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Introduction


Hello. Welcome to the blog "GordonsBigTrip". A blog about Gordon’s big trip around England and Scotland. Apparently one is not allowed to use apostrophes in the blog URL, so we shall set off on a grammatically incorrect foot. Sorry about that.

I am Richard, Gordon’s translator for his 10-day whirlwind trip around England and Scotland. My principal job is to translate between American (Gordon’s native tongue) and English (the language of the locals). I am almost bilingual in American-English, though I sternly refuse to use any 21st century English popularisms such as “chav” Goodness, what a horrible word. I have yet to inform Gordon that I do not speak a word of Scottish, which is a real pity since Gordon has his sights set on having a great time in Scotland. Sorry about that too.

Our trip has not even vaguely started (we leave on Thursday November 1st), but I need practice “blogging” since I am a quasi-Luddite (I suppose I’m not a full Luddite since I don’t actually go round destroying newfangled technologies such as stocking frames and  plows… or ploughs even). For example, I don’t own a cell phone, let alone a smart phone, and my Internet connection is not even fast enough to view YouTube. Heck, I don’t even own a doorbell. My dog (Mr. Charles Darwin) is my de facto doorbell and he has about a one-in-four success rate. That is, every fourth occasion I successfully open the front door to see the UPS delivery man or the next door neighbors informing that they have accidentally poisoned my doorbell (I kid you not). Unfortunately, the other three-out-of-four times I find myself answering the door to squirrels and other creatures that the doorbell took a fancy to. Perhaps this was the real reason that the Luddite movement died out? I digress.


Gordon and I don't have any pictures of our trip yet, since we don't have a trip yet. Perhaps I will get Elizabeth to take a pre-trip picture of Gordon's excited face as we plan the trip, or his downcast expression once he realizes what British weather is like in November. In the meantime, above is a picture of the projected flight route from Los Angeles to London (I am assured that Los Angeles is indeed on the way between Albuquerque and London). Since June 24th this flight has been cancelled four times, diverted once, crashed never, and takes an average of 9 hours and 57 minutes. We fly back via Houston, a flight that has only been cancelled and diverted once in the last 123 days for an average flight time of 9 hours and 25 minutes. Apparently, the complex battle between great circles and jet streams means that Houston is a mere 32 minutes closer to London than Los Angeles. And even better, Houston and Los Angeles appear very safe* airports: no plane to/from Los Angeles or Houston has been hijacked since 1972, and even then those airports have only been involved in a total four hijackings ever. Yay!

* they have, however, been involved in a surprising number of nasty crashes pre-1991, but those statistics hardly seemed uplifting enough for this first blog entry.  


Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 26, 2012 at 2:49 PM

    I'm not sure that's a Great Circle you have on the map. Of course I'm just picking nits. But it might explain why LA seems farther from London than Houston...

    ReplyDelete
  2. View from a moderate in NMOctober 28, 2012 at 1:14 PM

    I just spoke to Gordon this morning in church. He says you and he are leaving this Thursday. Should be a great trip. There are two places in Scotland, outside of the usual tourist areas, that may be of interest. One is way up north near Ulapool. The drive from (or to) Ulapool via Loch Ness and Williams down to Loch Lomond is very picturesque especially through the mountains south of Fort William on the A82 highway. The other is the Isle of Arran which is also called Little Scotland because the upper half is mountainous and the lower half is lowlands. There is a ferry to Arran that you catch at Ardrossan south west of Glasgow.

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