Thank you Paul. Rest peacefully my friend.

Time to eat my words.

A few weeks back I posted a comment on Lance Wiggs’ blog.

Lance had written some very positive words about Air New Zealand in the post:

A selection of reasons why Air New Zealand won the Airline of the Year in the Air Transport World magazine awards. Most of these refer to posts made here over the past three years, and the overarching reason is simply that Air New Zealand is a very well run business.

They have kept their fares low, and use a very simple fare structure. That means reducing some food services, but the lollies remain and, it seems, always will.

They have steadily got the details right – from the economy seats, to the check-in and seat back entertainment. The business class seats still rate, for me, as the best around, offering so much more than the competition.

(much more at the link..very much worth a read, and mostly he’s very right)

I commented, a little snarkily:

I’m flying ANZ for the first time in 7 years, this next week, from HK to NZ and I’m rather keen to see how they match up. To be honest the last time I flew them (from NZ to Melbourne), I swore I’d not ever fly them again. The plane was over-crowded, dirty, the inflight entertainment system was almost non-existent and the service utterly shocking.

In the interim I’ve racked up hundreds of thousands of kms with all sorts of airlines..some great (Sing Air with their usb ports and laptop power on all seats, Qatar, Air France), many average, and some awful (Malaysian comes to mind straight off, but nothing matches Viva Macau).

I’m looking forward to being very pleasantly surprised.

And I was.

There is some story, albeit brief, to both my original comment and my eating of words. Read on if you care, or skip to the last line if you’d rather avoid the verbosity.

I spend a lot of time travelling. I both enjoy it and its a part of my various jobs. From 1995 through to 2002 I went to Australia on business about 40 times, on either Air New Zealand, and Qantas, and I found myself flying to Europe and the US about a dozen times over the same time. I like flying and I like getting there in a good state, both rested and in a good mood. I like to arrive in a town, check into wherever I’m supposed to be staying, and head out. Mostly the airline is the reason why that is or is not possible.

I was pretty happy with our national airline up to about 1999. They got me there in one piece, the service came with a smile, and onboard they had pretty adequate food, entertainment and cabins. Then, that year, it all started of go wrong. It was fairly clearly linked to the Ansett fiasco (and yes, the Australians do have reason to be grumpy, however defensive New Zealanders were) as the airline went to pieces. I last flew Air New Zealand to Melbourne in early 2002. The plane was, without more than a cursory sorry, very late leaving, it was crowded, the food was almost inedible and the toilets looked like they’d not been cleaned for god knows how long. And worse, the in-cabin crew were unsmiling and repeatedly refused to respond to the bell-calls coming from me and other frustrated passengers.

I got off after a return flight that was little better and swore I’d never fly my national airline again. I’m not a patriotic soul and won’t support something simply because we share an accent.

Jump forward seven years, and I’ve flown countless miles on countless airlines in the interim. Some as I said in the comment, were brilliant. Qatar do everything right (apart from Doha airport, that is. It’s a dog. As is their awful habit of wandering through departure lounges randomly weighting carry-on like some sort of 7kg fascists), and Air France too are hard to fault. Singapore Air is thoroughly predictable: when times are good they tend to be rude and offhand; when times are tough, they get a rocket from management and re-learn the art of the smile, only to lose it again as the bottom line begins to improve. However, they have, without question, the best in flight entertainment system bar none.

I’ve done the awful (all Indonesian Airlines, Viva Macau, who use duct tape to hold together their loos, and the always awful Malaysian who simply exude rudeness in a way that, unlike the uber-cheap Indo bucket carriers, who you can mostly excuse as the Jakarta dollybirds (excuse sexism: sorry) in the cabins are paid a pittance, have to deal with 150 people physically pushing them out of the way as soon as the plane hits the runway, and the overwhelmingly bad survival odds each time they take off, they have absolutely no excuse for) and the pleasantly functional (Air Asia, who are really very good).

We’d wanted to fly Thai from BKK to AKL this time but the day I went to book the flight the price had doubled.

So Brigid spent some time online and we worked out that for less than the new Thai price we could get an Air Asia ticket to Hong Kong and spend a couple of days there (which allowed for some business in both directions) before taking the leap back onto Air NZ.

The word was they’d improved.

I’m always wary of the word.

HK, though, was reliably wonderful aside from the hotel putting us next door to a 24 hour bus stop wherein we discovered that all buses in HK have squeaky brakes, which meant when we sat down on NZ080 we effectively hadn’t slept for two days.

Grumpy.

We sat in our seats (63D & E if anyone cares) and asked the steward if they had eyepads as sleep was a necessity and usually highly unlikely on a full, as it was, 777. Of course, he said and returned with not only the afore requested pads but earplugs (these are both supplied as standard kit to every passenger on many airlines so no extra points for that aside from the big smile that went with it), but also with business class headsets (extra points earned) and the offer of a glass each of French champagne from the front of the plane (extra points being ladled on now). Yes.

He returned and said “here you go, Mr. Grigg”. Bemused, the woman in 63F asked if we’d just got married or something. We returned the bemusement.

After we took off another member of the cabin staff came past and stopped to ask us …just us … if all was fine. Uh, yes. Fine.

Would we like some more wine? Uh, yes? (no-one else was asked).

A few minutes later a woman called Ruth came to us (and I paraphrase, so I’m sorry Ruth ..my memory is not that good). I’m the crew manager. Is all ok? Yes. I bet you’re wondering why all the attention. Yes. Its because of a comment on a blog and a tweet. Uhh. We were contacted by three different people in the organisation and told you were about to fly with the airline and to look after you. Uhhh. We just want to say thank you for giving us another go and welcome back.

Nice.

Of course it may’ve been strategically better not to say anything to us and just to ramp up the service more subtlely, but as a way of making a grumpy ex-customer feel welcome and more than a little special, it worked some wonders. We glowed and we settled rather comfortably into our quite comfortable seats, as we were bought our meals of choice before the rest of the cabin. So, yep, it worked.

And nothing I’m saying here of course has anything to do with that pampering.

Ok, it has a little to do with it.

But, the simple fact is that, as above, Lance was very right. Mostly.

But, to the important stuff.

Yes, I’ve come around.

The seats (most importantly) were as comfortable as any I’ve had anywhere in recent years with far more leg room than the ever tightening squeeze of Singapore Air or many others. The crew lacked the sternness of years past as still found on all American carriers. They smiled and seemed to mean it, unlike the plastic of the rulebook bound SingAir or the simple lack of anything resembling a smile on Qantas or Malaysian (where the staff have this unfortunate habit of talking about non-Malay passengers in negative terms in Bahasa Malay (uhh…I speak it)).

And there was no call to pray to Mecca as there is every half hour or so, as you crave a beer on the bland airline of Brunei as you fly into the even blander state of Brunei.

The food was rather good, the wine was predictably wonderful, the movies were just fine (I liked the one about Winston Churchill even if it was factually random in a very HBO way) and it was a very pleasant flight. Without reservation.

No, make that a really bloody good flight. It worked. I’m happily sold and, all things as they should be, will probably make the BKK-HK-NZ route the default route when re-nesting, using Air New Zealand. Is that humble pie enough? Any chance of an upgrade when we fly back to HK? How about a radio show?

Ok two more major points winners:

The way that the airline tells you its fine to watch the movie from the moment they shut the doors is a huge winner. None of this ridiculous no headphones until cruising height drivel. Seriously, it’s 2010 and we’ve paid for in-flight entertainment. Thank you. Points.

And the fact that they tell you you can turn your cellphone on when the wheels hit the tarmac. The whole danger from cellphones thing on aircraft has long since been disproved and indeed large parts of the planet seem to have no issue with them in flight, and, whilst the very last thing I want, especially in Asia where the so-called handphones are used at an obsessive level and most folks carry two or more Blackberries or HTCs which are both used at the same time without break, is the endless bleeping of incoming texts, or loud conversation, for 11 hours, a little reality injected helps. Points.

I do feel the need to take issue with Lance’s claim to the Air New Zealand website. It’s one place they get a C. Singapore Air, at the higher level, and Air Asia, at the budget level, do it much better as do many others. Having booked via the Air NZ Hong Kong Kong website, it was next to useless when I tried to get information, or look at the possibility of changing a ticket.

And the airpoints. I get them on my credit card and they’re essentially useless, expiring before you get the chance to use them for anything worthwhile. Air NZ’s loyalty points system seems at best half-baked, but to be fair that comes in a time when most airlines seem to be rather desperate to ramp them back (Malaysian’s Enrich site has effectively, and dishonestly, been offline for redemption purposes for a year or so, citing some vague short-term issue).

So, yeah, Air New Zealand are quite good.

Alan McGee a few minutes ago on My Bloody Valentine:

WORST BAND I EVER SIGNED? MY BLOODY VALENTINE A JOE FOSTER JOKE THAT FUCKING REFORMED ON US AND K SHIELDS IS THE BORING CUNTS OF ALL CUNTS

As you were.

Never trust restaurant reviews. Never trust restaurant reviews. Never trust restaurant reviews.

Of course after a few glasses of house Chianti I usually get some perverse notion in my head that I should perhaps think about writing good restaurant reviews. This thought evaporates as the Chianti lulls me to sleep an hour or two later.

I’ve trusted restaurant reviews from time to time.

In Auckland, not once, but twice (tag: do not learn lessons easily) I’ve trusted reviews of the awful Soto, a sad overpriced excuse for a modern Japanese restaurant in St. Mary’s Bay. Both times I’ve been badly burnt by shitty service, unimaginative nu-Japanese fare that would only pass muster if the reviewer had never had the privilege of seeing modern Japanese done well..and even then would likely fall badly at the final test: the size of the bill when put next to the fare and appalling lack of anything approaching customer service. Don’t like. At All.

That it somehow wins awards underlines how little food reviewers are to be trusted.

In Bali I soon learned that restaurant reviews are largely bought there, and perhaps the very worst restaurant on the island (which is saying something in an island where good eateries..and there are some amazing places..are few and far between), the gruesome Telaga Naga, where the staff told us the chef had moved on years before, leaving a faded Chinese cook book that the local guy uses with bought in packet sauces, regularly gets the nod as best Chinese from rags like Hello Bali (yes 100% paid for, like all their reviews and that best lager in the world award that Steinlager got some years back too, ok?) despite the fact the island has some really good Chinese places.

We trusted reviews in NY and felt thoroughly scammed by the mediocrity of Freemans. I’d rather keep my rustic pricey pilgrims fare, washed down by pricey, average, new world wines, in those grueling feral British cottage cookery shows that I can turn off. Jug yer own hare elsewhere please. Urgh. Brigid said as we left, that if you were to try and make food like your mother did, at least track down a mother who can cook.

We went to Red here, this week. It gets good reviews. Seriously good reviews. It was fucking horrendous. Watery white sludge that looked like the sauce left over from my dad’s old tripe, loud James Blunt anthems played by the, might be a boy, receptionist; staff telling us what desert we wanted; vinyl table cloths; and, in a deserted three room restaurant, being placed next to the table of loud Germans who included the man with (Godwin be damned) a Hitler moustache in a white singlet.

And it was pricey.

No, fuck off Red.

It gets awards too.

Never trust restaurant reviews. Never trust restaurant reviews. Never trust restaurant reviews.

I trust friends. Grier recommended La Buca. He was right. We’ve taken his advice on dining a couple of times in Bangkok and it’s been pretty good, so the pointer towards an unnamed two storied building in Sukhumvit Soi 1 with home-style Italian was vague but worth the 70B taxi fare.

And it was worth getting dropped off at the beginning of the street just so we could walk up past the German sausage house (every city in Asia has a Germanic restaurant or two..the one in Sanur, Bali, had no windows, and was full vey pleasant, if loud, large German people smoking heavily away in your breathing space, and devouring kilometers of sausage and sauerkraut. Our German friends often asked to meet them there..we mostly, for reasons of health and taste, declined) down the road.

Was he a part of the decor..I don’t know..but there was a fat, unsmiling German man in full Prussian military regalia, cape included, sitting outside. It’s one of those odd Bangkok things. The city seems to attract the perverse, as well as the perverted. I tried to get a photo but thought better of rousing any Prussian military ire, given its history.

So, yes, La Buca, the Italian place was thoroughly wonderful, with great quaffing Italian house wines, pasta designed by the Italian chef / owner (who was as passionate about explaining each dish as only a Southern European can be..we spent a reasonable time dodging the wild gesticulations) that just pulled you through the door, and homebaked breads. We’re returning this week. Grier sent us in the direction of a hole in the wall Indian in Silom too, the sort of place that never makes the endless online or printed guide books, and for BKK there are as many unreliable eating out guides as their are puffed up, unreliable restaurants.

Of course there are the blogs.

And it was a recommendation, from a blog, that seemed reliable, that pointed us in the direction of Little Arabia, where 30 or 40 Middle Eastern places, some dodgy, most not, sit together. Falafels, lots of middle eastern tourists (or residents..I like the way Bangkok doesn’t want you to be Thai, it just asks that you be you..no “I’m a kiwi now, Charlie” faux multi-culturalism), Arab guys sipping beer out of a plain mug because it ain’t on the menu, while they suck on the endless hookahs and look at plates of perfectly made Tabbouleh and huge naan smothered in garlic paste.

Of course, there are dozens of blogs. There are hundreds of blogs. There are thousand of blogs. Everyone that sets foot in Asia starts a blog about it (mine predates moving here, ok…but without Asia..).

 Some send you off in the direction of places that serve things like, uhh, this:

The English think this is good food.

Which brings me to rule number two:

Never trust a restaurant review written by an Englishman. Never trust a restaurant review written by an Englishman. Never trust a restaurant review written by an Englishman.

The English have no understanding of food or the preparation of such whatsoever. Zip. Zero. Kosong. In my not unlimited experience even the pricey places in Londontown are mostly utter tosh, complete shite. No, the only food you’d want to eat in the UK is foreign, and not foreign created by English people. By Indians, French, Italians, Japanese and so on, but an English born hand should never be allowed near the preparation, ordering of ingredients or serving. The British may argue but there are absolutely no exceptions to this rule. One just has to see the fare that the celebrity UK chefs serve up on TV to underline this unbendable rule.

Adding (a little) evidence for the prosecution are large numbers of blogs written by English expats, like this one, written by some guy, who may well be a nice chap, but I’m not sure if I want to follow the culinary and social exploits of a bunch of expat aging Farangs stuck in the sleaze hellhole of Pattaya, with their add-on Asian girlfriends, their trips to go-go bars and the endless visits by the likes of Mr. Tony, and his girlfriend:

Once again: they may all be lovely chaps, but it also goes towards the case that there is a very odd side to many of this nation’s visitors. But, it does make for some sort of fascinating and voyeuristic reading, albeit briefly, although the blog seems endless. The question must be why? I just need to find the energy to care enough to ask it.

Of course, I’m perfectly normal. Must set up a restaurant review blog…

Fantastic piece, built from quotes of those who were there, in the February Vanity Fair, written by Lisa Robinson.

The quotes I enjoyed most came from Nile Rogers:

We wrote “Le Freak” because we were denied entry to Studio 54 on New Year’s Eve 1977–78. Grace Jones had invited us to see her show, and she assumed that since our hit “Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” was so big we could get in. Normally we could, but it was sold out, she forgot to leave our names at the door, and [doorman] Marc Benecke wouldn’t let us in. He politely told us to fuck off. So Bernard and I went and wrote a song called “Fuck Off”: “Awww … fuck off … ” It sounded great, but I said we can’t have a song on the radio called “Aww … Fuck Off.” So I came up with “Freak Off,” but that wasn’t sexy. Then Bernard came up with “There’s that new dance everybody’s doing called the Freak.” That was our version of “Come on baby, let’s do the Twist.”

& Barry White:

In countries where they don’t have record players they buy Barry White’s record, listen to the radio, and stare at the record.

There were two great scams in the 2000s (assuming the decade is over – it’s technically not of course).

One, it almost goes without saying, was the drive to war scam pulled fairly successfully by the Bush administration in concert with a few compliant governments (the UK and Australia come to mind) whereupon clear and known fraudulent data was placed in front of not only the public as a whole, but whole layers of elected officials and lawmakers across the US and the UK. It was the WMD scam and arguments continue as to whether it cost the lives of 100,000 or a up to million Iraqis (as if the lower figure is somehow better) and the wholesale dispossession for millions more. From a US perspective, I guess it was hugely successful.

The second, whilst it existed on another, less deadly, level altogether, was no less successful, and involved the large media companies, many smaller media companies and assorted copyright administration bodies. This we will call the Piracy Scam.

Why am I revisiting this now? Well the piece briefly excerpted below pissed me off:

How to help prop up the ailing music industry? Tax Google, suggests a new report commissioned by the French government.

I’m close to speechless at the stupidity of this.

It will make no difference. None at all. Nothing will boost the revenues of the wholesale industries beyond a complete 180 on the part of the customer back to the buying habits they, in increasing numbers, left behind during this last decade. One has to remember that the folks making these rules, and the ones crying foul over the alleged lost revenues are either people in their mid-40s onwards, who if they buy music, were educated to buy it in album format, in the decades since the recording industry invented the format in the late 1940s, or they simply don’t buy music.

And they’ve been told that revenues are down (true) because people are simply stealing the music online (extremely arguable).

Are people taking music in large quantities online? Yes, of course they are, there is no doubt of it. Is this causing the crash in revenues? I’d argue yes, in small part, but that’s all.

And that’s aside from the glaring and oft stated fact that a downloaded tune does not equal a lost sale, despite the rampantly loony figures the IFPI happily touts (and are gobbled up by the media).

The primary reason revenues are down is because the primary target for recorded music are people under 25. And they no longer buy albums. Mostly they don’t even know what they are. They buy MP3s – the new singles. They don’t want albums. They want tracks. And the evidence to support this is voluminous. Last year in the United States there were 1.16 billion (yep, billion) digital tracks sold. That is the equivalent of 1.16 billion singles purchased, because that’s what the MP3 is, a single: a 45, in the old language. Add to that just under 400 million albums (of which some 3.2 million were actually 14 album box sets by The Beatles, so add another 40m or so to that figure!) and you have a very, very large number of units purchased by customers in 2009 – far higher, in fact, than at any time since Soundscan began recording accurate figures in 1991.

Throw into that mix two other factors, firstly that the digital figure removes the cost of manufacturing, distribution and warehousing, and secondly the huge drop in recording costs over the past decade as digital became the norm, and a rather different picture emerges.

One more figure to toss into the mix: the decade long rise in performance income received by performing rights organisations as many different income streams, driven by technology, plus the massive advances in collection techniques and the sad story that both the media and the lawmakers happily trumpet without question, looks increasingly shaky. The Times did an analysis using a few, but not all, of these factors a month or two back which was interesting.

The truth is that in 2009 there was a massive jump in income from music worldwide:

Thanks to new collecting bodies, more music users buying licences, and a big rise in US revenues, global performance rights payments increased by 16% to $1.5bn (£940,000) in 2008, according to industry newsletter Music & Copyright.

Performance rights revenues come from the public playing of music across various locations and platforms, from radio stations and nightclubs to supermarkets and hair salons.

Such income has become more important in recent years as music sales have fallen. The UK is the largest territory in terms of performance rights distributions and total payments rose 11.5% to $220m (£138m) in 2008, according to Music & Copyright. It compiled its global figures through data from collecting societies worldwide, including PPL in the UK. The most played song was Mercy by Duffy.

The largest increase was in the US, with payments surging by 176% to $100m (£62.7m) as digital and internet radio services were licensed.

Mix all that together and toss in the now accepted monstrous myth that musicians are now unable to survive off their royalties (performance is up, and less than 1% of all acts likely survived from master copyright royalties, due to the inequities in the way the recording industry handles recoupment, despite what Bono and Lily Allen would have you believe) and have to struggle. They’ve always struggled.

So, yes, as we roll into three strikes legislation the world over, and labels moan poverty because the playing field and the rules have changed, a little sanity would perhaps be appropriate as we reflect on how well the Piracy Scam, has been sold, as I repeatedly hear people that should know better commenting on the Facebook generation that won’t, so they say, pay for music. That steals and destroys the livelihoods of those that make the music.

It’s bullshit.

And it didn’t even take a speech from Colin Powell.

Rather numbing, especially when you consider how many times it happened this last century (and before of course):

This is taken from the 1963 movie The Victors, and was, so they say, inspired, if that is the right word, by the sad execution of Eddie Slovik, the last US serviceman shot for desertion.

There is more at the Hunter-Gatherer. from whence this came.