to Dallas!

@Jamie21 thanks for reminding me, I've been meaning to start a chat with you about possibly meeting you if I come to London some time. I'm not sure when, but I know I will be back there, so I should start a chat now!!!

Moderator's Note Gentlemen, the topic of this thread is a recollection of the role Dr Fauci played in the then-emerging HIV-AIDS pandemic. Please keep it there and don't launch into commentary on the politics of his more recent roles.

I would like to thank all the members who have posted so many entries that should inspire those like me who read less often than we think we should. So many good ideas. On the same theme, the ABC has been interviewing politicians on what's on their holiday (or longer term) reading lists. Here is what one of the local Canberra members of the House of Reps is reading, or in his case listening to while he is running marathons. A varied and non-political list from a man of wide interests. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/what-andrew-leigh-is-reading-this-summer/101816384

Yup, 1300 AEDT here, that's five hours behind PST (and a day ahead). It was one of the best days in Sydney. And yes, I realise that makes your current New Years Day morning time 3.20am on 2 Jan here.

I'm not crying, you're crying!

I had a quite serviceable Thai green chicken curry on a recent flight, served without my having requested it with a rather full glass of sparking wine (it was what I had had as a predeparture drink). It came with crackers and cheese (commercial packaged snack rather than on a plate). It was on domestic business class, there's no first here.

The celebrations of Boxing Day are entirely secular, and celebrated (or not) equally by Australians of all stripes. They are going to or watching the Boxing Day test, the Boxing Day sales, watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart, and recovering from overeating by doing it all over again. Or going to the beach and/or setting off on a drive (or now flight) to a summer holiday destination.

So whimsical, I love it!

So far so good! I still have wine (not that that is everything that matters!). And it's still 17° at 2am.

And this was from last year's NYE broadcast.

Bonne Année et bienvenue à la nouvelle année. Three hours after Christmas Island in Kiribati, and two hours after Samoa saw in 2023, Sydney Harbour is going off! The evening show at the Opera House foreshadowed World Pride, in Sydney in a couple of months, set to be celebrated along with Sydney Mardi Gras. Happy New Year, and may 2023 bring everyone in this, our unique community, everything good we wish for ourselves, our loved ones and each other. Щасливого Нового року. (UKR) Should auld acquaintance be forgot ...

I'd have thought gaslighting was determined by what's attempted, not what its success is, but apparently not. I guess it could be hard to be sure if something is an attempt at gaslighting or simply different recollections of what had happened. In a dispute between a provider and a client the latter seems more likely but not certain.

'Good airline meal' is often asserted to be an oxymoron, but I've had meals I enjoyed, especially in light of the difficulty of preparing and serving food in constrained spaces and time-frames, and how insensitive our palates can be on a plane. Of course 'enjoyed' and 'good' are answering different questions. This list of 'bests' for 2022 from one of the travel sites is interesting, whether you see it as best of a bad lot or as giving hope that you might actually have a good experience. https://liveandletsfly.com/top-10-airline-meals-2022/ Slow cooked braised lamb shanks can be one of the most satisfying dishes, falling off the bone and having a smooth, almost gelatinous mouth feel. I'm taking vicarious credit for his top-rated dish from Delta, even though their 'Australian' lamb was served on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. (I don't have my own recipe to share so I'm not going to cross-post to the Cooking forum, others may wish to follow up over there, but this post is about the airline connection.)

And a Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone, but in particular you-know-who, unfortunately exiled to Florida!

I'm with you on this @MikeBiDude. Fares and direct flights govern much of the decision process when booking, and this will largely be forgotten, or at least discounted, once things are back to normal. Smarter minds than mine over at OMAAT have observed that SW's point-to-point route structure made recovering from these disruptions harder than it was for hub-and-spoke airlines as the hubs provide focus points for them to regroup. Their quick turnaround times also meant delays amplified and begat more delays. SW also apparently has poor crew management systems, which made an already difficult recovery more so. A couple of days in, and SW was still at 60% cancellations while AA was, almost unbelievably, at 0%. So some caution is probably in order for SW in peak travel times (or when bad weather is likely) but mostly you'd be safe. It seems that SW is viewed as either really good when it's good or a disaster when it's not, with not much in between. They'll probably have a giant sale in January and the Christmas meltdown will be largely forgotten. Qantas a few months ago is instructive. After a string of service failure issues with flights, terminal chaos and baggage arrival, you'd have thought no one would consider flying them ever again. As I commented here at the time, they issued perks to FF members including a $50 voucher, and their website crashed with all the 'never agains' trying to book flights to use their vouchers. It helps that there are few alternatives to QF of course. I recall a Redgum song from the 80s when aviation was regulated and we had two domestic airlines, TAA, or Trans Australia Airlines, and Ansett. The lyric was something like, 'There are two airlines, one which stands for 'Try Another Airline' and the other which is why you were on Try Another Airline in the first place'.

This is true. And it would seem that Southwest Airlines is using this as their official holiday calendar.

To be pedantic, a comparison to something is neither favourable nor unfavourable, it simply notes similarity; it is a comparison with something that enumerates the differences and whether one is better. Of course a comparison to something could relate to one characteristic, say how concise a writer's prose was, and not to all the characteristics of the object of the comparison. I'm not sure that there have been too many failures to recognise sarcasm.

I'm pretty sure California law requires grocery shops to charge for bags. There's a mandated minimum but like everything they sell, it's a product and they set the price. You don't have to buy them.

The footnote in the article, 'Queerty will update this story as more information becomes available… probably around 10pm or so', is gold.

Is it wifi or mobile signal? The former would be great but even the latter is not all that common on metros.