Apologies to those of you that have seen my post on Facebook already, but this was the first of three small incidents that piqued me on Tuesday.
On my flight to Geneva I was sat next to an elderly woman with indeterminate accent. Just after the safety briefing she asked me if I'd ever been involved in a plane crash. When I answered "No" she declared she had. "The safety briefing's a load of shit", she said. "My plane came down in three bits and I can assure you the fucking safety lights don't work". I ignored her as the nutter I believed her to be for the rest of the flight, but I can't help wondering if I missed the opportunity for a really interesting conversation.
Rather than returning directly to Heathrow on BA, I had a meeting the following day in Manchester, so had a different return route, and one that took me via Brussels.
Brussels Airlines, it transpires, charges for its food and drink on short haul flights. No problem with that per se, it is increasingly the way of the world. What I didn't have, however, was a menu card in my seat pocket, so I didn't know the choices available to me. I listened a little and heard the person in front ask for a chicken wrap, so I thought I'd have the same. Asking for one, the air steward asked if I'd like "Caesar or Tandoori". "Tandoori
please", I answered. "I'm sorry" he says, "That's on October's
menu, we've only got the Caesar". Really! Why ask?
So having had a lovely, overpriced, and decidedly diminutive chicken Caesar wrap, I later found myself wandering Brussels airport in search of further sustenance. I spotted an outlet selling 'Belgian Waffles'. With the flight attendant having given the slumbering GOM a nudge on the flight, I couldn't help but find myself thinking; with a degree of irritation that was entirely disproportionate to the situation, "Is the
prefix really necessary"?
Perhaps it's best that I'm not let out very often...
