• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

s u b s c r i b e

• Elliott's E-Mail, a free weekly newsletter, is your insider resource for moneysaving ideas.

First name

Last name

E-mail address

Subscribe
Cancel

• Like what you see? Now you can become an underwriter.

a l s o

• Ticked e-mail
• Visit Tripso
• Referring sites
• Home

s e a r c h

• Find a story.



(c) Elliott Publishing.

Here and Therr
Err Travel · March 20, 2001

I collect travel tidbits from here and there. Similarly, I accumulate readers' questions about one aspect of travel or another. When enough items of similar content come together, voila! Another column is born.

More often, however, these snippets get written on scraps of paper, stuffed in a folder, and left to die from old age. There never seems to be enough of a story for a 500-word column. For this column, however, I've decided to spare these tiny travel items from the information cemetery. Though the thematic thread tying these remnants together is thin, I think that they are all worthy of distribution. And they do fit within the mission of Err Travel. To wit: "An opinionated review of this and that from here and there about one thing or another-all more or less related to travel security... usually."

First the tidbits.

Shoot Off Your Mouth

When I encourage travelers to carry cell phones for added security, what I don't have in mind is the kind of phone that was reported in a story in February's mbusiness magazine. Apparently guns, disguised as cell phones, have been showing up in Europe.

What's in a Name?

A story by Andrew England, in the Associated Press covered the decision of the attorney general of Kenya not to prosecute Paul Kefa Mukonyi, the whacko who nearly brought down a British Airways 747 over Sudan this past December. In explaining his decision, the attorney general said that Mukonyi was suffering from a mental illness. (No kidding.) Oh, the attorney general's name is Wako.

Treated Like Animals

Do the airlines treat us like animals? We should be so lucky. According to Nick Walsh, writing in the Observer late last year, dogs are required to travel in the equivalent of double-wide seats, and horses are not supposed to spend more than a half-hour on board either prior to take-off or after landing.

One Horsepower Taxis

Be careful when hailing a cab in Kosovo. As this picture in the Far Eastern Economic Review shows, there is a definite difference between "Hey! Taxi!" and "Hay taxi." And now to a couple of questions that I can't (or don't) want to find answers to, but I can't seen to discard either. Maybe you can help.

Following a column on rental cars, Steve Wolf wanted to know, "Why do elevators in parking garages have the buttons marked in Braille?" (I'd like to know too.)

Stirred by a couple of columns about bidets, Anthony Snider wrote to ask, "I understand the process of using the water from the sprayer in the device, but is it customary to rely on the water flow alone, or do people use soap?" (I really don't want to know.)

Keep those cards and letters coming.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at terry@ticked.com.