UK Ferry Tickets

Malcolm Glazer, that American who has bought Manchester United, is an odd looking fellow. But worse still, if you believe the papers (as a journalist, I’d caution you against that), he’s going to be terrible for the club. He will, apparently, rack up huge debts, put up ticket prices and sell off star names like Ryan Giggs and Ronaldo.

Before long, according to some commentators, Man Utd will struggle to hold their own in the Premiership and be a shadow of their former self.

Now, if only half that’s right, am I the only person who thinks Malcolm sounds like a top bloke?!

Apologies to any genuine United fans and all the legions of glory hunters who live in Surrey, but I couldn’t resist that little joke. As a Wolves fan, we’ve never got over the fact that Duncan Edwards was from Dudley, George Best was a Wolves supporter and both of them should have worn gold and black (strange but true).

Anyway, Malcolm reminded me of Man Utd’s sponsors, Vodafone. No doubt they will try to put up their prices even further once big Malc squeezes them but, for the time being, they are fighting back in the battle over mobile phone rates abroad. You will remember (if you read the last newsletter), that charges for making and even receiving calls abroad are a complete rip-off.

Rival companies are offering people the chance to buy new SIM cards for their phones while abroad and just pay a local rate for calls. This has got Vodafone flustered and, to try to ensure it doesn’t lose business, the company has come up with a new scheme when people use their phone in Australia, New Zealand and various European countries (although not the US and Far East).

Anyway, it’s good news these big companies are at last starting to get their act together and look out for initiatives from rivals T-Mobile, O2 and Orange.

Meanwhile, thanks, as always, for all your emails. Les Selzer and June Izbicki use local SIM cards abroad and get on very well with them. June points out they are particularly useful if you are away for a long time.

June adds: “The other solution (for email) is to use your local SIM and local GPRS code to connect to your laptop/palmtop via Bluetooth. This is as cheap as a local call so long as you don’t want to surf for hours (TIP: go and surf the sea, not the WEB!).” Hey, June, it’s my job to tell the jokes!

Sue says she would like properties on travel web sites to display symbols that say whether they are dog-friendly. Sue, this is a good point and I’m sure it’ll be taken up by some of the better operators in time.

Guest Article by

Jeremy Skidmore

Monday, May 30th, 2005