One of the more irritating effects of the recession or credit crunch or bankers’ toilet or whatever we are going through is the axing of pleasant ways to travel in favour of less pleasant ones. One used to be able to travel to Norway by ferry from Newcastle. In 1966 it was Fred Olsen lines to Oslo, then there was Fjord Line and Color Line and latterly DFDS to Kristiansand and then Stavanger or Bergen. But no more. An historic link severed.
Second choice, given that one is starting from the North of England, was to fly to Oslo from Manchester. One landed conveniently in mid afternoon, without having to get a train to Manchester at 4 in t he morning. Indeed, now you can get a train mid-afternoon, in order to get the one flight a day which drops you in Oslo Gardemoen at quarter to eleven at night.
Third choice would really be train, via London, Cologne, Copenhagen and Gothenberg, but one doesn’t always have the two days it takes.
So it’s Hobson’s choice — Hobsonair from Stansted to Oslo Torp. Now, like most of Hobsonair’s airports, Torp is not actually at all close to Oslo, but it is quite handy for where we are going.
I will spare you an extended rant about the practice of Cross Country trains of putting a two-coach train on its Stansted service — effectively discouraging those who like to get a seat if they are spending a couple of hours on a train, and move on to Stansted itself. It is a zoo . Hobsonair doesn’t provide any helpful signs, which would be cheap, nor or course enquiry staff, which would be a cost. The staff they do provide all look thoroughly unhappy, and tired and cross, which more or less means that 100% of the people on both sides of the counter are unhappy and tired and cross because they are in the wrong queue or have 1kg too much baggage or a £40 fine for smiling or still 4 hours to go to their next loo break.
Hobsonair more or less has you filing onto the front of the plane while the passengers from the previous flight are still getting out the back. Not actually a problem, they seem to be able to refuel and refill the trolleys in 20 minutes and reset the inflight commercials to interrupt your contemplation of the clouds, if of course you can move your head in the position you are in crushed between two merely average size human beings who are overflowing their ridiculously narrow seats. We of course arrive on time at Torp, file past the passengers waiting to get on (it’s a bit like the Underground) and find that Torp is relatively calm and quiet, possibly because only Hobsonair and some of its continental pals drop in 2 or 3 times a day.
It’s not really that I object to flying being cheap, it’s having it appear cheap — and only if you abide by the rules, don’t want to take any luggage, and have a computer to check-in on-line.
We came back from Copenhagen to Manchester on SAS — really quite civilised. Copenhagen Airport was extremely elegant.
One day, I’m going to take the train, or investigate the freight ferry from Immingham.
