It’s an indisputable fact of travelling that at least one of the world’s idiots are travelling alongside you. On every journey there is at least one and to demonstrate this point I will paint a pen portrait of the last three journeys I have made.
Today.
While standing in the queue waiting for the gate to board the aircraft to open on my way home from Barcelona, there was a chap on a mobile phone (funnily enough, many of these stories involved the dreaded ‘ear extensions’). He was talking REALLY LOUDLY in English and describing how he’s been hauled in front of his boss, who told him ‘I am very disappointed in you personally, not to mention the way you’ve let the company down’. He gave a graphic account of a boss who sounded to me as though he was probably at the end of his tether from the language the chap was using when he described the incident to the person on the other end of the line. It was as though he was bragging about it. If that had happened to me, I’d have been so mortified I’d have never mentioned it to another living soul.
BTW, as an aside, have you ever noticed how every mobile phone conversation that you overhear always begins with either ‘hi, where are you?’ or ‘hi, no, it’s OK, I’m in the queue at the checkout in Sainsburys’ or ‘’hi, yep, I’m on a train to London’…..or whatever. It seems to be an irresistible fact of mobile phone culture that all conversations begin with establishing where the participants are.
It’s late afternoon and I am typing this on a plane, with my laptop shoved against my chest by the completely inconsiderate twit in the seat in front of me who has reclined to full recline so I have as little space in front of my face as approximately 14”. I know this to be so, because I have used my laptop to measure the distance and I know its screen size. I am doing my best to make sure he realises how little space I have by sticking my knees hard into his back and I can be pretty bloody minded when I get pissed off so I think he’ll get fed up of it before I do! It’s fine on a transatlantic flight to recline for sleep but really, a flight of less than two hours in mid-afternoon? The sooner they stop making short-haul aircraft without reclining seats the better.
So, today is a good start to this tale.
On my way out to Barcelona, my last flight, I was sat next to two ‘middle-aged’ women, very genteel, in ‘smart-casual’ dress, who were discussing the fact that this was their first trip to Barcelona and fretting about how to get from the airport into the city. So they clearly were not hugely seasoned travellers but they were obviously well-educated and well-heeled. When the plane landed, they got up from their seats (either side of an aisle) and the one on the far side, started talking loudly about the Spanish chap who’d been sat next to her. She made no attempt to prevent him from hearing and obviously assumed he wouldn’t be able to understand her. We were on an Iberia flight (Spain’s national airline for anyone who doesn’t know) and he was conversing with the flight attendants in his native tongue as he had every right to do. The chap was clearly a businessman returning from a meeting in London so he would certainly have spoken English. He was incredibly diplomatic and didn’t show the slightest impression of having been able to hear their jibes. If it had been me, I’d have not been able to resist saying as I was leaving the flight ‘enjoy your stay in my city ladies, the bus to the city centre stops over there’ with a broad and charming smile. Ah well, it was one of his missed opportunities!
The journey before that (the way home from |Madrid on Sunday) was a classic. There was a small gaggle of people hanging around outside the toilet. This is of course one of the things airline folks are uncomfortable about after 9-11. DM turned to me and said ‘I hope they are not terrorists’ and I replied, completely off-the-cuff and very quietly ‘no way, the one in the stupid glasses and pin-striped suit jacket over his polo necked sweater is an ad agency exec’. DM responded ‘how can you be so sure?’ I said you can tell them a mile off, they are always dressed as fashion victims and I’ll bet he’s first out of his seat and on his mobile when the plane is still taxi-ing to its stand.
Sure enough, we were barely off the main runway (long before we had stopped taxi-ing) when he had leaped out of his seat, had his phone clamped to his ear and was loudly talking to someone called Justin.
Later, we were in a bus taking us from the aircraft to the arrivals hall and he was stood in front of us. His conversation was depressingly familiar. ‘Yes, yes, I have just got back. I hope Lisa organised that driver for me – I’ll kill her if she didn’t, she’s really not very bright is she? ………No mate, I have a terrible hangover. …….I’m going to get him on the golf course next time I see him, I fancy that I could give him a complete thrashing……..I’ve given up drinking. No, really I have……..Well I make an exception for crafty ones and special occasions……..no, I’m not going to go all po-faced on you like that bloody Sebastian…..no, no, ………No I’ve got to have some pleasure…….Yes, I’ve done it for my health…….Well, last night was a shocker, I was in some club till 5am and we were tanking them back. …..That’s why I feel so awful…….Can you make sure you’re in the office by 10am tomorrow, I need to go over the deal with you and they are making noises about a new film so that’ll be spondoolies for all of us.’ The ‘end call’ button was pressed. Phew I thought.
Almost without pause for breath he was punching the next number in ‘Hi, Melissa, where are you? ………Oh no, really? …….You are a sick woman!………Yeah, do you fancy a few swifties tonight…..’ and so on and so on.
What was interesting was that DM and I had both separately caught the eyes of a father and son sitting opposite us while this chap was stood in between us. The four of us were in paroxysms of suppressed giggles. Every time I looked up, the son looked at me and started helplessly laughing, which in turn set me off. David was engaging in exactly the same way with his Dad and the four of us had tears streaming down our faces and we were juddering trying not to be too obvious.
The man was so oblivious to the rest of the world that he had no idea we were all laughing at his expense.
Still, it’s a great way to reinforce your faith in your own group of friends.
So, I’m now nearly back over England’s green and lovely shore. I can’t wait to touch down at Heathrow when I’ll feel like I’m truly going home. My photo is taken on the flight path into Heathrow - it's the Thames (of course), Canary Wharf, the Isle of Dogs and the Millenium Dome - oh and a whole load of rain that the sky was dumping on our fair city.
Last year I was photographing blossom and the year before I was at the most historic race track in Britain.
