Some people were wondering where the cute picture for the ribbon spectrum for the Standard Model came from. I drew that picture, most probably, some time in 2007 (see the link). But of course, as category theorists, we were thinking about it ever since the Bilson-Thompson preprint came out in 2005.
9am, CDG airport, Paris.
Still sitting in Terminal 2E with no lawyer, no help, no money and no airline ticket.
Have not eaten for 5 days, and health was poor from the start.
You can always tell when Big Brother thinks he has won: the meagre blog hits plummet, as people return to the delusion that I am paranoid. Let’s be clear. I am currently being forced to starve to death in a foreign country. I know, I know. Many of you blame these circumstances on me, for the alleged paranoia, or the big mouth. But do these traits really deserve the death penalty? Are you all really that loyal to Big Brother? Do you really think he serves your interests?
Hypothermia is a life threatening condition. Since I spent six hours yesterday explaining to you that I have no money, plus additional discussions at the boarding gate for the Guangzhou flight, you might have considered the difficulty I would have coping overnight without my blanket, which is of course in the suitcase that you mistakenly checked in late last night. And I did explain to the woman in the baggage office that I needed to stay warm overnight. She was, however, like many of your staff in Paris, quite focused on blaming me for missing my Prague-Paris flight (which by this point is an irrelevant detail, since there is no ticket to argue over any more).
I have made what I consider to be a very sensible decision, never to travel with AirFrance, if I can help it. Anyone who wants to buy me a ticket to the US is free to do so on any other airline. I have been an airline traveller for many decades, and never before seen anything like your rudeness and criminal negligence.
Scrap that plan. You might be lucky. AirFrance kicked me off the flight at boarding, just before midnight, and now they are refusing to return my bag until tomorrow morning. Back to the hunger strike. They tried to argue that it was some kind of security or contract issue, but if I had had a little money, everything would have been fine. C’est la vie, all over again. Maybe I’ll get to talk to the nice policeman again in the morning.
8pm, CDG airport, Paris
Despite all the assurances that my flight had been completely cancelled, by the manager of the AirFrance office, the check-in counter miraculously allowed me to get on my flight to Sydney. I am heading your way! Lucky I actually tried to check in. Anyway, on July 27, “I’ll be back”, although hopefully only temporarily, given my present expectations. Maybe you could all try a little harder to be reasonable.
At around 5.30am this morning, AirFrance informed me that my Paris-Sydney flight had been cancelled, due to the inconvenient fact that I was in Paris and not in Prague. After six hours of attempting to explain to the people at the AirFrance counter that they had to find some way to get me back to Australasia, to no avail, they stopped ignoring me. By this time, I had made it clear that I was now on a hunger strike (as it happens, I have no money to buy food anyway).
A desk manager insisted that I remove my feet from a hard plastic seat, but having spent the previous night in the Terminal, I really needed to keep my feet up, and so I refused. Of course, they called security, which was great, because it was probably time I started ranting and raving to the police. The AirFrance manager finally agreed to check my flight details, after which she slowly explained to me the simple facts, which we had already established at around 3pm yesterday, and which naturally meant that my problems no longer had anything at all to do with AirFrance. I was therefore requested to leave the private office area for the seats across the concourse.
Now the police had finally arrived. I sighed. It was time to tell the AirFrance manager to forget about the stupid flight. What is done is done. I explained instead to the policeman that I was on a hunger strike, and had no intention of moving. Luckily, Google translated the crucial words for me, and my French is improving rapidly.
A moment later, a suitcase was abandonned behind the pot plant beside my chair. Soon a contingent of police, including the officer who had been talking to me, began to clear the Terminal, and the bomb squad sprang into action. Naturally, this was a lengthy process, inconveniencing a great many people.
Now I am back beside the AirFrance desk again, wondering where the policeman went. He was quite nice. But probably he is busy with the bomb disposal debrief, and I must carry on the hunger strike alone for an hour or so, until I find the energy to bother someone else. A ticket out of Europe would be nice, but I’m not sure where I want to go. Perhaps the United States again.
Yes, that’s right. Although I have discussed this problem with AirFrance at great length, they have now cancelled my entire ticket, which included a perfectly valid booking for Paris-Sydney with AirFrance. Bravo!