Friday, June 9, 2017

Travel Tale Detectives - are you one?

Problem
A member of my family takes a trip to Changi airport with a friendly chatty taxi driver. He says he travelled to London several years ago. He can't remember the airline or the airport name. London has five airports. Which one was it?

Answers
My relative asks: "Was it a direct, non-stop flight?"

"Yes, it was direct."

"Only three airlines fly direct and non-stop between Singapore and London. They are Singapore Airlines, British Airways and QANTUS."

"It was Qantas."

"They fly from Heathrow. So you flew into Heathrow on Qantas!"

When you go to London, photograph the statue of Sherlock Holmes outside Baker Street Station. How many clues can you pick up from your fellow travellers? This great fictional detective was based on a Scottish doctor who could deduce several facts about a patient the moment they walked in and said hello.

For example, a farmer might have dirt under his fingernails.

My late father was an optician. He said that when somebody walked into his shop, he knew what they needed. A teenager without glasses probably had myopia, short sight, and needed his first pair. An older person with a frown, wearing a pair of glasses, was probably a reader and needed an updated stronger prescription. A middle aged person wearing glasses probably had glasses for myopia, short sight but had developed presbyopia, age related long sight in later life and wanted bifocals.

We were on holiday in Spain and my father said of a couple looking in shop windows nearby, "They are British."

I asked, "How do you know? Did you hear them speak?"

"No," said my father. "They are wearing National Health Service spectacles. "
*** 
Have you ever made deductions about people you meet on your travels? Were you right or wrong? How often do you find that 'the clothes make the man' and 'no smoke without fire'? How often do you find that 'you can't judge a book by its cover' and 'handsome is as handsome does'?

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourites posts.

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