ALL-INCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS: A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR AD LIBITUM SERVICES

 

ALL-INCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS: A CAUTIONARY TALE

 FOR

AD LIBITUM SERVICES

 

The man entered in the main restaurant and hang his coat on the back of a chair. The waiter came and asked him if he wanted coffee, tea or orange juice. “I would like a glass of orange juice and then a pot of Earl Grey tea” the man said and went to get his breakfast.

He came back with a plate full of various kinds of bread, two sausage, two poached eggs, two rashes off crisped bacon and a bowl filled with baked beans. He had some fried tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese too. He drank the orange juice and ate about half of what was on his plate and pushed the plate aside. He got up and brought two more plates, one had few slices of melon and pineapple each, a kiwi, an orange and a banana, the other plate had a big slice of double chocolate cake, two pieces of Baklavas and a big muffin. There was also a bowl filled with strawberry ice cream. He asked the waiter to get a fresh pot of tea as the previous one had gone cold. After finishing a cup of tea, he left. There was at least half of the food left on the table.

This was not unusual though. All around me on many of the tables it was the same story, more or less. We were also guilty of this gluttony and waste, perhaps, not to that extent.

Why were we all behaving like this? Just because we were on vacation and yearning to have a jolly good time does not explain this indifference to wastage of food and drinks. I am very sure most people did not do this at home. 

I wondered about this, but while I was there at this Cretan resort, enjoying my holiday, I was too busy consuming to concentrate on pondering!

When back at home I kept mulling over it. 

There were hundreds of varieties of food and drinks on display in the main restaurant at the breakfast, also at the lunch and the dinner times. There was even champagne for breakfast! Apart from this main restaurant there were many snack bars specialising in different cuisines and cocktails, scattered all around this vast resort on the shore of Aegean Sea. The presence of so many enticing dishes from different countries and cultures induces one to explore as many as possible, What a pleasure!  If one is not up to your taste, just bin it, what a waste!

Another factor is peer pressure and imitative behaviour. Seeing other's overflowing plates, one just does it without a second thought. Soon it is accepted and becomes the norm.

The last but I think, the most important reason is this. When one does not have to pay at the point of use, the wastage does not impinge on one’s conscience as much. People in general, care less about things which come free or seem to come free. Sense of entitlement without immediate association of pain (cost) dims the moral inhibitions on wastage and misuse. Air and Water are vital commodities but because they are free, people do not hesitate in polluting or wasting them.

The National Health Service in U K is a prime example. Because people do not have to pay at the point of delivery, many do not care to protect it and to use it carefully and prevent waste. Everyone feels entitled and wishes to have the best treatment, whatever the cost. But just like all-inclusive holidays we all have paid a price. The government is paying for it  from what it has collected from us through taxes. It may seem free, but it is not.

  An all-inclusive holiday resort could not keep on giving best foods and drinks  ad libitum without charging an appropriate price, taking the running costs, price of raising capital, inflation, taxes etc into account. They have to think carefully what level of service and quality of food they can provide with the money they have collected in the first place otherwise they would go bankrupt. 

Without rigorous audit and strict governance by the provider no ad libitum service can be sustained because the customers will consume it as if it is free and unlimited service.

MY CAR’S WINDSCREEN AND PRINCE RUPERT’S TEAR DROPS

 

 

        Two weeks ago, I took my car out to get our weekly groceries. I noticed a tiny, about half an inch crack in the windscreen right at the bottom on the driver’s side. It did not seem serious, and it was not in my field of vision. I did not worry much.

        After the shopping when I was back home, I noticed the crack had gone a bit longer.  In the evening we went for dinner to a friend’s house who lived in about 30 miles away. Next morning, I noticed the crack has become much longer, about 15 inches.  I did not go over any big pothole in the night, did not hit anything, how did the crack get so big?

        I got worried that soon the whole screen might fall off.  I remembered the phenomenon of exploding “Prince Rupert’s Drops”.
        I had read about them in a magazine only last week. When molten glass is dropped in a bucket of cold water it forms a tear drop shape with a slender curved tail, like a human sperm. The head is so strong that it cannot be broken even when struck with a bullet. But a tiny twist or tinkle on the tail can easily break not only the tail but also shatters the head into tiny pieces. https://youtu.be/24q80ReMyq0  

They were first made in Germany. In 1660 Prince
Rupert of Rhine presented some to king Charles II of England. He was very intrigued with their unique property and asked the newly constructed Royal Society for finding the scientific basis behind the phenomenon. The riddle has taken almost 400 years to unravel the physics behind it with the help of scientists from all over the world.  

        A recent study by S. Chandrasekar at Purdue University and M. M. Chaudhri at the University of Cambridge, was published in 2016¹. It showed that fast cooling of the outer layers of the glass hardens it rapidly and constricts the yet warm liquid glass in the centre. The fast cooling of outer layer makes a very high surface compressive stress. This layer is thin but super strong. A force applied to it, just cannot enter the head, but when the narrow tail is broken the shock wave travels through the inner core towards the head which explodes from within. https://youtu.be/lt-zvsGvtqg

I panicked, at once rang my car insurance company. The lady was very calm, she said “not to worry, the glass pane will not break into pieces as it was made of laminated glass. She will send the glass engineer who will fix it.”  When? I asked.  she checked and rang back; the earliest date was 3 days later.

  I did not dare to drive the car for the next 3 days till the Autoglass engineer came.  After examining my windscreen, he explained that there was a small chip in the glass right at the beginning of the crack. It was caused by a loose gravel on the road surface. These small, shallow craters are quite common and can be easily repaired at that stage. But if not repaired, cracks get bigger with vibrations in the glass when one drives the car. Once large cracks appear the whole windscreen must be replaced, which was the case with my car.

How long it will take to replace the wind screen? I asked thinking it may take a few days. He said that he would do it here and now. It would take about an hour and a half.

He rang me later to say that he has finished, and I should come down to check it. I did. it looked good and everything worked.  I thanked him profusely.

Though the shattering of the Rupert’s teardrops caused me to panic, if I would have researched a bit more, I would have also known that initial early Royal Society studies on the ‘Drops’ did result in development of shatter resistant, tempered glass which was patented in as early as 1874!

1. On the extraordinary strength of Prince Rupert's drops

H. Aben; J. Anton; M. Õis; K. Viswanathan; S. Chandrasekar; M. M. Chaudhri

Appl. Phys. Lett. 109, 231903 (2016)

 

A Short Visit to Historic and Vibrant Madrid

 

We went to Madrid last month. The weather was warm and sunny but not too hot just as we like it. A light cotton jacket in early mornings and late evenings was all that was needed. The big anorak and the wind-cheater I look with me remained hanging in the wardrobe. As the weather here in UK was cold and we went to the airport in the morning, I had no option but to carry them. There was also one more but very important factor; lately, the weather has become much more volatile making any meteorological prediction unreliable even for a week.

When one is at home the appropriate clothing is not a problem. On a holiday, one has limited options. You cannot take more than a few clothes unless you pay through nose. The luggage allowance has slowly gone smaller and costlier particularly for short haul flights. One must pay for even a cabin-bag, the size and weight of which shouldn’t be more than a crisp bag!

We chose Madrid not just for the weather but also because it ticked almost all the boxes for a good city break. Its rich historical heritage and vibrant culture is evident all over the city, particularly in the architecture of famous buildings, well curated museums, large gardens, and other landmarks. Also, I always wanted to see classic Spanish opera and authentic flamenco dance.  

The public transport system was another big influence in our decision; the trains, buses, trams, and metro are all well interlinked and comprehensive, The fare is low. I could not believe it that there were frequent and regular electric buses on many routes which were completely free!

Wherever we go we like to see all the things that a place is known for, Madrid was no exception, we made a big list of  famous palaces, museums, churches, plazas, parks, sculptures, shops, restaurants, and a flamenco theatre.

As both, Bibha and I don’t have a passion for football or bullfighting, we did not plan to visit Real Madrid stadium or the Las Ventas the bullfighting ring. Some go to Madrid just for these. Horses for courses.

We stayed in Madrid for Five days; we walked so much in first two days that on the 3^rd day we had to take it easy, we stayed mostly in and around our hotel which was right in the city centre on Gran Via near plaza opera and plaza sol. We had to cancel our day trip to Toledo which we had scheduled for the day.  But we did not regret it. We leisurely passed the day eating, drinking (mostly coffee and fruit juice), people watching and window shopping. This gave us a good feel of the hustle and bustle of the city, the local cuisines, shops, and the people.

Of course, one cannot do justice by visiting a city like Madrid just for a few days. We did not manage to see even all that was on our itinerary. But with what we did see, we got a good glimpse of the heart of city. We found the followings most interesting and amusing. We walked to some of these which were near our hotel (Hotel Atlantico) in the city centre. For the rest we used the local buses and Metro which I think are best in Europe. I am not describing the places in detail as one can easily look them up on the google.

v  Royal place,

v  CentroCentro in Cibeles Palace

v  Prado museum

v  Sofia Raina museum

v  Plazas: Sol, Mayer, Espana and Cibeles and the sculptural fountains of Cibeles, Apollo and Neptune

v  Shops: El Corte Inglés, Zara,

v  Food Court: Mercado de San Miguel.

v  Flamenco dance show:   one we saw was excellent at Torres Bermejas

v  Al Reteiro park which also includes Casa De Vacas, Crystal Palace, Palacio De Velázquez,  

We would have really liked to stay longer but our flight back was booked. Leaving Madrid felt sad and premature as we flew back to wet and cold London. The memory of the warm and energetic Madrid kept us smiling.

A DOORSTEP ENCOUNTER: SINISTER OR BENEVOLENT

     Last Sunday morning I was looking through the Sunday newspapers with a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee when the doorbell rang. I was not expecting anyone.  I put the paper on the table and reluctantly got up. Doorbell rang again. 


       At the door there was a young man, 30ish, tall, heavily built in worn out jeans and a shabby hooded black fleece jumper. Due to the hood upper half of his face was in dark. Beside him was a bike which he held with both his hands.


      “YES” I said rather loudly. He must have noticed the annoyance and a bit of hostility in my voice. I certainly noticed it. 

      “Sorry to bother you mate; your keys are hanging there.” He pointed at the door where my key ring was hanging. I must have left the key in the lock last night when we came after dinner at a friend’s house. Beside the main-door key the ring also had the keys of patio and the car.

       I felt so ashamed at my impoliteness that I could not speak. "Are you OK, mate?” the stranger said anxiously. I got my composure back and thanked him profusely.

      “It’s nothing. You would have done the same” He said smiling and turned back to the road.

       After he was gone, I was very uneasy and ashamed. Why did I behave so rudely? It’s not my usual state of being.

Reflecting on the encounter I think that some of the following factors might have contributed

•     I was too engrossed in the newspaper, halfway through an interesting article. The door bell ring felt like an intrusion. So even before I opened the door I was annoyed.
•     When I saw this young man with a hood covering part of his face, in untidy clothes I felt no qualms in stereotyping him. A young man hiding his face he must be a hoodlum and was up to no good. 
•    The flashy mountain bike beside him did not help the situation. My already preconditioned brain perceived it as an efficient snatch and grab getaway vehicle!

      It all happened in a flash, no conscious thinking on my part.
     
        Recently there have been incidences in London where criminals have snatched mobiles from pedestrians. The perpetrators were usually hooded young men on bicycles or mopeds. Short CCTV clips have been shown on the national Television and are doing rounds on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms. I have not paid much attention to these but they must have stayed in some corners of my brain.

     The brain regularly tunes itself so that it can  take fast evasive and neutralising actions to recurrent threats by preconditioning us without our conscious awareness. This clearly has an evolutionary survival benefit. Our long passed ancestors only knew about such incidences when they or their local community experienced these encounters. Now we are constantly bombarded with audiovisual clips (some true, some fake) from all over the world 24/7. We usually do not pay much conscious attention and rightly so. But the unconscious part our brain does; its rationale is brute survival.

      Recent decline of general civility and increase in communal hatred worldwide is a serious by-product of this information explosion. Ironically the very brain trait that ensured human survival and development of civilizations may now become a mortal threat to the civil society which we so enjoy living in.

TO WEED OR NOT TO WEED: THE ETERNAL HORTICULTURAL DILEMMA

If Shakespeare was a gardener he would have said “To weed, or not to weed, that is the question.”  Every time I go in my garden, I try to evade this eternal horticultural dilemma. 

 We just cleaned and weeded our small garden last month after the long winter hibernation. I purposely left some weeds, which were flowering. I could not will myself to pull them out, not with their lovely blue flowers. Besides, at that time of the year there were not that many “non weed flowers “in the garden.

After all what is a weed? Shakespeare refers to such plants as lacking “both beauty and utility.” According to The Oxford dictionary, weed is “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants”.  This provides me with a loophole.  No plant as such is a weed, only when one is not wanted, cherished or loved then it becomes a weed*. Moreover, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  A plant deemed to have no utility just shows our ignorance. So many things science has yet to discover. Indeed, there is a famous quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson the eminent American essayist, poet, and philosopher “What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” (Fortune of the Republic, 1878). 

Another thing derogatorily said about the weeds is that they grow abundantly and encroach on the other desired plants in spite of  incessant human assault. I think it only proves that Mother Nature really loves them. In the war between Weed and Man, Nature favours the Weed! We detest these plants because they do not do as we command them and they are winners.

The cutest quote about weeds was by Janice Maeditere** “Weeds are nature's graffiti”. Well some graffiti are work of art!

Of course, this entire dissertation was to justify to my better half as to why I left most of the weeds in my side of the garden! Well I tried, didn’t I?

* A parallel with child rearing here!

**  I do not know who is Janice Maeditere. Even Google could not tell me, though her quote is sited profusely by the search engine!

MCDONALD’S AND ELLIPSIS

The distinctive McDonald's M sign has become ubiquitous. According to a recent survey this sign is recognized by more people than even the Cross sign.


If you cut it in half with a vertical line and rotate the 2^nd half by 180⁰ and align it below the first one, it forms an ellipse. This word is derived from Greek Ellipsis which means to leave out or fall short of. Ellipsis is an integral part of English grammar. It is defined as omission of one or more words from a sentence in such a way that what is being omitted is a common knowledge. You may perceive Ellipsis as very uncommon or strange but believe me, without it any conversation in any language will really appear very abnormal.

Everybody uses ellipsis many times a day. Here is an example "I can go but my wife cannot." Here "go" is omitted but everyone understands it. "You know the answer but I do not." It will feel absurd saying "you know the answer but I do not know the answer." I understand this but do you? You see what I mean. In written or printed work use of "…" or "***" in place of some word or words or even sentences is also termed ellipsis and again it is used quite often. The frequency of the use of ellipsis in printed material is directly proportional to the censorial vigor of a country. Though ellipsis is not really intended for that purpose.
McDonald's says that its food is good and very delicious. They omit the fact that it is also very fattening and may be quite harmful to your health. But as almost everybody knows it, it is just an ellipsis, not an attempt to deceive anyone!

If you use language, you cannot not use ellipsis. The M sign is appearing so fast all over the globe that soon if you eat, you cannot not use McDonalds in spite of the ellipsis. The double negatives are intentional.
However if you consider only one half of the McDonald's sign, it is a parabola. What has parabola got to do with the language? Well, according to some it is fundamental to development of language. I will discuss it later. Watch the space.

Thanks. (for being so understanding = ellipsis)