British train passengers are now paying the most expensive rail fares in Europe according to new research from the Liberal Democrats. In fact British train passengers are charged up to 14 times more than passengers on the Continent. £10 would take a British passenger 27 miles compared with 58 miles in France and 383 miles in Latvia. The situation is likely to get worse with more fare increases planned for the future. As prices continue to rise I think a lot of people will return to the often cheaper option of using their own car, at least that way you know you will get a seat.

This weeks PC2Paper travel blog of the week is Conor's Mildly Thrilling Tales. Its author Conor Grennan travel stories, have been featured in well known travel publications such as Traveler's Tales and  Lonely Planet. He is also the founder of the non-profit organisation Next Generation Nepal, setup to to reunite trafficked and conflict-displaced children with their families. Conor lives in Nepal where he started a home for trafficked children.

Conor's blog focuses a lot on the great work he does helping these children in Nepal. My favourite article was "Searching for families in Nuwakot" a fascinating story on how Conor managed to find the parents of 17 out of 18 children on a trip through the mountains. How he went on the trip on a beaten up bus and was encouraged to try a local fruit which ended up giving him food poisoning. If that wasn't enough he was unable to sleep on the bumpy bus journey, the buses suspension so bad he had to sit on a fleece to protect his hind quarters. At times he and the other passengers had to get out of the bus to help guide it along steep cliff ledges. But in the end it was all worth it when they got to their destination finding the parents of these children. read the full article >>

The manager of the City of Derry Airport has been removed from his post. He will return to work at the airport as an air traffic controller. He was demoted after an investigation into a four closure of the airport last May. The closure was due to a number of safety concerns including poor runway drainage and a lack of a bird control plan. A report later showed a number of shortfall in safety procedure which led to Seamus Devine being removed from his post.

An international passenger plane crash landed at Heathrow Airport today. The plane took the runway too low on its approach before crashing just short of it. All 136 passengers were evacuated down the emergency chutes. There are reports that four people have suffered minor injuries as a result of the crash. The knock on effect is that the south runway has been closed and many flights from the airport have been delayed with some flights being diverted to Stansted and Luton.

A planned strike by rail guards at First Great Western has been suspended. Guards had planned to strike for 48 hours from the 20th of January. However, talks between the company and the union have now resumed and the RMT have said that progress has been made. Negotiations are to continue on a number of other issues but there are hopes that the dispute can now be resolved.

It has been announced that another 25 post offices will close across in Newport and Gwent Valley. The proposals will also establish three new outreach post offices two in Chepstow and one in Caldicot. The latest list of closures includes the following:

Abertillery: Cwm Celyn; Princess Street
Tredegar: Dukestown, Georgetown
Ebbw Vale: Rassau, Winchestown
Hengoed: Caerphilly Rd, Penpedairheol, Penybryn
Bargoed: Gilfach
Blackwood: Argoed, Wyllie
Newport: West End, Wattsville, Christchurch Road, Malpas Road, West Park
Abergavenny: Govilon, Llanellen
Chepstow: Mathern
Caldicot: Sudbrook
Pontypool: Pentwyn, Penygarn, Pontnewynydd, Penygraig Terrace

Its a new year and PC2Paper have just launched a range of new services. We have listened to our customers and added the services you have asked for. Sending a real letter from the Internet is still just as easy but now has lots of new options available.

Different Paper
We now offer different paper to print your letter on, from conqueror hi white premium laid paper to photo paper. You can choose how you want your letter printed from inkjet, black and white laser or colour laser printing.

Choose your envelope
You can now choose what envelope you send your letter in. If you don't want to fold your letter 3 times in a DL envelope then we now offer C5 envelopes (half of A4) for a single folded letter.

Special Delivery Options in the UK
We now offer Recorded Delivery and Special Next Day Delivery before 1pm in the UK.

International special delivery options and Certified Mail
We can now offer Airsure Signed for and International Signed For delivery for overseas mail sent from the UK. On sending your letter you will receive a tracking number so you can track the progress of your letter.
Certified mail is also available within the USA. This option also includes a tracking service so you can track the progress of your letter online.

Choose Your Printing Station
You can now choose which printing station you would like your mail to be sent from.

A new iris recognition system for staff is being introduced at Manchester Airport. The system will be used to tighten up staff access to restricted zones and will be rolled out across all three of the airports terminal service yards. The system will be separate from the iris checking technology used by passengers and makes Manchester Airport the first UK airport to use the system for staff access.

Hundreds of guards at first Great Western are to stage a 48 hour rail strike starting on the 20th of January. The RMT have said that relations with the company have broken down over issues such as managers driving and guarding trains. First Great Western has said that they will ask the union to keep talking to try and avert the strikes.

This weeks Travel Blog of the Week is killing batteries written by Leif Pettersen. Leif is a freelance writer and is a regular contributor for Global Traveler magazine and Lonely Planet author for Romania and Moldova. Leif's blog contains a wealth of interesting article about his travels but what makes this blog special is his humorous style of writing. His most recent post is about a fly fishing trip whilst he was in Chile. The article charts Leif's first attempt at fly fishing and describes how he managed to learn the casting process without injuring either himself or his instructor Ricardo. Despite a disappointing start to the trip and secret thoughts about the trout attacking Ricardo, Leif eventually managed to catch a rather respectable haul of ten fish, not bad for a first attempt.

For me one of the most interesting sections on this blog is Leif's "Don't go There" series. As the name suggests the series is about places he has been and the reasons why he feels they should be avoided. The most recent post in this series is entitled Don't Go to Andorra la Vella talks about his experiences of the city which he sums up as an "ostensibly bottomless ravine of choking, duty-free despair". The article talks about his fruitless search for a grocery store among the towns endless offering of shops selling nothing but watches, cheap jewellery, perfume and other duty free goods. Leif sums this up nicely when he says "It was truly a duty-free nation. You can walk into just about any shop on the street and save a whopping 25% on your indispensable bottle of CK1. On the flip side, you have to ask directions and stalk back alleys to find someone who will sell you a fricking apple." Obviously his first impressions of Andorra La Vella are not great but he goes on to describe the extent of the air pollution in the town caused by exhaust fumes which left him gasping for breath and with burning eyes after only three hours of walking around the town. Other articles is this series include Don't go to Berlin and Don't go to Monaco.

Another interesting and equally humorous section of Leif's blog is entitled "What I've Learned". This section contains a lot of short but often very useful things that Leif has learnt on his travels. They range from little tips such as "Check to make sure that your very expensive digital camera with numerous delicate moving parts is not in your day-bag before you go to the beach" and "Even if you have a co-conspirator, even if you spill some, even if you’re celebrating something really awesome, three bottles of wine on a Tuesday night is too much wine."

This blog has so many good articles that it has been hard to pick just a few things to say about it. Its definitely worth a visit. 

Loganair has announced that it will offer 50,000 permanent low cost fares on its key routes between the Scottish mainland and the islands. It will also introduce an extra weekday return flight on four routes including Kirkwall to Aberdeen, Shetland to Aberdeen, Stornoway to Glasgow and Islay to Glasgow. The discounted fares are offered under the government’s Air Discount scheme which provides 40% on flights to islands and parts of the highlands. Discounts are cuurently available to residents of Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles, Islay, Jura, Caithness and north west Sutherland.