h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I live there. Believe me all thats true!

This is such a cool article!!! Why is on the most neglected list for 's sake???

This is possibly because almost the only people who look at this entry also live here.

That is a very good explanation.... this would explain why my hometown's page has so few visitors...

Well I don't but a guy I work with's family comes from Guernsey. It has for him advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage his name sounds exotic, big hit with the women.
Disadvantage he constantly has to spell it, he seriously considers becoming someone else for business.

Advantage he always has a reasonable cheap holiday, where the weather is guaranteed to be milder than up here.
Disadvantage it takes longer to fly there than the med, people just don't think of the connection times especially as Belfast is so poorly served for direct flights.

The poor guy.

I've always wanted to go to Guernsey - afterall, it's an Island so it can't be bad.
Do the aircraft that go there go from Southampton Airport, and are they Britten-Norman Trislanders, perchance?

Hey I'm back on my own page. Hi all. The flight problem is difficult because our runway is barely long enuff to stop a Mini in reverse. Therefore they use likkle itsy bitsy planes which cannot take a lot of people but cost just as much to fly as big ones. This means fares are EXPENSIVE. A standard return flight to Southampton is around £150, you can have a week in Benidorm for that!

However, I believe I digress.
You can fly here from Southampton, Gatwick, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Stanstead, (have you BEEN to Stanstead?!!) Bristol, and probably a few others in the UK. Most are limited to one flight a day or even less, but Sthton and Gatwick are quite regular.

Should any of you wish to visit, do contact me as I can arrange/find lodgings (I'm afraid only have one bedroom, but there is the tent and inflatable mattress) and I don't need much excuse to introduce people to good food etc.

I'll have to visit one day.
But yes, £150 is even more expensive than going to Southampton from the Isle of Wight!
As for the Trislander, they're small, three-engined craft that hold only about 17 people - see:
http://www.h2g2.com/A430084
(like me, they're from the Isle of Wight!)
And nope - I've not been to Stanstead - why, what's it like there?

Trilanders have been used here for about 25 years. There is an airline based in Alderney called Aurigney Airlines (Latin for Alderney) which uses them. They started with the twin engined Islanders but now fly Trilanders, Shorts and something else a bit bigger still which goes to Manchester I believe. The Trilanders are used a bit like a bus service between the Islands, travelling between Jersey and Guernsey just about every half hour. Great fun in a force eight, you cover most of the available sky in about 15 minutes.

As to Stanstead, I've only been there once. It's miles from anywhere, and when we arrived there it was like a set from an old Avengers program. There was a huge cubical building (mostly glass) and inside it was laid out with loads of checkin/out areas, but we were "the only people there" in acres of covered space. Very eerie. Apparently it's much busier nowadays but I tend not to need to get to north London so I don't use it.

It's crazy that the Isle of Wight, which is bigger than all other islands in the English Channel and has a greater population, still does not have a proper airport. It's a case of NIMBY attacking again. I definately would love to fly to the Channel Islands in an Islander or Trislander - I often see them flying over my house and I think they're really beautiful aircraft.

If you don't know what a Trislander looks like, see:
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ito-nori/trisla10.html
http://www.photovault.com/Link/Technology/Aviation_Commercial/Aircraft/BrittenTrislander.html

And I've never flown within the UK, and only from an international airport once. But one day.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Guernsey' to 'Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK'.

Do you pay a TV licience as we do on the mainland?

Do you pay a TV licience as we do on the mainland?