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Every flight I've ever been on offers free drinks.

ORLY? http://www.ryanair.com/

High speed trains are expensive, especially if you have three or more people (i.e. a family). GP says "Ditto for the TGV where it makes sense" -- TGV is French for HST/High Speed Train (Train à Grand Vitesse, IIRC). It probably makes sense if you can plan in advance and book ahead, and if your destination is a large city (where the train stops) with at most a single change.

Take a look at Ryanair.com, on the left I see "Cheap flights", starting at £6 (you'll probably see $, but hopefully the advert is still there). They add on extra changes, but you end up paying about £20-30 to fly halfway across Europe. That will take you maybe 400 miles by normal-speed train, or ~twice as far if you buy a non-flexible ticket (which then loses an advantage of using the train -- being able to miss one and take the next one).

(I live in the UK, so going abroad requires crossing the English Channel. I'm not really used to long distance train trips in mainland Europe, I've only done it a few times, so my figures might be a bit out.)

Ryan Air Routemap now in Silverlight only

And this airline's routemap too:

Aer Lingus Routemap now in Silverlight only

Ah yes, both of these airlines are headquartered in Ireland, where Microsoft has its European headquarters for tax reasons and Microsoft threatened the Irish government that they would leave the country if they changed the tax system in any way that works against them.

I'll second the Imperial War Museum, the Science Museum, Tate Modern, etc. Someone else also mentioned the Design Museum -- that's pretty cool, too.

On the laptop question: If you have a netbook, or something under about 3 pounds (~1.5kg) I'd consider taking it. Otherwise, leave it behind. I've traveled quite a bit in Europe, and I often bring along my 2.2 pound (1kg) Toshiba Portege 2000 (ancient ultralight notebook, more or less equivalent to a netbook, but a little slower.) What I've found is that on short trips (2-3 days) I hardly use it and wish I'd left it behind. On longer trips, especially when traveling around with no pre-set plan, I find it useful for getting directions, booking tickets to events, hotels, flights, checking the opening and closing times of certain attractions, and the occasional e-mail, but I still use it less than I thought I would. Anything heavier/larger is just a drag. The key to having fun is to travel light. Of all the times I've stayed in London, I've never been on the first floor of the hotel, and only about 25% of the hotels I've stayed in had elevators. If you simply fly to London and stay in the same hotel for two weeks, that's not a big issue, but if you travel around a bit (and if you are there that long you SHOULD) the extra weight and bulk of a laptop is really annoying. Bring a carry-on sized bag and *maybe* a small shoulder bag and that's it. Anything more and you stop having fun because you are dragging around your closet with you. Do a load of laundry after your first week rather than bringing two weeks worth of clothes. There are internet cafe's all over London (and most of Europe for that matter.) Easy Internet has several large internet cafe's in central London -- just look for a bright orange sign. (There are loads of other places to go, too.) Bring a digital camera and a bunch of memory cards (they are cheap) and take lots of pictures.

With two weeks, I would strongly consider seeing more of the country (or even other countries.) Easy Jet and Ryan Air have cheap flights all over the place (warning though: these airlines often fly to regional airports rather than major airports, so you have to take public transit to actually get where you want to go even after getting off the flight. Sometimes, it just isn't worth the hassle, and you are better off taking a "regular" airline -- research before you book! They also charge fees for EVERYTHING, so pack light, and bring your own snacks.) Still, it can be a cheap way to dash up to Edinburgh for a few days or see Paris for a weekend. It will make your trip so much more memorable. Get on a train and go somewhere -- many other posts here have great ideas (Bath, Bletchly Park, etc.)

Also, WALK places. You see and experience so much more. Go into Soho and just wander around. See a show, stop off in a pub for lunch, find a little hole-in-the-wall curry place filled with locals (you'll recognize them because they will not be wearing t-shirts, jeans, or sneakers.) It is nearly impossible to get lost in London, because if you get turned around, just ask a passer by where the nearest tube stop is, check the map in the station to see where you are, and take the subway to someplace else you want to be. (As many have said already, get an Oyster card.)

Don't stay at big chain hotels, don't eat at places you've been to in the U.S. (McDonald's, TGI Friday's, etc.) Ask locals for recommendations of where to eat. Don't ask them for what to see -- like locals everywhere, they rarely see the sites that are next door. Get a good tour book for that. Generally spending more (on food, hotels, transportation) simply isolates you more from the people in the country you are in, and robs you of the experience of being somewhere with a different culture. Take public transit, walk, and go to a local pub and talk to people. You'll have a lot more fun!

Actually, there is one website which has switched to Silverlight.. I'm not sure why they did, but it made me very unhappy:
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/dests.php?flash=chk

This is a map to show the possible routes from Ryanair airports. They now have included a list of their routes so people can read from it instead of their silverlight map, but still.. I've installed the plugin, and this still doesn't work.

So of course, no, we don't want that MS thing, but at a point.. it's like Flash, if webmasters start to use it, better have some support that works than just whine about who made it in the first place..

Ryanair is way ahead of you.

I suspect Ryanair is mostly upset about the screen with markup. If all the sites did was search for the cheapest airfare and forward you then there would be nothing whatsoever Ryanair could do about it.

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=aug&story=reg-en-050808

From their news post:

"Ryanair has a policy of preventing screenscrapers unlawfully accessing Ryanairâ(TM)s website, because in many cases these screenscrapers are engaged in some or all of the following unlawful/inappropriate behaviour:

1. They are in breach of Ryanair's copyright rules.
2. They are in breach of Ryanair.com's terms of use.
3. They are levying unjustified and unnecessary handling charges (in some cases up to double the Ryanair fare) on Ryanair passengers.
4. They don't provide passengers with Ryanair's accurate terms/conditions.
5. They don't provide passengers with up to date flight or change information.
6. They are delaying ordinary passengers' access to the Ryanair.com website."

Ryanair recently switched their destinations map applet to require Microsoft Silverlight, and now this. Looks like they're doing everything in their might to fend off customers.

The reason thay do not want to have you book by third party is that they want you to book on their website.

The reason for this (or so claims the CEO in a TV show I saw) is because the website generates income that exceeds the income of the air ticket. As an example he gave renting cars. People book via the website and will rent a car there as well. They get something for each car that is rented through their websites.

In other words, they are not so much in the business of selling plane tickes, they are in the business of cross and deep selling. Just look at their site and you see car hire and hotel bookings. And those are the people who give them money to be on their site.

Look at http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/inpage.php?partner=MONEY

Maybe there is more to the story.

Based on their response to the absurd goverment mandated security policies they obviously have someone working there with more than half a brain.

From what I've heard of Ryanair, you wouldn't want to fly it anyway.

Not even when they offer Beds & Blowjobs?

Remember, this is the outfit that promoted its Business Class service with a You Tube video entitled "Beds and Blowjobs": here's the official RyanAir press release from June '08 (work safe)

That's actually a fantastic idea.

With the introduction of RyanAir and EasyJet in Europe, air travel has taken off, forcing the standard companies such as British Airways to drop their prices and offer more affordable travel. A passenger on there one said to me, "I travel home to Rome once a month because it's cheaper than driving there."

My point being, nothing here in North America comes close; we are desperately in need of a discount airline that provides affordable travel. Google could leverage this need with their advertising model to produce something pretty damned reasonable, and they ARE the types to do something that radical.

Ryanair route map: http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/dests.php?flash=chk &pos=MYFLIGHT

Ryanair / Onair press release : http://www.onair.aero/admin/fil/30%2008%2006%20OnA ir%20Ryanair%20final.pdf

You haven't seen the Ryanair notice yet?

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/notices.php?notice= 060822-ASP-EN

The two biggest carriers in IE have, in recent months, both moved to discourage checked baggage on short-haul flights. One already charges per bag checked in, the other recently announced plans to do so. Both are modelled these days as low-cost airlines.

One of the first questions asked on the radio yesterday morning was how these policies will be affected by yesterday's events. Remains to be seen.

On a side note - thank christ for the reduced on board luggage rules. Why the hell does anyone need more than their book & a passport anyway?

I'd be happy with just that, but according to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4778615.stm, you aren't even allowed to take a book.

Personally, I'd consider "food and drink" to be pretty essential, but strangely that's not on the list. Of course that could be provided by the airline, but note that the "cheap" airlines (e.g., RyanAir) do not provide this as part of ticket, and charge highly. I would hope they'd make an exception here, rather than taking the opportunity to profit from such an event.

Also, one of the main reasons I have things in hand luggage is to reduce what I have to put in the checked-in luggage. There's both the issue of weight, and in some cases you get charged per bag (RyanAir charge an extra £5 per bag per one-way flight, independent of how much they weigh). So I would seriously hope they are waiving those charges in this time of crisis.

Other people pointed out the risk of fragile or expensive items - according to http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/conditions.php , they are only liable up to £820. Furthermore, they aren't liable at all if they decide the baggage is "defective" - and in my experience, they do that even if the material is slightly worn, in a manner which clearly wouldn't affect the contents.

what you should do, imho, is take a couple of weeks off and travel around a bit. we have cheap airlines that will let you get around on a low budget. we also have an excellent railway system, you'd see more that way.

it's not just the working hours (and cheap bandwidth, although it's important, of course) that make for quality of living, but also the food and the people. those are highly individual factors, so going there first before you decide to begin a new life would be a smart investment of the little time and money it would cost you, imho.

Perl fills a 'tiny short-term need'? Is that why Morgan Stanley, RyanAir, Amazon, Ticketmaster and even increasingly Google to name but a few are using it for real, business-critical applications?

I'm so sick of all this anti-Perl talk. I write powerful applications in Perl and they are definetly not 'write only'. If anyone writes a 'write only' program in any language then it is the programmer who is at fault. Perl assumes a bit of intelligence on the programmer's side, rather than adopting Java's policy of bondage. And contrary to what a previous comment said, Perl is a general purpose language (with excellent built-in data structures and regular expressions, and a convenient and expressive syntax).

This guy might have an impressive [sic] resume, but he is badly showing his ignorance about Perl.

Like Ryanair, you mean? One of the more profitable airlines in existence.

Why do I get the feeling you don't have a clue about how airlines work, what the costs are, where the revenues come from?

I get sick of the 'standard' backlash every time a Perl article is posted. Why do people have such a problem with Perl? It's an excellent, high-level general purpose programming language with a huge range of extension modules available. I have personally used Perl for many projects, as do TicketMaster, ValueClick, Morgan Stanley and Ryanair and I've also learnt a lot about software engineering and computing through Perl.

Of course you are right. But let's not forget that there are also lots of completely useless Perl projects as well.

Yes, it does include a lot of symbols, but there is payback to learning them, and really most programs won't use much beyond $ % # () [] {}. Unlike some languages, Perl is not what I would describe as a 'bondage' language. If you want to program sloppy, you can program sloppy. That's fine by Perl. And this generousity is what gives Perl its bad reputation. This is funny since I and most knowledgeable Perl programmers can write perfectly clear and maintainable code. The way we do this is no secret--it's just by commenting appropriately, using meaningful identifier names and following the Perl style guidelines.

People can mock Perl all they like, but it is still a widely used powerful programming language and I am more productive in it than any other language. As a parting comment, a Cisco employee once told me (off the record of course!) that "Cisco would fall apart without Perl".

Some airlines require ID for domestic flights in the UK. One theory is that they want to stop people from buying lots of cheap "£1" tickets uses by the airline as a marketing ploy and then selling them on to random people for a profit. Rynair is an example.

Fast rail travel (like they have on the European continent) is far more comfortable than flying. When you factor in airport distance, check-in times, etc, it's also quicker than flying on most domestic-length routes. Look at Eurostar's dominance on the London-Paris route at the expense of the airlines. It's also far more environmentally friendly than short-haul flights - in Spain you can get a discount on an AVE/Talgo ticket within 48 hours of flying into/out of the country, to persuade you to use the train rather than a connecting flight to your ultimate destination.

Offering WiFi is definately another value-add that will increase train use - you can actually spend that 4-5 hour journey *working* (or whatever) rather than spending approx the same amount of time getting a train to the airport, check-in, hanging around, short flight, another train. Now if they can only get those leaves off the track and introduce high speed services...

What's more worrying is that it almost seems as if they're going to have one person to run the entire cinema (and for only £14k)! :)

Reminds me of easyInternetCafe. Last time I went to the one here, part of the space inside had been sold off to a coffee shop and there were no employees anymore on the internet cafe side of things. Just one security guard from an outside company.

easyGroup really seem to be quite struggling in some areas. Including their airline, where the much cheaper Ryanair seem to be beating them at the moment.

We'll just have to see how the cinema venture goes... Stelios hasn't been too luck in the courts lately...

RyanAir is making big fat profits despite all of the above...

Perl is real programming language, and as for the readability aspect: Perl doesn't hold your hand. It's perfectly possible to write clear code in Perl. If I was to show you one of my scripts I'm sure anyone with basic programming knowledge would be able to understand it.

Besides the fact that this would be spam, the reason companies are using free (as in beer) solutions like Perl is that these companies simply don't have the spare cash to spend on software. To use your example, airlines are simply bleeding red ink [businessweek.com] these days.

Utter nonsense.

From the Ryanair website investor relations link: Ryanair are thriving

"RYANAIR DELIVERS RECORD Q.3 PROFITS DESPITE EFFECTS OF 11TH SEPTEMBER TRAFFIC GROWS BY 30%, PROFI TS RISE BY 35%"

And contacting Ryanair would not be spam. I am talking about making a phonecall to the people who maintain and who wrote the ticketing application. Only ten to fifteen calls like this would do the trick, and solve the current problem for the foundation.