A Time of Magic

I was puzzling over that today and there’s no really good reason why there shouldn’t be such a thing and yet there doesn’t appear to be one.

On second thoughts, one reason does spring to mind and that’s the sheer level of uncertainty about it all or rather the uncertainty about how long it will continue. After the initial week or so of cancellations it seemed like air travel was at an end within Europe but that changed very suddenly in the second week. Then the prognosis flipped to the other extreme with us seemingly being able to ignore the volcano until we found that airports were suddenly closed.

The problem now is that nobody really knows whether this disruption will continue for a few weeks more or whether it’s going to be the norm. If the latter is the case, a one-stop website would really clean up in terms of advertising. On the other hand, if it’s the former then there’s a lot of effort that would need to be put in to collect the information and with little prospect of payback for that effort. There’s also the accuracy problem as airlines and airports seem to make decisions at very short notice which is a recipe for lawsuits.

The only real certainty in all this is that it seems crazy to think about booking a holiday this summer that involves any kind of air travel.

Actually, there is no truly easy way, as anyone who has tried to get fit knows very well.

That being the case the choice is generally down to buying your own fitness equipment or going to a gym. Frankly, the DIY approach wasn’t even a runner until a few years ago as the equipment cost really serious money for even the simplest of pieces. However, that’s changed drastically recently and it’s quite viable to kit out a home gym with two or three machines that’ll do the biz for most people.

“All” you need to do now is to find the space for it all.

At one time it seemed like the Internet would be the great leveller and that there would finally be a single price for each product, or at least for product categories that live online: the electronic goods.

However, years down the line that still hasn’t happened and there are quite substantial differences in the price of some products. I’ve just been looking around for a little dictation machine for instance and find that the prices are all over the place. Oddly, the place that I’d have expected to have been the lowest price is around 50% more expensive than a place which is normally more expensive. Yes, fifty per cent!

Frankly, I was quite staggered at the difference in price of that item. I’d expected a few pounds difference but certainly nothing like 50%.

So, it still pays to shop around!