Killing Batteries

Hi, my name is Paul Kilduff and I have written the book that has been Ireland’s best selling non-fiction work for the past two months - Ruinair.  It’s a humorous travelogue around Europe.

Why does Ryanair ’suck’ as an airline? I will allow their Chief Executive Michael O’Leary to reply …
 
‘If a plane is cancelled will we put you up in an hotel overnight? Absolutely not. If a plane is delayed, will we give you a voucher for a restaurant? Absolutely not.’‘

‘Are we going to apologise when something goes wrong? No, we’re fucking not. Please understand. It does not matter how many times you write to us complaining that we wouldn’t put you up in a hotel because there was fog in Stansted. You didn’t pay us for it.’

‘We don’t care if you don’t show up‘.

‘You’re not getting a refund so fuck off.’

‘I think we certainly have democratised flight, in that there’s no curtains anymore, there’s no business class anymore, you’re not made to feel, you know, two inches tall, like, ‘Here you go, down with the poor people at the back.’ Everybody is the same on Ryanair.’

‘We don’t fall over ourselves if you say ‘My granny fell ill’. What part of ‘No Refund’ don’t you understand?’

‘Onboard our flights we don’t allow anybody to sleep because we are too busy selling them products.’

‘At the moment the ice is free, but if we could find a way of targeting a price on it we would.’

‘We recognise your right to object. But good luck, somebody else will have your seat.’

‘You want luxury? Go somewhere else.’

’No, we shouldn’t give you a bloody cup of coffee. We only charge 19 euros for the ticket.’

‘Our customer service is the lowest prices guaranteed, on brand-new aircraft, flying safely, on time, with the least risk of a cancellation or a lost bag. Did you get that service? Yes, you did? Fine. Shut up and go away.’

Having learned a few things on my travels, here are my tips for pithy travel writing:
 
Don’t write about the same old things to see and do in your destination. Instead find one theme or common thread. If I was writing about my home town of Dublin I would not go to Trinity College nor the Guinness Storehouse. Being me, I would only go see all the U2 sights in the city including a trip to Bono’s nice home in Killiney.
 
Don’t try to make everything funny. Very often in vaguely humorous travel writing, less is more. Don’t end every sentence with a bon mot nor every paragraph with a punchline. Try to leave the reader wanting more.
 
Pray that something goes wrong. If everything goes to plan then it’s not very interesting for a reader so hope for a missed flight, a wrong train connection, a lost wallet.
John Cleese once said that Fawlty Towers was only funny because everything went wrong all the time i.e. guests dying, kitchen fires and no Waldorf salads.
 
Use the tourist office. When I arrive in a city I make first for the official tourist office and I grab all the free literature I can. And I book an official city walking tour.
 
Omit the boring stuff. No one wants to read about meals in restaurants, drinks in bars, rooms in hotels. People want to read about something new and different.
 
Don’t write about the weather. First of all it’s not very exciting and secondly it will jar at a later date. If you write about freezing winds in the Artic, chances are your reader will be on a beach on the Costa del Sol, or when you write about searing temperatures in Monaco, your reader will have received the book as a Christmas present.
 
Don’t research destinations on the web before you go.  This is not travel writing. It’s called cut and paste plagiarism and it does not lend itself to originality. Read one good guide book for a basic orientation. Check your facts out later on reputable web sites but only after you have been on your trip and written a first good draft.
 
Don’t rush your writing. I make rough notes on loose A4 pages in pen when I travel (usually on the reverse side of my Ryanair flight itinerary which I dare not lose). I don’t bring nor do I even own a dreaded laptop. When I return home I wait a week before I write anything on my home PC. If something in my notes no longer seems valid or relevant or funny then I don’t use it. I keep only what I like seven days on. Maybe that’s why some folks say that Ruinair works.

Good luck.

Paul Kilduff

www.paulkilduff.com

I’d be happy to hear from anyone out there with questions for me about the book, my writing or what’s next, so feel free!

My 12-odd regular readers may have taken note that I never have guest bloggers here at KB. If you’ve assumed that this is because I’m not very good at sharing, you hit it right on the button. I drink wine alone with the lights out and the shades drawn for the exact same reason. Effing freeloaders, try to get my wine… I’ll fix your wagons.

I mean, let’s say I let someone post here… What are the chances they’re gonna write at great length about the exquisite contours of my bootie or further my epic struggle to get a reality TV show (about my bootie)? Slim, obviously, despite the limitless range of the subject matter.

However, I have decided to make an exception tomorrow for two reasons.

1. I’m probably fall-down exhausted (I’m actually writing this post two weeks ago and post-dating the live-date, so I can’t say for sure what my condition will be, but from prior LP Romania road research experience, it’s a safe bet I’ll be a basket case by this stage)
2. The guest blogger, Paul Kilduff, will be discussing one of my favorite topics on Earth: why “discount airline” Ryanair sucks so goddamn much ass

Paul’s doing a virtual book tour, supporting his latest effort Ruinair. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m holding a crisp new copy of it right now and I intend to devour it during my flights tomorrow, laughing, squirming and commiserating with Paul’s wretched self-inflicted quest to fly Ryanair to 15 different countries for the sake of, well, apparently baffling self-flagellation.

Here’s a snippet from the promo material:

“Stung by a ten hour delay and a E300 fare to Spain on his native “low-fares” airline, Dubliner Paul Kilduff plots revenge – to fly to every country in Europe for the same total outlay, suffering every low-fares airline indignity. Armed with no more than 10kg of carry-on baggage, he endures 6.00am departures, Six Nations-style boarding scrums, lengthy bus excursions, terminal anxiety and cabin crew who deliver famed customer service.”

It’s funny cause it’s true.

And a passing note to Paul’s P.R. people: you guys wanna sell a squillion of these books? Set up a book stand in the ‘arrivals’ hall of every airport RyanAir flies to. You’ll sell one book for every passenger, guaranteed.

Welcome Paul!

It’s been a while since I compiled a lengthy list of my opinions and pet peeves and given them an authoritative title so as to pass them off as travel gospel that panicky newspaper researchers can quote in last second filler stories. (Goddamn I love the internet!)

Plus, I just flew from Minneapolis to San Francisco and I’m always on edge for days after I fly through US airports, so I’d like to do a little healthy venting here instead of demolishing a pay phone with my bare hands. After all, changing the world for the better isn’t going to happen by itself, so here’s my contribution:

• Just because you have eight hours before your flight leaves, doesn’t mean that I have eight hours before my flight leaves so get the f*ck out of my way. And I’m truly sorry if age/disability has resulted in you not being able to walk very fast, but I’m not sorry enough about it to miss my plane, so please move to the right.

• The ’stand’ and ‘walk’ lanes painted onto the moving walkways weren’t put there for yucks. For those of you who never caught on to that reading fad, you’re supposed to stand in the ’stand’ lane and don’t stand in the ‘walk’ lane. I’m all for breaking the rules sometimes - except for this one.

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[Also posted over at "This Is Why I Love Minneapolis (And Sometimes Saint Paul)", due to cross-over appeal.]

The story of how immigration agents at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport harassed, threatened and defaced the passports of some noteworthy Finnish visitors in September for absolutely no reason is still harshing my mellow.

Here’s the local paper’s account and the coverage over at The Perrin Post Travel Blog.

I’m mortified on behalf of both my city and country. The conduct of these f*ckwits smacks of the amateurish, rent-a-cop antics you’d expect from nightclub bouncers in West Los Angeles. No manners, no reasonable communication, just straight to apeshit hysterics and unnecessary cruelty. I don’t care if Pablo Escobar staggers off the plane with a 30 gallon trash bag of cocaine, a loaded bazooka and a lead for an illegal job vacuuming offices in downtown St. Paul, there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior.

And, as with most gross misconduct complaints like this, you know for every one famous visiting musician that gets a little press over their incident, there’s 20 hapless dupes arriving from Uruguay or Thailand who get detained and bullied for five hours and then tossed out onto the street without so much as cursory explanation or, Buddha forbid, an apology.
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