Sunday, March 16, 2008

I've just returned from business trips to Copenhagen and Vienna, two destinations that compensate for the travails of travel and being away from home. Both cities have enviable public transport systems; cheap, clean and not too crowded. I arrived back at Birmingham airport from whence to take a train home to find the train absolutely packed, all the seats taken, the isles full of people standing, a group of beer-drinking youngsters making a racket at the end of the carriage and various people engaged in politely English disputes resulting from the chaotic seat reservation system. But the atmosphere is cheerful. Clinical efficiency - who needs it?

4 comments:

John B-R said...

Glad you're glad to be back home. Nut to call Vienna clinically efficient, well ...

Have you ever read Thomas Bernhard? This might be a good time ...

John B-R said...

Nut = but, by the way ... sorry.

Alan Baker said...

Who needs clinical efficiency? British public transport for one. My last question/answer was meant to be ironic - I dearly wish our transport systems (and one or two other things) were as good as our European neighbours'.

Alan Baker said...

I see what you mean John. Just found this quote by Thomas Bernhard on Salzburg:

"This city of my fathers is in reality a terminal disease which its inhabitants acquire through heredity or contagion. If they fail to leave at the right moment, they sooner or later either commit suicide, directly or indirectly, or perish slowly and wretchedly on this lethal soil with its archiepiscopal architecture and its mindless blend of National Socialism and Catholicism. Anyone who is familiar with the city knows it to be a cemetery of fantasy and desire, beautiful on the surface but horrifying underneath."