I’ve completed the main bulk of posts from my trip to Gothenburg last week, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have more stuff to endlessly witter on about. And this is a prototype electric car from Volvo that they produced in 1976 which I thought was quite exciting. Well, relatively exciting, I don’t drive and so there’s a limit to my enthusiasm here.
Inside the car. Volvo produced this car at a time of concern about energy and emissions, although it was too clunky to enter mainstream production. They created two prototypes, one was a four-seat commuter version and the other was a two-seat utility version intended for short-distance work such as deliveries.
The car was a little limited in many ways, it took ten hours to charge the heavy batteries and then it would only go around fifty kilometres. Some of the money invested into the project was from the Swedish telecommunications company, Televerket, who hoped that they could use the vehicles to deliver city mail without generating emissions. Very forward thinking, although this is less “freedom of the open road” and more “a carefully planned errand”, but there we go, technology has to start somewhere.
A lot of great things important for the future happened in 1976.
The gallery gives this artwork the title of “Head of a Man against a Landscape” which is all that they have since this has been cut so tightly that it has lost much of its original meaning. It was once likely part of an altarpiece, but now they don’t know who the image is of, nor who painted it.
The painting entered the gallery’s collections in 1952 as part of the Sir Robert Witt bequest. There’s something perhaps sub-optimal about such a small piece of the original artwork and in such a large frame, but at least some has remained.
Given this lack of clarity, and my slight obsession with AI, I asked ChatGPT and Google Gemini to have a go at this. Along with the gallery’s best guess, this is the result of the artist, date of painting and who is in the image.
GALLERY : No artist known, but likely Dutch influence. Painted between 1495 and 1500. No knowledge of who is in the image.
CHATGPT : Maybe school of Hans Memling, but likely Dutch influence. painted between 1480 and 1500. Possibly Saint John the Evangeliest.
GEMINI : No artist known, but likely Dutch influence. Painted between 1510 and 1540. No knowledge of who is in the image.
I also asked Microsoft Copilot but the answer was complete nonsense, it announced that this was a nineteenth century copy of an earlier piece and was painted by an Italian artist.
I’m interested if I retry this experiment in a couple of years whether the results will be better, although ChatGPT seems to be nearly there.
I’ve been meaning to go to the Courtauld Gallery in London for some time and with my Art Pass I was able to get free entry. And this artwork in the first room was very appropriate, as it’s Saint Julian. The gallery notes:
“The rich garments and fine sword refer to the traditional belief that Julian was a nobleman before devoting himself to the sick and needy.”
That sounds very much like me. Well, other than the rich garments, fine sword and nobleman bit. The artwork is part of an altarpiece from the Church of San Torpé in the Italian city of Pisa. Originally, Julian was looking towards the central panel of the altarpiece which contained the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. The church is still there, but the rest of the altarpiece is likely long gone.
The artwork, originally painted in around 1320 was donated to the gallery as part of the Gambier-Parry Bequest in 1966. The provenance isn’t known, but it’s thought that it was originally purchased by Thomas Gambier-Parry (1816-1888) after 1863. There’s an interesting book on this whole Gambier-Parry collection with the introduction of that written by Sir Anthony Blunt who later became better known for other things…
Anyway, this was a very positive first impression of the gallery for me.
For the first time in a couple of years, I flew British Airways (BA) on my trip with Richard to Gothenburg. I had some Avios to use up, which meant that the flight cost £40 return and it gave me a chance to use Richard’s guesting rights to experience the lounges at Heathrow T3 once again. As a disclosure, I used to do work for BA and so I still feel quite an affinity to them.
And then there’s Wizz Air, who I’ve flown with extensively over the last year because of their All You Can Fly pass which I very much like. They’re a budget airline who have a dreadful reputation, although, as a disclosure, I’ve flown them a lot and have now got something of an affinity to them as well.
So, as I don’t get out much, I thought I’d compare the two using a series of artificial headings that I’ve created. I’m not including lounge experiences and I can’t take into consideration IRROPs (when things go wrong) which BA might be better at dealing with.
All are out of five and I’m making this up as I go along, so at this point, I don’t know who will win this riveting competition. And so….
BOARDING CARD ACQUISITION
WIZZ AIR : Acquiring the boarding card on the Wizz Air app is an easy process, although it’s limited to just 24 hours before the flight (unless you pay extra, which I obviously don’t). There are quite a few screens to go through, but the process is easy and the boarding card stays saved in the app for months. Seating is random, although only on around 20% of occasions am I put in a middle seat. 4/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : This was a slightly disappointing experience, the app didn’t work (I got it working, sort of, for the return although it was very slow) and so I was forced to check-in on a laptop. This was the case for the outbound and inbound flights, wasting a fair chunk of time getting it resolved. There was the advantage of being freely able to select seats in the 24 hours before the flight, which was a benefit so it wasn’t entirely random. BA’s IT is, by their own admission in the past, sub-optimal and I’ve found them erratic before, but they have the advantage that you can print the boarding pass out at the airport for free which Wizz Air don’t offer. 3/5
PRE-BOARDING
WIZZ AIR : Wizz Air are impeccable about this and I note this on just about every flight, it’s clear where to stand and they work through the priority and non-priority queues quickly and effectively. It’s customer focused, it’s efficient and it’s quick. 5/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : This felt just slightly muddled, there was no defined queueing area which led to customers milling about in the way of others. There was no obvious time that the boarding desk would open, so customers couldn’t relax or at least wait in the appropriate queue. The process didn’t feel customer focused. One bonus to BA, I did like that I wasn’t concerned about whether my bag fit the bag sizers, which is always a slight concern when flying with Wizz Air. 3/5
BOARDING
WIZZ AIR : Impeccable, on my last 60 or so sectors there have been no delays or issues with boarding. 5/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : Particularly on the outbound flight, the crew were stressed (I know this as I was on the last row and the crew were talking to each other about the potential need to get bags moved to the hold), some passengers were stressed and it was just a little chaotic. Passengers were faced with searching up and down the cabin for space for their bags. The passenger in the middle seat next to me was one of those, so I ended up standing in the aisle for a few minutes whilst she found space. I don’t mind that, but she was unnecessarily stressed and could only find space some considerable distance away. I like my bag under the seat in front of me, which is what both BA and Wizz Air require me to do (if I had a big bag with BA I could put it above for free, which doesn’t feel entirely fair for those with small bags). 2/5
SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENTS
WIZZ AIR : The safety announcements are often ignored, but I always watch them out of politeness. All very professional. 5/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : I have no issues with the safety processes of BA, but I was disappointed that the flight safety demonstration was so far away from me down the cabin that I could hardly see it. As an aside, BA crew should probably check that lockers are shut (although they were trying to manage bag reshuffling for a long period of time) as an overhead locker went flying open during the take-off. 4/5
CREW
WIZZ AIR : The crews are always helpful, personable and polite. 5/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : And no difference with British Airways. 5/5
FOOD ON BOARD
WIZZ AIR : There is nothing free, but I like their noodle pot things which are reasonably priced. 2/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : I’m going to be overly fair here to BA as the food and drink prices were overly expensive, but economy passengers do get a free biscuit and bottle of water. This allows for more crew engagement, which I think is very positive. 4/5
FLIGHT COMFORT
WIZZ AIR : I find Wizz Air flights as comfortable as I’m going to get on a budget airline. The seat pitch is fine for me, although only for flights of under four hours I’ve discovered. 4/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : BA declares their seat pitch to be nearly the same as Wizz Air, although I struggled more with leg room for reasons I don’t understand. I’m giving them the same score as the seat pitch is similar and I was comfortable enough. 4/5
FLIGHT CLEANLINESS
WIZZ AIR : Given their very fast turnaround time, the cabin is generally always very clean. I’ve never had a dirty tray table, although there’s sometimes a little litter in hard to reach places on the floor. 4/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : This was disappointing, my tray table was dirty on the return flight so it hadn’t been cleaned at all. There’s no excuse not to do at least some basic cleaning for passenger comfort. 2/5
PILOTS
WIZZ AIR : The pilots have always been impeccable. 5/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : Again, professional pilots. 5/5
ENTERTAINMENT
WIZZ AIR : There is a magazine in the seat pocket which has a map of their destinations I like to look at, as well as some articles to read and also their list of on-board purchases. I have enough things to read on my phone, but I like paper magazines for some variety. That’s the limit of the entertainment though. 2/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : There is no provision for printed material. 1/5
INTERNET
WIZZ AIR : There is no on-line provision, even a paid for one. 1/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : This was a strong advantage for British Airways, their free wifi for all passengers is limited to WhatsApp and email, but it worked well and was very useful. I was impressed at how well this worked. Very pleased. 5/5
DISEMBARKING
WIZZ AIR : There are too many bus transfers, although this isn’t something limited to Wizz Air by any means. Disembarking from front and back is efficient and passenger focused. 4/5
BRITISH AIRWAYS : On the outbound flight I was first off, but on the inbound the disembarking took too long. Jet bridge only disembarkation when passengers are trying to scuttle around the cabin heading in the opposite direction to find their bags is just a little frustrating. I do have a comment relating to accessibility below though. 3/5
TOTALS
This gives Wizz Air a total score of 46 and British Airways a score of 41. This feels just a little unfairly skewered to Wizz Air and not entirely fair to British Airways, although the more I reflect on it, the more I realise just how poor some elements of these British Airways flights were. I did find the wifi to be useful, so that probably deserves a bigger uplift here, so the results should perhaps be a little narrower.
One important element I haven’t considered in the above headings is accessibility. As BA often uses jet bridges, this makes it much easier for those with accessibility requirements. It’s right to give credit to BA for that.
PRICING
I now need to make an adjustment based on the average price charged for a flight. I had expected when I planned this post a few weeks ago that BA would be better, so I was going to mention the more expensive prices.
Anyway, I’m going to use the headline fare for the flights we took to Gothenburg as these were the cheapest flights we could find for BA when we book, so that makes them £50 for a single.
It’s unfair to note that my Wizz Air flights are £9 each as I pay extra for the all you can fly pass, so taking that into account, all of my single fares are around £20. This means that BA are usually significantly more expensive.
CONCLUSION
This is easier than I expected. I would still fly British Airways, but only if their flights were cheaper than Wizz Air.
RESULT
Wizz Air have got their processes to be efficient and they are in line with what I need from an airline, so my results are inevitably biased in that way. I like a budget airline for cheap prices and Wizz Air is very good at that, it’s all that they do. BA has to have a broader appeal across a much larger operation and they also fly from airports with higher costs, although for my own travel, I’m happy with London Luton airport.
For those with bags, more complex needs, a requirement to fly from larger hubs or those with status, there is much to be said for BA. For those who want budget travel without stress, I certainly think Wizz Air is worth considering here. I’d add that I think both BA and Wizz Air are better than Ryanair for anyone interested in that perspective, I don’t tend to fly with Ryanair.
But, taking everything into account, for short haul flights, it’s Wizz Air who I prefer over British Airways, which I’m not sure I expected to write when I started this.
After dropping the car off at the hire place, which isn’t something that I usually need to worry about on my trips, it was time to get a British Airways flight back to the UK. Richard went through premium security, but I was content muddling through in the poor lane.
That’s helpful of me, I thought I had taken a photo of the flight screen so that I could mention the time, but I appear to have failed to realise that it had gone to the second page with the flights for the day after. Anyway, it was the BA793 flight at 20:00. Once again I had problems with the BA app, so, to be safe, I printed a boarding pass out at the airport.
Richard had priority boarding and he was anxiously waiting to be called forward with the VIPs, as he had spent a small fortune upgrading to business class. I hadn’t upgraded and I was happy to sit and wait until boarding was nearly complete. I was on an aisle seat near the back of the aircraft, so this wasn’t a problem. Boarding announcements were relatively poor, Richard was standing for 26 minutes and they had said they were about to commence boarding quite early on during that process.
I was pleased to be able to board by the stairs as I like that to see the aircraft registration number, although it was partly hidden here. It was though G-EUYW, an Airbus A320 that BA has had since new in 2014. The boarding was more efficient than the chaotic outbound flight, but there were fewer passengers here for the crew to deal with and there were some issues with a lack of staff for bag storage.
In terms of what I paid, which was £20 each way after Avios discount, I was entirely content. But, the tray table was dirty and so they had clearly made only basic efforts to clean the aircraft between flights. I mention this as Wizz Air, in the last 80 or so flights I’ve taken with them, have never offered me a tray table that wasn’t clean.
On another note, the cabin crew were standing so far forwards during the safety demonstration that it was pointless for us at the back (they were at rows 1, 4 and 14, whilst I was on row 28 and there were rows behind me. Most passengers seem to disregard the safety announcement anyway, but I didn’t have much choice here if I had been interested in following intently. They were doing a safety announcement from row 4 as that’s where the economy section of the cabin started, but it felt slightly sub-optimal. I would add at this stage that I have complete confidence in BA’s broader safety processes and always have had.
Disembarking was more time consuming than ideal as it was from the front only, although that more inconvenienced Richard as he was on row 1 and had to wait for me. This is really a side issue as to just how complex baggage storage is on the flight, there are passengers trying to walk backwards to the only space they could place their bags, it’s just a mess. I accept BA’s service style and the layout of the airport isn’t to have stairs at the rear at Heathrow, but it would have been quicker.
On the positive side, the crew were helpful and engaging, with the benefit of free wifi being particularly useful so I could read messages on WhatsApp. I’m going to do a separate post about the comparison between Wizz Air and British Airways, I’m not at this stage sure who will win on my riveting comparison post, but it’s going to be very close. The provision of wifi might just be enough for BA…..
When I did work for British Airways they said that their problem was that the only thing they were consistent at was inconsistency. I suspect little has changed and I certainly see no reason to fly with them again in the near future.
Now back at the airport, we had time to pop to the Lounge by Menzies Aviation, which isn’t to my mind the most exciting of names for the lounge.
It was spacious and clean inside, although it was busier than this when we entered. There were a range of high and low seating areas, although a few more power points would have perhaps been useful.
This was the bulk of the food options, although there was also a blue cheese pasta arrangement which didn’t really tempt me. The chicken pieces and chicken in sauce options here all combined to be something of a chicken focused arrangement.
This was all entirely acceptable, the falafel was decent, alongside the beer, water, crisps and coffee. There was also power and wifi, so I had everything I needed to get by until the flight departed.
The beer was the Norrlands Guld was on self-pour, but it didn’t exactly surprise and delight me in terms of the taste. This obsession with lager, there are tens of different beer styles and they serve the blandest one that they can find…. The beer is rated 2.89 on Untappd which I feel just about sums it up.
Anyway, there’s more to life than beer, so I was very brave and had a second one rather than dwell on it. I also had some Baileys and told Richard as he likes to make a coffee with that and I wasn’t to know that I had finished what was left in the bottle.
The staff here were friendly and everything felt clean and organised. I gained access as Richard’s guest with his BA status, but I could have got in with my Priority Pass card as well. There are no toilets inside the lounge, but I thought that the overall set-up was reasonable. The online reviews are rather less surprised and delighted though.
“Who on earth thought it was a good idea to have hot dogs floating around in a pot with hot sausage broth on the buffet? Honestly disgusting. The whole room stank of sausage, and the smell got into both hair and clothes. It was incredibly unpleasant to have to sit in that stench and it ruined a whole change of clothes that smelled disgustingly of sausage and will stink of sausage the whole trip.”
Each to their own, but this feels a little bit excessive as a sausage hot pot is not exactly tobacco smoke. Although I understand the logic of the annoyance here, the blue cheese pasta was probably not the best choice for a similar reason. They also only have one hot food option, which does limit the number of people that they can cater for.
“This lounge is quite horrible. Technically this is not even a lounge, as a lounge should have comfortable seats to “lounge” in, hence the name.”
The word “lounge” IMO historically means the behaviour of idling, or a place to idle in…. It was very possible to idle in here in my view.
“The first time I’ve been to a lounge where my card only lasts for 3 hours, but okay, this is a matter of agreement between the lounge and the card issuer.”
Other than airline operated lounges, I struggle to think of a lounge which doesn’t have a three hour or similar limit. I wish they didn’t though, I might get to the airport even earlier, especially if there are unlimited crisps.
Anyway, I’m digressing once again. I would note that everything met my expectations, although the food offering could have been a little wider, I had everything that I needed. So, all really rather lovely.
After a busy morning looking at Volvo vehicles, we started on our slow journey to the airport for the flight back. We went through the town of Kungsbacka and in the centre is the Tree of Life sculpture, a copper work that manages to look both ancient and slightly theatrical at the same time. It was designed by Lars Stocks and was placed here in 1981 and he was inspired by Yggdrasil, which is a sacred tree in Norse traditions.
Rising from a very shallow pool edged with stones, it takes the form of a weathered tree trunk with broken, outstretched branches, while a series of birds perch along the upper limbs as if they have quietly claimed it for themselves. It’s quirky, interesting and I really quite liked it.
Richard refused to have a go on the swing in case he fell off, although that was partly what I thought would make good content. He is quite frail though and it’s best he doesn’t break any bones, but I didn’t say that as I have a gentle nature.
This is the Volvo Experimental Safety Car, developed in 1972 to show off some key new safety elements that the company wanted to introduce.
The front of the car and there’s a safety measure visible there, with the extra long bumper which was designed to allow for someone to survive a collision at 80 kmph.
Inside the car which was fitted with an air bag.
And here’s an early rear screen camera set-up with the less than subtle screen placed on the front dashboard.
And there’s the rear camera.
Volvo produced three concept cars in this safety series and, although I don’t know much about car companies, even I’m aware that they have a formidable reputation for manufacturing safe vehicles.
This Volvo PV56 was a passenger car produced by the company between 1938 and 1945, introduced as an updated and more refined successor to the earlier PV51 and PV52 models. It retained the same basic mechanical layout, but the body was modernised with a smoother, more rounded design influenced by contemporary American styling.
This particular vehicle was modified to become a police vehicle, although the first Volvo car to be used by the police was as early as 1929 with the PV651. There wasn’t a great deal of modification required here, they stuck two red lights on, attached a little police sign (well, “Polis” as they wanted it in Swedish) and that was that, there was no painting of the car required. They did though put a radio in the car, this was revolutionary policing technology for the time.
The Volvo B513 was a bus chassis introduced by Volvo in the mid-1940s, part of the company’s early post-war range of commercial vehicles designed for public transport and regional services. First appearing around 1946, the B513 was typically used for single-deck buses built by independent body manufacturers, which meant the final vehicles could look quite different depending on the coach-builder and their particular favourite arrangements. These buses were widely used in Sweden and Scandinavia for local routes, school transport and rural services, and some versions could seat around 35 to 40 passengers.
This particular bus had a little accident in the late 1950s, but it was fully restored before being left unloved in the Swedish Railway’s garage in Dalsjöfors, near to Borås. It was forgotten about until it was restored some considerable time later and returned to pristine condition.
My own view on these things is that I would have rather they wheeled in the bus which had been left unloved and with bits falling off it. Personally, I like authenticity and to see the bus as it last was, with all of its faults and missing bits. I rather feel that I’m looking at a modern copy with these things, although I’m sure huge amounts of work got it to look as it currently does.
