Andrew Ferrier

I’ve had my TripIt Personal Calendar Feed specified as an iCal feed into Dopplr for some time, to keep the two in sync by adding every trip in TripIt into Dopplr automatically (I’d give up on Dopplr entirely, as it seems a bit overdesigned and buggy – but it is a bit shinier than TripIt and produces nicer stats, so I’m hanging on to using it against my better judgement). But unfortunately the folks at TripIt broke this integration recently by adding exact geographic locations to the feed. This caused Dopplr to be over-zealous and make the destinations too specific (regions of Madrid and Paris, for example – rather than the whole city).

So I wrote a Yahoo Pipe that fixes up the stream – by removing the exact geographic locations and any items that describe activities and not the trip. Feel free to use it if it’s helpful – the single parameter for the pipe is the URL of your TripIt Personal Calendar Feed, and you’ll want to grab the URL of the pipe as an iCal feed to specify in your Dopplr account.

Decent Hamburger restaurant in Kensington. Well worth a try. Another similar option is Tootsie’s, nearby.

I grumbled to the nice folks at TripIt because I wasn’t eligible for their referral competition, so they sent me a T-shirt instead. So I think it’s only fair that I put in a good word for them:

1. Try it. If you travel a lot it’s invaluable.
2. It’s free.
3. It’s better than Dopplr.
4. Er… that’s it.

I’m kinda undecided on the BAA break-up. The FT thinks it should definitely go ahead. But as a fairly strict libertarian, and therefore keen on economic freedom, I’ve always had a problem with monopoly break-up except in the most extreme of cases (and I’m not sure this qualifies).

Nevertheless, as my job now takes me onto an aeroplane more than I before, I’m curious and so I read the summary from the Competition Commission’s provisional report. I’m not sure I’m any the wiser, but there were some interesting facts and statistics embedded within:

• Gatwick’s proportion of business travellers is a mere 18%, far lower than I would imagine (I know it’s not strong on the transfer front, but normally appears to have many terminating flights to useful places, from what I’ve seen). By comparison, Heathrow’s is 40%.
• From the set of BAA-owned airports, only Heathrow and Aberdeen have above 20% of transferring passengers, with 34% and 21% respectively. Heathrow’s reputation as a hub is clearly deserved.
• BAA’s airports account for 60% of UK air passengers, but 90% in south-east England, and 84% in Scotland. Maybe there could be a local monopoly at work here, at least?

It’s interesting that the Competition Commission makes lots of slights about poor service, lack of responsiveness to the market, high prices, and so on. This seems a bit unfair. I’ve often wondered how one can gauge the degree of monopoly exploitation fairly, partly there’s rarely an accurate enough free-market alternative implementation to compare it to. The theory does dictate that a monopoly might happen, given some of the stats above, but saying that there is one is a much bigger stretch. This does make me think that perhaps a bit more laissez-faire might go a long way in keeping things market fair – although, as I think they hint at, a bit less regulation would help even things out too.

I’m beginning to enjoy transport in London almost as much as Richard. Got to Waterloo this morning to find that once again, the Jubilee line entrance was closed – this happened last Monday too. Not being a fan of taking replacement buses and braving the crowds with two large bags half-way across London, I copped out and got a taxi.

But what’s going on here? And why are TfL incapable of communicating with me when it does?

I generally consider myself to be a pretty liberal guy (in the old-fashioned sense). However, 24-hour doughnuts are testing my patience. Lots of London Tesco Express stores now seem to stock delicious Krispy Kremes, and to compound the evil, they do it at all times of day and night, just outside the hotels I tend to stay in. I think they are following me.

They should clearly be banned.

Being as I travel so much these days, I tend to eat out far more often than is good for me (quite literally). London, where I’m currently holed up for a few months, is generally an excellent location for a good selection of good places to eat, although it’s still challenging to find a good (and quick) meal every night. However, my hotel for this week and last (the above average Hilton Kensington) doesn’t exactly seem to be replete with places to dine.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I ventured a bit further up to Notting Hill this evening and found the Black and Blue. A basic but incredibly juicy steak definitely made my evening. Much better than yet another so-so Indian meal (the Bombay Bicycle Club is definitely over-rated). It’s re-affirmed my faith in moderately-budgeted expense accounts.

Fascinating. The sexy-but-basic Dopplr has obviously decided to take a wander into less-sexy-but-more-capable TripIt‘s territory and start doing parsing of forwarded confirmation emails from airlines, etc. It will be interesting to see how well they execute on it (I haven’t had an excuse to use the feature yet). I’ve been a fairly avid user of TripIt and so far have been a bit disappointed by Dopplr’s lack of functionality and innovation beyond its core idea. But should Dopplr truly become a tool for organising itineraries, it’ll be interesting to see which wins out. Dopplr’s certainly ahead on the publicity front.

Excellent little Italian place I found near Embankment and the Strand.

Plus, why is the price of hotel wifi in inverse proportion to its quality? Discuss. The Marriott I stayed in last week had unusable wifi (although the hotel was otherwise pretty good), whereas the Park Plaza this week (a.k.a cheap Radisson) has excellent free wifi (for IBMers). It’s got to be a strong factor for business travellers, yet most hotels clearly treat it as an afterthought.

… is as dismal as promised. JFK has definitely become my preferred transit airport (although O’Hare still has that delicious buttercrust pizza unavailable elsewhere in the world). The AA terminal here is pretty small (I think because there’s another terminal for its poor sibling, American Eagle), and since I’m stuck here for 4 hours, I’ve bought Admirals’ Club access.