Flight to Perth
The flight to Perth was on a 767 so I’ve yet to try out one of the new 777s which do look nice. Three of us were travelling to attend Apricot. Apricot, as I had to explain to Australian Customs, is not a conference about fruit but the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies.
A few hours before we travelled Air NZ staff had just been told a 470 admin staff are going to be made redundant. One of the staff showed us the e-mail from the CEO which was pretty brutal.
Three of us were travelling together to attend it. As the flight was eight hours we tried to use airpoints to upgrade to business class. Unfortunately they upgraded some but not all of us which was unusual as the person not upgraded had been gifted air points from my account. I tried to convince Air NZ staff they were my “companion” and to upgrade her also but alas that didn’t work.
On the flight I watched North Country and Zorro 2. North Country was a gripping film and I didn’t even do my usual trick of reading a book while also watching a movie as I was so engrossed in the movie. Quite a tearjerker finish with the court-room scene. Niki Caro is an amazing director. Oh yeah that Charlize Theron isn’t bad either.
When we landed we pulled up to our gate but they then had an engineering problem with the walkway which wouldn’t extend all the way out to the plane. My helpful suggestion of why don’t we just move the plane eight feet to the left amused the cabin crew who suggested they would be happy for me to try jumping the distance to see if it can be done safely. Eventually we got towed to another gate.
Had a quiet dinner in town last night at 8 pm. This was equal to 1 am back home so all fairly tired. Today have a bit of spare time. On Sunday the AGM of the Asia-Pacific Coalition against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail is on. The good good news is it sounds like China has just passed anti-spam laws – something sought for many years.
Also by coincidence at a Perth courthouse this week is the first prosecution under Australia’s anti-spam laws. May try and pop in to observe it, as the defendant is pleading not guilty and it will come down to the definition of spam in the law.