Spain

Today Sue goes to Spain with her friend Linda. I go next week . The advent of 'computers' has to a large extent complicated everything and introduced a stress factor that wasn't there in the past. Age off course is a factor. As a young man I went to a travel agent booked a flight and accommodation , bought my local currency and that was about it. I used to go on holiday with half a rucksack (backpack in modern jargon) full of clothes and come back with most unworn. Now I can hardly leave the house without 15 pockets full of necessities

The whole flight booking scenario has gone full circle , nowadays you are expected to find your flights , book your flights , check yourself in and print your boarding pass - the justification that it was cheap. Now prices are creeping up but I am still doing the work , the websites are anything but user friendly and the helpdesk either non existent , expensive or unhelpful . In fact quite often jobs being so impermanent its hard to find someone who really knows anything and mostly staff resort to the script. Often these days its like an episode of yes minister where when you ask a question they adopt the that is not the question and answer the question they have an answer to. Also of course so many call centres are abroad where staff are not also au fait with the infrastructure in Britain.

Yesterday we struggled to print Sues boarding pass . I cant do mine until next Sunday BUT I cant book on or print return boarding passes so I have to hope I can find somewhere to do that abroad. In the past I would have had all the paperwork and a seat. Its not an improvement.

I know some companies offer apps to download your pass , but my eye , hands an understanding are largely not up to it , and why should I do it ? If its that clever why doesn't it send me my boarding pass , I could have a password to login and the rest could be automatic..

I cannot adequately convey the frustration and stress doing things online with badly designed websites engenders . Those competant in IT often tell me they dont have problems but they do its just conveniently forgotten and if they have trouble what chance steam aged pensioners like me. Every company director should be made to use his website unaided that would change things. If I get hassle from a website I dont use it unless I really really have to.

This of course is all multiplied by the internet 'going down' when you are in the middle of something . The result being you lose all the data you have entered or worst still you don't know if your payment has gone through , and if its gone from your bank has it got to the recipient ? Theres no audit trail if it didnt arrive , in my book an electronic transaction isnt worth the paper its written on ....

I seem to need so much to go anywhere these days , glasses long sighted and short ,phone. If I am going on holiday and particularly a long trip then its phone + charger , laptop /Tablet + charger , camcorder + charger , Kindle + charger , Camera + charger external charger in case you cant find a vacant charge point at the airport , money , walet , credit cards .I can here you saying you dont need that many chargers BUT first not all chargers connect to every device and not all chargers charge every device and what if one breaks and you dont have a backup.
Of course when it all works its brilliant , 80 books to while away the time on the kindle , movies , games news at your fingertips , access to your accounts all around the world .Ying and Yang