mike carey

As it's been reported here, he clearly didn't like being put in that position and even says he hopes he never has to do it again. I'm sure he'll reconsider if they ever meet in a final! Let's see if the love is still there when the Special Ks play in the doubles!

Don't know about SD, but LAX isn't the most wonderful idea. Doable, but there is an inconvenience to price trade off for doing so! There are closer LA area airports that may be better. Ontario perhaps?

I was already looking forward to next April!

Well, that worked a treat!

*Note to self* Read more Greek mythology!

A reason for signing up for Flying Blue*, access to La Premiere award tics. Hypothetically, at least. *Not good value for accruing status from DL domestic flights.

It seems that every week or so there's another rain or flood event in Sydney, it's been a wee bit damp this year. Same in Canberra, but never to the scale that you might consider an ark.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

I can assure you it is not a scandal, this is the only place I've heard about it (although that might be more a statement about by broadcast media consumption). 'Pro football' is something of an overstatement. This is a suburban league. There may be a paid coach, or some pro players a big club is paying so they can get some game time, but most of the players would at most receive a token payment ($50 or $100 per game) for expenses. We have a consistent theme of professional Footballers Doing Stupid Things that do blow up in the media with fines and suspensions imposed by the league or their club in a blaze of media publicity (and in something like this it would be 'why did you drink so much that you thought this was a good idea) but this is not one of them!

An LOL moment! https://twitter.com/rj3000/status/1562918190027444225?s=20&t=5eQLSQ3NH5-eLZFkd_ubsw

If you want to alert the moderators' attention to threads that are started in the wrong forum it's best to report them not comment in the thread. (This one has since been reported.)

Before the pandemic Qantas flew a daily LAX-JFK flight using LAX as a hub for passengers to and from BNE, SYD and MEL to connect to and from New York. (QF11 was the Sydney-New York flight number but the aircraft flying LAX-JFK was the Dreamliner that flew from Brisbane not the A380 from Sydney.) Qantas eventually plans to fly the route from Sydney non-stop when it takes delivery of extra-long range A350-1000 aircraft but have announced that a direct flight to JFK will begin via Auckland from June next year, initially three times a week. (So the short leg will be on a B787 SYD-AKL rather than whatever on AA metal from DFW, and the second leg will be 16-ish hours rather than the first.) Will I ever fly it? Probably at least once to tick that box, although I expect other routings, either QF via other US ports, or via Asia, will be priced better. I'd bet my house that the reason for this move is that Air New Zealand are about to start flying the route from AKL, with good connections from our east coast capitals. (I live in hope that these flights from AKL will prompt the two airlines to fly from Canberra to Auckland and give us the chance of one-stop travel to New York.)

A quirk for me - when I looked I didn't have an 'About Me' tab on my profile, but I went to edit profile and added some test text into the About Me box and when I'd done that the tab appeared. (An artefact of my profile being created in the old software perhaps.)

I also recall that website details for providers appeared on their profile in the old site software. This was separate from the signature, but like signatures providers didn't have to post a link.

Well, this morning after the e-mail went out from Qantas advising members of the 'make-up sex' they were offering, the Qantas website crashed with people trying to book award seats that had been released or use the $50 vouchers they'd been given. The article about it that I read thought the crash would further annoy punters but I think it indicates that a bunch of people are pretty happy with Qantas at the moment.

All true, @BenjaminNicholas, and the social media isn't all bad. There's also a fair amount of commentary that it's the same everywhere, which is true. The host of the Saturday current affairs talk show on ABC Radio National had her bags missing for two weeks and was philosophical about it, and she's certainly not alone. Extending their status will assuage many of them, as will the lounge pass. Keeping that QF First lounge access isn't something I would dismiss lightly, either.

Qantas has been in the news here consistently for several months now with flight delays, cancellations and baggage melt-downs to the extent that it is suffering potentially permanent reputational damage. Twitter is replete with comments like 'I'll never fly with them again' (possibly from once-every-few-years discount economy flyers, but their social media voice is no less prominent for that), and references to the CEO as a 'poisonous leprechaun' or words to that effect (no homophobic slurs that I've seen, which is good to see), so not ideal PR. The CEO's recent purchase of a $19m home didn't help. Today (a Sunday, no less) they have taken the initiative (or at least attempted to: we'll see how it goes) in the PR stakes by extending elite status for another 12 months (that's me till 31 May 24) and giving QF Club passes to Silver members and Business Lounge upgrades to Gold members. There's a couple of other bonuses as well, and they are increasing the number of award flights available on most flights. What they have announced mainly benefits elite status holders, although increased availability of rewards seats will make scoring one [slightly] easier for all members. I'll be interested to see what effect this has. I hadn't been in the 'never QF' camp but it takes away one of my incentives to take flights on OW or to credit them to QF when I do, at least for now. Maybe not the result QF had hoped for with this announcement!

Reminds me of a lady of a certain age I worked with who, when asked her age, would say she was 21 and some months.

This one is still open:

Waddaya know? I'm actually posting here on a Friday. Well, a new café has opened in the Canberra industrial suburb of Fyshwick in premises formerly occupied by a brothel. And what, I hear you ask, have they named the café? They have called it 'Happy Ending', because of course they would!

It's still there with the name removed.

I suspect as a Canadian he is well aware of the situation in other parts of his country, and also in his nearest big city of Montréal. American privilege? Nah, not so much.

For me, more than most I suspect, stepping off an aeroplane and walking to the metro station at Washington National for the gathering, had a certain frisson that was difficult to contemplate as I packed for the trip. I have, however enjoyed the couple of time I have made the trek and would do it again.

Sounds like that belongs in the Fetish forum!! 😃