The Original Sims

It’s a shame that NIRSucks.com has gone.  It was a long-gurn blog about being forced to use Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) and the transport company’s short comings.  But NIR doesn’t quite suck so much anymore.  Long gone are (most of) the noisy, smelly, cold, draughty, damp, toilet over flowing carriages that we used to travle in.  Pulling down the window to open the carriage door from outside then banging against the door with full force caused me several bruised ribs.

The trains (tend to) run on time.  The staff are professional and polite.  So NIR is better than it was.  Now they are planning to buy new rolling stock (I believe the technical term is) and they are surveying the customers. 

What can we expect in the future?  Wireless and electric sockets! It’s almost the 21st century here. 

I once wrote about how terrible the food is in Bristol Airport. Specifically the Food Village is horrible.  I really should have taken another photo. Words could not convey how terrible the 21 chips (counted them, 2 were ineadible having been through the fryer more than once buy their look), small fillet of Haddock in bread crumbs - that’s it - all for £6.49.  And it was not quite cold - but not quite warm, either. 

My mistake - there are other places to eat if you go through to Airside.  But it’s a real hassle if (with a two and a half hour wait) I decide I want one of my two ciggies of the day after eating.

Never again, though. And if you go to Bristol Airport - don’t eat before going through to Airside. 

0615:To Liverpool for the day to visit the Sail Training International conference. I’m looking at how we might be able to cover the Tall Ships visit to Belfast in August 2009 and possibly we can cover the race across the north Atlantic live on the web.

The conference was essentially for people active in the organisation but still worth while. Very good presentation by Ocean Youth Trust Ireland.

When in Liverpool got a call to say that the new bbc.co.uk/northernireland homepage was live at last. This page has been in production for a very long time mostly in search of a look and feel and working with the audience to see what they want. Ease of navigation and uncluttered. Once that was decided we spent a great deal of time on the navigation, sub navigation and the functionality. The user shouldn’t have to understand how it works, just that it does. I’m looking forward to the feedback.

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Days have gone since being the tourism supremo for Belfast or the Northern Ireland Tourist Board was stock comedy content.  Yesterday I joined a group of notable media people in a fashionable Belfast hotel.  The agenda of the meeting was re-branding Belfast as a destination.

Belfast has got a fantastic amount going for it.  Much of that is the recent history - but as one person put it "What do you do after you have your photo taken beside one of the murals?" Here are some examples. That question can be extended to "… especially on a Sunday?" a time that Belfast becomes a limbo.  There is the Industrial History - a lot of people want to see where the Titanic was built.

There is the cultural city - oddly not many tourists know about that.

Some cities are known by one icon; Paris has the Eiffel Tower (big and impressive)  Copenhagen has the Little Mermaid (have you ever see it - it is very very little - I felt cheated).  Belfast has Sampson and Goliath - now they are big and impressive and there are two of them.  There is a fantastic view from the top.  But getting up there is a big problem.

Should the Belfast Brand be about the future rather than the past?  Is there an annual event - or annual events?  If not what should they be?

Re-branding Belfast is no longer a joke - it’s a serious business with serious people thinking about it.  Where to start?

Like many people who live and work in the city, I’d start with the taxi service. All I want to be able to do sometimes is walk onto the street and hail one.  On Tuesday standing outside the Royal Hospital for more than half an hour waiting for a taxi "It’ll be there in 10 minutes" gave me time to think about the next day’s lunch about tourism in Belfast - it was pretty obvious to me what would enhance the visitor experience.

I’ve been travelling a lot recently and I’m on the verge of launching the search for the worst airport in the UK. I suppose there are three sections; arrival, landside departure and airside departure. They are three usually different experiences and should have their own sections.

Yesterday I experienced potential winners in worst arrival (Cardiff) and worst landside (do they call it that?). Bristol Airport was so awful mainly because of the quality of the hospitality. Here is my dilemma: I am a smoker - a social deviant. But that’s OK, I don’t like to go through security if there is nowhere to smoke beyond the x-ray machines (e.g. Birmingham). I’m more than happy to avoid airside until the last minute so I can slip outside (cold and wet or sunny or dry). That’s the price of social deviancy.

Like most business travellers, I arrive at an airport in the evening tired and hungry. There was only one place to eat yesterday in Bristol. My friends - what I was presented with for £5.99 is pictured above.

Airside it wasn’t better - there was a place to smoke, but why was the nasty loud music playing in that area only?

One positive thing about the experience was that the security staff were pleasant and unlike too many security at airports treated the travellers as humans.

The nomination for worst arrival goes to Cardiff. The airport is miles away from the city and the links are appalling. The nearest train station is a (free) bus ride away, but trains only pass once an hour!

Granted, I’ve only experienced Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast City, Belfast International, Glasgow, Birmingham, Heathrow recently. But perhaps there are "worse". All nominations welcome.