This is so cool and witty:

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/us/politics/21watch.html?ac=HBO

This airline represents a degradation in the human spirit. You feel degraded through the whole process, they are so sleazy and nasty. They charged us 40 pounds ($65) apiece (!) to issue boarding tickets at the airport. Being as we were checking in on line from a hotel, we had no access to a printer. They get away with this chickenshit practice because here you are at the airport, checked out of your hotel, and needing to get to your destination. What can you do? $130 for boarding passes for two people who were already checked in. Can you believe this?

Their weight allowance is way lower than other airlines, which they don’t make clear. My bag weighed 20 kg & their max was 15. How much for overage? £5 pounds per kilo, i.e. £25 ($40). Naturally I loaded it all into my by-now heavy backpack. The Englishman next to me on the flight (from Gatwick (London) to Cork (Ireland) said “They’re a rip off,” and told me about an old lady they were once trying to charge 200 pounds for excess baggage.

Everything about the check-in process, the flight, and dealing with these dispirited and often rude employees is a bummer. They’re like McDonalds or KFC. Their prices are cheap and their products are shit. When you look them up on the Internet, you find out what they’re really up to. Check these quotes from Wikipedia:

“The airline has come under heavy criticism in the past, for its poor treatment of disabled passengers. In 2002, it refused to provide wheelchairs for disabled passengers at London Stansted Airport…”//”In January, following a BBC investigation, Ryanair conceded that a claim it had cut its CO2 emissions by half in recent years was “an error.”//”Ryanair has been described by the consumer magazine, Holiday, as being the “worst offender” for charging for optional extras.”//The Economist newspaper wrote that Ryanair’s “cavalier treatment of passengers” had given Ryanair “a deserved reputation for nastiness” and that the airline ‘…has become a byword for appalling customer service … and jeering rudeness towards anyone or anything that gets in its way.'”//”New Ryanair aircraft have been delivered with leather seats which do not recline, no seat-back pockets, safety cards stuck on the back of the seats and life jackets stowed overhead rather than under the seat.”

Don’t patronize these sleazeballs. Tell your friends.

“An Elizabethan barn with a rare hammerbeam roof usually found in palaces has been restored to its former glory…The barn was built in the grounds of Westenhanger Castle near Hythe in Kent in around 1580, and features one of only two such roofs to be found in barns in the country. The two-and-a-half-year project to restore it was funded largely by a £500,000 grant from English Heritage, which has given almost £2 million to the castle’s owners over the past 12 years. The castle originated as a Saxon manor house, before its later incarnations of a 14th century moated castle and the grand country house which stands today.”

From the Telegraph, 14 Sept, 2009

At stunning fashion exhibit at Victoria and Albert Museum