Tuesday 16th April

There is a particular dread which overtakes one when booking or buying something  expensive on the internet.   That moment when you aren’t quite sure whether the purchase has happened, when you wait and wait and the computer seems to go really slow before the confirmation page appears.  And then there are the ridiculous hoops to jump through before you can actually get to the important bit – paying for it.

And Ryanair must be the very worst site in the world.  It is designed to trip you up at every step, to make you pay for things you don’t want.  It needs steely determination and a constant concentration to navigate the pages and un-tick boxes, and scroll down the whole list of options to find the ‘no, I will travel without insurance’ option.

Then when you get to the last bit and enter your credit card details and press CONFIRM the whole site freezes.  Actually it seems to make the whole computer freeze.  And the computer has frozen, nothing works except unplugging it and re-booting.  So you start again and avoiding the minefield of extra charges get to the same point, finding by the way that the bizarre pricing policy has somehow added £5 more to your total bill than you would have paid if the previous five minute ago sale had actually gone through.  Again that agonizing wait until you get the Confirmation page, and see that the e-mail has popped up in your in-box.  Oh, the relief of it.

Then you are never quite sure if you might have booked two tickets in error.

How much simpler it was when you could just phone up and talk to someone who would take your details and answer all your questions and tell you that the tickets were in the post.

I know that the internet is progress, but as so often happens – progress comes at a price.