Highlights of the Coronation, the coach, the concert and more

What did I like most?

The public with their faces painted with Union Jacks.

Elegant clothes.

Well behaved children.

The gold coach.

The marching bands.

The tea pots with Union Jacks at the street lunch outside 10 downing street.

See the royals from different countries.

What would I have liked extra? It was all very serious stuff, on Saturday, the coronation. All those guards marching. 

I couldn't help thinking of the displays organized by the Chinese with people making patterns from the way they march, stand up.

What abut a Mexican wave?

Never mind. It was uniquely British. And went without a hitch.

The music and drama was the next day, Sunday, which you can watch on Youtube.

 

More Americanisms - British English

English - American

coach - (inter-city) bus, usually single-decker

Economy class - coach class

first floor - second floor

fortnight - two weeks

ground floor - first floor

jelly - Jello (brand name)

tissues/paper hankies - Kleenex

twice - two times

with ice cream - a la mode

American - British English

a la mode - (French for in the fashion) with ice cream 

bus (as in Greyhound bus) - (long-distance) coach

coach class - economy class

coach - railway carriage

first floor - ground floor

Jello (brand name) - jelly

Kleenex - tissues/paper hankies

second floor - third floor

two weeks - fortnight (short for fourteen nights)

two times - twice

Useful Websites

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2022/10/americanisms.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English

Please share links to your favourite posts

What you need to know and say in Hospital overseas

You need to be able to communicate to staff in hospitals in any country you are visiting.

In 1984 I was at a turning point in my career. I had been a freelance travel writer for a long time and for the first time I was sent by Brides magazine on a press trip to report. Unfortunately, the last night people played the guitar all night so I got little sleep and woke up groggy. That didn't matter. All I had to do was get on the coach and catch the plane home where my husband would meet me at the airport.

The coach taking us to the airport broke down. It looked like we might miss our plane. We were told that another coach was coming. leave everything behind. and cross the road to the hotel. I left my camera on the bus, and crossed the road, hurrying after the group, thinking, I should not have left my camera with my vital pictures for the magazine on the bus.

In England, the traffic drives on the other side of the road.

I woke up in hospital unable to move. My camera was covered in blood. My leather sandal was torn in half. I had been knocked down by a car and had multiple injuries including a lump on my leg, a broken collar bone, and blood coming out of ear from a brain injury.

Drugs
I was really happy. I was on morphine.

When the morphine wore off I was in agony. I was screaming. People rushed in and held me down and gave me an injection. When the drug wore off, I realised that my drug induced high was phony. I as alone in a foreign hospital where I could not speak the language.

I decided that if I ever recovered my health, I would never take drugs.

If your relative in hospital is seriously ill, and lying still, but happy to see you, smiling and content, it may be because the hospital is efficiently controlling their pain with morphine.

You might want to kid them that they are getting better and coming home. Don't kid yourself  that everything is ok without check whether the hospital knows something you don't know about the patient's condition and the drugs they are taking. Say or do anything you need. Get a will, a signature, anything you need, just in case, door keys to the house, just in case.

Learn languages. Keep translation devices with you. Why languages?

Even if you think you are fluent, almost bilingual, things can go wrong with technical misunderstanding. In hospital in Corsica, I asked for a radio. I said, un radio. They took me for a radio. A radio in their language meant an X-ray.

The modern fashion is for doctors to tell the truth so that patients can get their affairs in order.

The old-fashioned way was never to tell anybody they were dying.

Why. Because they might lose their will to live. This happened to my father. I was very cross.

Morals to this story:
1 Check what drugs hospital patients are taking.
2 Don't tell somebody they are dying. Ask them to set their affairs in order so you can look after things when they are ill. Cancel mail orders and subscriptions. Get passwords. Insurance policies.
3 Learn languages.
4 Remember that un radio in Corsica means not a radio but an x-ray.

• About the Author
  Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
  I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a trave writer and phtographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.
  
  Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a langauge evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.
  
  I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other Wednesdays are workshops on app learncool.sg
  Or quicker to type and easier to remember:  tinyurl.com/BHACOOL
  
  useful Websites
• https://photoscissors.com/
  https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogs
  https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-say-thank-you-in-several.html
  https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-yourself-in-english-spanish.html
  https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/01/second-set-of-portuguese-words.html Please share links to your favourite posts
  https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
• https://www.facebook.com/angela.lansbury.121
  translate.google.com
  duolingo.com

Worst Case Scenario For Travellers - Be Prepared With Alternative Travel, Accommodation And Food

Worst Case Scenario
I like to travel fully prepared to re-route in an emergency. What are the alternative modes of travel?

USA
You can get delays anywhere. We were bumped off flights in the USA at Xmas. (Bumped meaning denied boarding, or boarded and found your seat already occupied and were asked to get off the plane.


The first time I experienced a major delay was on a flight to India.

Indian flag.

INDIA
The first travel delay I had was outgoing from Heathrow, London, on a flight to India. Engine trouble. We were told to wait. Another plane was due in from the USA and we would be transferred to that flight. Wait a couple of hours.

An American was canny. He told me and other passengers, "Goodbye folks. I'm going to book on another airline. The plane will not be arriving in the next two hours."

I asked, "How do you know?'

He replied, "I phoned the USA and it has not taken off yet. the flight takes five hours or longer. So it cannot arrive here at the time they told us. You will be hanging around all day."

What could possibly go wrong?

EUROPE - UK, London
We were at home asleep before midnight, in a quiet suburb, woken when we heard banging. A woman was driving out our car and shouting.

We called the police. She drove off but we had the number plate.



EUROPE - France
We overnighted in a small hotel garni (guesthouse). We woke in the morning to find a large vehicle, possibly a delivery van, or cleaning vehicle, had damaged my mother's car.


EUROPE - Madrid, Spain
We drove out car to Spain. We parked outside Madrid Zoo for a few hours. We returned to find the window broken by thieves. We had to hire a car one way back to our home, leaving our car to be repaired and shipped back.



The flag of the Czech Rpublic and the former Czechoslovakia.

EUROPE - Prague, Czech Republic
One year we drove our car from the UK across Europe to Prague in the Czech Republic. Our car was broken into. Windows smashed. Over Xmas and New Year garages were shut, police stations were shut or they were out manning the crowds. Parts needed to be ordered were from factories shut over the holidays.

Make sure you are fully insured and have the insurance company numbers.



EUROPE - Spain - Marbella
My handbag was snatched as I was unloading the car. My husband chased after the assailant's car, put his hand through the window, and was dragged around the corner and disappeared.

I ran after the car, screaming, "Let go!"

My husband reappeared but had to go to hospital to be patched up.

A passer-by, alerted by my screaming, saw the car dragging my husband and memorised the numberplate. I could not write down the number because the bag containing my pen had been stolen.

We reported the crime. The police had arrested one of the four boys in the car, a stolen car, when it went around the corner and crashed into parked cars. I was left in the waiting room with my small son, sitting opposite the lad who had stolen my bag and whose gang had injured my husband.

Alternative Transport
Can you go buy a low cost flight, another airline,or hire a helicopter? Could you take a train, a ferry, a bus, a taxi, hire a self-drive car.

Could buy a motorbike, rent a bicycle?

Even if you have the money, and can afford to pay a driver, and have a driving license for that vehicle, what if the emergency means all the hire cars are booked?

What about hiring a minivan or coach to drive a whole group of people? I read of one incident where an airline had no plane able to take people back to the UK.

Somebody said, "They could hire a coach and take us back!"

What about everybody hiring cars? No cars were available. Besides, the price quoted for hiring a car was equal to or more expensive than hiring a coach!

An enterprising passenger with initiative and funds decided he would hire a coach. To recover his money, and do everybody a favour, he sold tickets to all the other passengers. He got everybody back from Europe to the UK.

The moral is, always have your international driving license, or a photocopy of it, even if you had not intended to drive.

Alternative Routes
Go to an intermediate country away from terrorists, natural disaster, medical emergency or quarantine?

Alternative Accommodation
What about accommodation? Could you hire a flat, or a caravan to live in at lower cost than staying in a hotel for months?

ISRAEL
I heard from people in Tel Aviv that they were in what I call a semi-quarantine, not confined to their rooms but allowed to leave so long as they kept distance from others. They said they were allowed out to exercise and had walked along the beach.


Flag of Israel

QUARANTINE and homestay and isolation
What about food? Can you pack tinned food in your suitcase or carry on bag or briefcase or handbag. I like to travel with a small tin of sardines, and another of baked beans, and a third of fruit, in case we arrive late and the hotel restaurant is closed, or we are stuck at an airport, or stuck on the runway for hours.



Flag of Singapore

Home Delivery
Find out who does home delivery? My family renting a condo in Singapore found out about a shop selling provisions in the condo. We asked if they would deliver if we were ever quarantined. It turned out that the shop already offered delivery to the 1000 people on the estate. But few people bothered to use this service. So we took their names and phone number and put it in our phones and on the fridge in case we ever needed it.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a British citizen and also had family who are Singapore Permanent Residents (a renewable legal status).

Holy Cow? Camels on the Road!

Check local laws and customs regarding animals especially animals on the road.

I have driven along a motorway in India and seen cows ambling towards our hire car.

In Jordan and many countries you might see a donkey on the minor roads. However, I saw camels careering down the motorway towards the coach. (Always have your camera ready.)













Cows
Killing a cow in India and some other countries where the cow is considered a sacred animal could get you into trouble. Be sure to park where you can drive off easily if a crowd gathers and turns nasty. In some countries local people say for your own safety drive off (and report it to the nearest station?).  What if somebody runs up and says you killed my cow. Give me money. How do you know it is his cow? Police - are they real police? Are they corrupt police? What about the damage to your car. If you pay can you get a receipt? (I always carry a receipt book and demand the name and identity of the person taking money and get their photo which I send somewhere else in case they take my camera or I lose it. Don't risk hanging around.

Don't risk giving out personal details if you think this could endanger you. You could give the business address of a building where you work which has security and the last four numbers of your ID document and your insurance company and policy number.

For information and entertainment
http://www.visitjordan.com/
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/cow-india-aiport-runway-ahmedabad-sardar-vallabhbhai-international-gujarat-a8155406.html

עברית: הדרך מעמק הירדן להר נבו, ירדן English: Road to Mount Nebo, Jordan
Date	26 January 2012, 15:15:58
Source	Own work
Author	Deror_avi

What is the difference between a sponsor and a coach in Toastmasters International?

I asked Eli, who is the Treasurer of a Toastmasters International club in Singapore.
He told me, 'The sponsor gets the 20 members needed to start a club. A coach helps a club with fewer than 8 members to get another 5 perhaps in 6 months or a year.'

Eli has also helped clubs based in Community Club buildings. Some clubs give a room free to a Toastmasters Club. Others charge you.

Eli said, 'You have to see it from their point of view.  Are they spending money or saving money by giving you a room. First you must present yourselves as professionals, not amateurs. Then you must offer to mc their large events to save them from needing to hire a DJ.'

Glossary

m.c. master of ceremonies

Misadventures With The Wrong Language Group, Wrong Coach, Wrong Taxi

Flag of France from Wikipedia.

Problem
Have you ever lost your tour group or had trouble finding your coach or taxi in a car park during a travel trip?

Story of My Misadventure
I once joined an English speaking group on a guided tour of a stately home in France - and I stopped to take a photo. We had joined the English tour group of the stately home. I did not know the guide or the other people on the guided tour, and neither the guide nor the other guests knew me.

 I was with a group who had an English speaking guide - easy, ok?

I saw a group at the end of the gallery and ran up. From the back of the crowd I worked my way forward. When I could hear, I realised the guide was speaking German!

 Okay, so maybe we had some Germans in our group. Eventually I asked him if he could repeat his story in English. He told me, "You are with the wrong group. This is a German group."

I tried three different group before I found the English group.


If only they had carried flags!

That's one story of my French misadventure. It was not my only misadventure. Call me Miss Adventure.
Flags are very handy.

Learn A Language
On the other hand, if I had learned to speak German fluently, I could have stayed with the German speaking group. But then I would have my husband, got back to the car park at the wrong time and boarded the wrong coach.

You also need flags on coaches. Several time I have been on a tour and the guide has told us to remember our coach number plate. Trying to remember a coach number plate is much harder than recognizing a flag.

Identifying A Taxi In India
As for a taxi, I once remembered the ending of a taxi number plate in India. When I emerged from the museum, which had four exits and four car parks, I discovered that all taxis had number plates ending with the same two digits or letters.

If only I had brought with a little Union Jack and Blutac to stick it on the front windscreen. It is easy enough to take a picture or flag from a magazine or newspaper or free map and keep it in your handbag or travel bag to add to your suitcase or taxi windscreen.

Useful Websites
For a free learn online language website for French, German and English from other languages, try:
duolingo.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Reminders from Rome and Italy: Rome, Etruscans, Crime, Cutting, Pollution, Police, and Perugia in Umbria

Italy is one of the top ten countries visited by the British and holiday-makers worldwide. So the Italians have been busy promoting at the World Travel Market in London. Rome is pushing for more upmarket customers, especially visitors on conferences, to stay longer than the average two-day stay, because conference goers stay longer, five days average, and spend more.

More Police
Rome is planning to introduce special police to cut down on crime. That's important. For years I avoided Spain and Italy because of my experiences there.

Cutting Crime
Another initiative is to remove one cause of Crime, immigrants who have no jobs and turn to crime as they have no other income. The move is to get employment for immigrants instead of taking the opposite approach which is leaving them unemployed or cording them to give up work.

I have always thought that forcing people to be unemployed (in the UK) is daft. Either send them home or give them work.

Cutting Polution and Traffic James
A second initiative is to cut down coaches or buses polluting and creating traffic jams. The increased charges on buses and coaches entering the city did not please a spokesman for buses, who told me that in many parts of the UK and presumably also Italy as many as five times as many visitors arrive by bus or coach, as arrive by air.

Tourist Tax on Coaches
In response the representative of Rome told us that they were not intending to cut out bus and coach travel entirely, just to regulate it. The changes planned are not only with the tax increase from the current 9 euros on each bus entering the city going up to 25. (If I've got the figures right. If you know otherwise please tell me. I don't think the exact figures matter, just the fact that it's a big increase to deter the buses as well as making money for the city.)

Pedestrian
The other moves coming to Rome include more pedestrian-friendly areas.  How will the pedestrians get around from the coach parks? Some shuttle buses, electric or environmentally friendly, are also in the plans or pipelines.

Rome and Exciting Etruscans
Rome has Etruscan ruins. I'd never understood who the Etruscans were nor cared about them until I went to Perugia and saw the giant cliffside gateway which is the entrance to the city. Looks like tunnelling into the cliffside, but huge! The Etruscans are the natives who fought the encroaching Romans. Either the Roman were more ruthless or better organized or both. Anyway, modern Rome also has underground catacombs, like Paris, as well as Etruscan remains. More on the Etruscans in my next post.

Umbria and its Capital City Perugia
Just a reminder about Umbria and one of my favourite cities, Perugia. The links are
 @UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria

More updates on Umbria shortly. See my previous posts on Perugia.

Etruscan gateway in Perugia. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Websites and links:
 @UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria
See my other travel website:
www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury
Please share your favourite posts.

Passenger Averts Disaster: What You Should Do In Emergencies

In September 2017 the BBC news reported that a passenger in the Austrian Alps averted imminent danger, a bus headed for a cliff edge when the driver lost consciousness. The quick thinking and quick acting passenger, luckily seated nearby, was able to grab and apply the brake.
What could, or should, you do in an emergency?

I recall reading about a rail crash in America. One of the people who escaped with all their family said he had read the instructions on boarding and knew to locate the emergency escape window.

Welsh train sign I took to read and learn Welsh. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

When getting into any vehicle note where the emergency windows are. Point them out to your family or fellow passengers. You will see multiple language notices in trains. Sometimes the directions are on the other side of the vehicle, too far away to read, and you would not be able to read them if the lights went out. I take a photo of the emergency directions on my phone and note the exits.

I try to sit near an exit. I remind myself how the exit operates so I can react quickly.

If you are able-bodied and a passenger, chat to the driver and find out how to stop the vehicle in an emergency and operate the warning lights and, if necessary, escape from a window.

The canny traveler knows how to avoid dangerous situations as well as how to get out of danger.
With children you could make a spoken or written game of I-spy including, where's the emergency exit?

Here's a checklist for you?
1 Do I know how to contact emergency in this building or vehicle?
2 Do I know the escape route?

3 If it's free seating, am I sitting near the exit?
4 Do I know the best place of shelter from attackers or falling objects?

5 Are my valuables on me so I have a credit card and spectacles and keys in my pocket if I have to run or wake up in an ambulance or hospital?
6 Do I and all my family and colleagues know how to swim?

7 Does everybody where I live or work have first aid training?
8 If not, how do I organise training in first aid.

9 Do I know how to drive or operate the car or vehicle in which I am travelling?
10 Remember the American saying, Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

PS In your pocket carry a prayer of gratitude or the words of your favourite song.
Have something to say in the worst case scenario or a long wait such as:

Help is on its way.
I am glad we are together.
I am looking after you.
I love you and I care about you.

I was looking for emergency exit pictures and came across this in my photo collection.

When I was in Singapore near a swimming pool, with coconuts on the ground, and workmen up a ladder pulling down the coconuts for safety reasons, I chatted to the men, got a free coconut, and learned about coconuts. 

Back in London, far away from coconut trees, this advertisement provides some light hearted relief. to end on a bright note, every day there are dangers, but every day there are thousands of near misses and lucky escapes. Look after yourself!

Author
Angela Lansbury,
Travel writer and photographer.
Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In and 20 other books.

See my other posts on health and safety for travelers, great destinations, and learning languages.

Story on BBC New about the cliff side disaster averted in the Alps.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe- 

Safety on British Buses - What You Can Do and What They Can Do

Problems
What can a bus driver do to help passengers?

Answer
Many, if not all, public buses in London allow the driver to directly contact police for assistance.

Story
I sat next to a bus driver who was enjoying what you might call a busman's holiday. (A British born driver, with family in the Caribbean, but his ultimate holiday destination this year was Bali!)

He told me that on his bus he has continuous recording, which was able to exonerate him when a woman stepped off the pavement as his bus was drawing into a bus stop. She went flying, but luckily was not injured.

The recording device is in the bus at the insistence of the insurance company. Its purpose is to protect the insurance company agains claims made on behalf of other drivers, vehicles, buildings or streetware and pedestrians. He was traumatised by the accident and worried that it might be his fault. The recording supported the pedestrians own admission, that he had done nothing wrong.

Apparently, if there is an emergency, the driver is supposed to stay at the wheel of the vehicle. (I suppose he is in charge of moving it and ensuring it can be moved or stationery.) He has a direct line to the police with a red or blue alert. A blue alert is a full emergency, which brings the operator to answer immediately and send the police along immediately, if required, top speed, racing through traffic, with lights or sirens blaring to clear the road ahead of them.

The blue alert, I understand is if the police are required to attend, but not racing to the scene nor making this a priority over other possibly more serious events.

Well, that's nice to know. Help at hand, when needed. Bus driver with instant connection to the police.

Tips
When alone, try to stay downstairs in a bus near either the exit or in sight and hearing of the driver. Carry your identity and the number of anybody to be informed in an emergency.

Fun Facts
Stagecoach runs buses. But another 'Mega bus' company runs coaches.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,author and speaker. More posts on other blogs on bloger.com, websites, and Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube. See books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com