Plane Speaking

Those jumbo jet things are just awesome aren't they.

It does my head in every time I walk onto one, strolling amiably down this extraordinary technological marvel looking for my seat. 145H, that's me. Where's that safety belt...

The fact that the darned thing manages to get off the ground, propels me through the air at mind-boggling speed, and plonks me down in another continent doesn't make this experience any more believable.

The fact is that a four story high lump of metal has no business hurtling down a runway at a couple of hundred miles per hour on the offchance that it might take off and fly. The whole premise is totally ludicrous. What on earth are they thinking.

I just can't handle the safety demo either, because its an admission to the passengers that things could go HORRIBLY WRONG! Oxygen masks. Brace positions. Life jackets. Emergency exits. I mean are they crazy??

there's clearly been some sort of mass hypnosis going on to get all these people to trust their very lives in this strange process called flight. Why remind people that they are mere mortals, just before they become Superman.

I won't have any of it. My nose is in a Stephen King as soon as my arse hits the seat.

Our lass is even worse than me. She's convinced that they've invented teleporting, and that the memories of the cramped conditions, the bad bogs, the bored kids, and the gruesome grub are all implanted somehow.

She has the notion that the pilots have no idea how the plane actually gets off the ground.

They rev up the Rolls Royce engines and bez off down the runway and are genuinely surprised when the thing takes to the air. Bet the pilot is sat there thinking "Got away with it again!!!" as he turns the plane towards the sun.

And there's another thing about aircraft that bothers me.

You see an old movie and someone gets out a phone you know how old the movie is. You can date a film by the kind of telephone the leading dude is yelling into. Them things are always changing.

Now pour yourself a large glass of granny's sherry and pay attention to that Christmas Eve rerun of Airplane that is bound to be on. Look at that plane. What do you notice.

I'll tell you. It looks exactly the same as that plane I just flew on. No change. A totally far out, technological child of the 60s. Stuck in one huge timewarp.

Now don't you try and tell me that because there's a flat screen telly playing Flinstones and Super Mario embedded into the seat in front this thing is a modern piece of tech. The food tastes like it's been in the hold for thirty years, and the bog wouldn't be out of place on a British Rail football special. And have you seen how they dress the stewardesses? It's like Barbie and Sindy never happened.

So you can stick you high tech telly ads where the sun doesn't shine, because this transatlantic flight lark is just mad. And the killing joke is we pay for the whole experience. Bonkers.

Blogga.