Friday, September 18, 2009
The 29 hour long day: Part 1 (English hours)
Entry date: Saturday 8th August 2009
There’s one big advantage that flying transatlantic has over, say, a short hop down to Greece. The last time we went to Kefalonia we’d played that little mind trick on ourselves of thinking that the earlier we booked our outward flight, the more time we’d have in the sun, rather than standing around waiting to go. So it was up at 3 for a cab at 4 to be at the airport by 5 for a 7 o’clock flight. You’ll be at the poolside, glass in hand, well in time for lunch. Sorted. Except it never really works like that, what with the couple of hours’ time difference, archaic baggage retrieval, creaking transfer coaches and the generally lackadaisical attitude of the pimply, hungover reps, and you’re lucky if you’re anywhere near your first Metaxa and coke within half a day of leaving home. Add in having been up at Dawn’s Crack (ahem) and all you’re fit for by the time you arrive is a lie down in a darkened room. Pants.
It’s much more civilised with long haul. The airline knows you’re going to suffer at their hands for 9 arse-numbing hours of screaming children, 3rd rate food and cattle class leg room, so they at least allow you to have a lie in and get to the airport at a reasonable time. And so we don’t need to pitch up airside until a very reasonable 8 o’clock, by which time our friends have already bagged a spot in the queue and we’re soon all sorted, with just the exceptionally dull wait for boarding to pass with all those nasty people you wouldn’t normally go near with a barge pole. Yes, that does mean you in the turquoise velour tracksuit.
Except, due once again to my wife’s excellent forward planning, we don’t have to mingle with the great unwashed. Not for us the screaming children (and parents) in Arsenal shirts, Primark “three for a fiver” shorts and cheap sunglasses, oh no. We’re off to the far more salubrious surroundings of the Virgin Executive Lounge no less. All because the day we tried to book the holiday Virgin tried to bankrupt us by charging us twice for the holiday and with wife champing at the bit over this, they gave us all free run of their flagship business lounge as recompense.
And it’s well worth it. Free breakfast, kids’ games room, clean toilets, sophisticated people - it’s all lovely. Until of course they let in the group of twenty five identically clad northerners all sporting T-Shirts proclaiming “Higginbottom Family Tour Disney 2009”, with a pissed Mickey on the front, and a first name and team number on the back. They of course do that thing where they have to disrupt the whole place by trying to sit all around one table and anoying everyone else in the place by cheerily trying to ponce chairs off them. When they ask me if they can take one of ours I politely tell them to fuck off. Wankers.
But nothing can dampen the holiday spirit and by the time I’ve finished my fourth bacon roll and 7th cup of coffee our flight is being called and it’s time for the six of us to start the holiday proper, by getting pissed on an aeroplane…..
There’s one big advantage that flying transatlantic has over, say, a short hop down to Greece. The last time we went to Kefalonia we’d played that little mind trick on ourselves of thinking that the earlier we booked our outward flight, the more time we’d have in the sun, rather than standing around waiting to go. So it was up at 3 for a cab at 4 to be at the airport by 5 for a 7 o’clock flight. You’ll be at the poolside, glass in hand, well in time for lunch. Sorted. Except it never really works like that, what with the couple of hours’ time difference, archaic baggage retrieval, creaking transfer coaches and the generally lackadaisical attitude of the pimply, hungover reps, and you’re lucky if you’re anywhere near your first Metaxa and coke within half a day of leaving home. Add in having been up at Dawn’s Crack (ahem) and all you’re fit for by the time you arrive is a lie down in a darkened room. Pants.
It’s much more civilised with long haul. The airline knows you’re going to suffer at their hands for 9 arse-numbing hours of screaming children, 3rd rate food and cattle class leg room, so they at least allow you to have a lie in and get to the airport at a reasonable time. And so we don’t need to pitch up airside until a very reasonable 8 o’clock, by which time our friends have already bagged a spot in the queue and we’re soon all sorted, with just the exceptionally dull wait for boarding to pass with all those nasty people you wouldn’t normally go near with a barge pole. Yes, that does mean you in the turquoise velour tracksuit.
Except, due once again to my wife’s excellent forward planning, we don’t have to mingle with the great unwashed. Not for us the screaming children (and parents) in Arsenal shirts, Primark “three for a fiver” shorts and cheap sunglasses, oh no. We’re off to the far more salubrious surroundings of the Virgin Executive Lounge no less. All because the day we tried to book the holiday Virgin tried to bankrupt us by charging us twice for the holiday and with wife champing at the bit over this, they gave us all free run of their flagship business lounge as recompense.
And it’s well worth it. Free breakfast, kids’ games room, clean toilets, sophisticated people - it’s all lovely. Until of course they let in the group of twenty five identically clad northerners all sporting T-Shirts proclaiming “Higginbottom Family Tour Disney 2009”, with a pissed Mickey on the front, and a first name and team number on the back. They of course do that thing where they have to disrupt the whole place by trying to sit all around one table and anoying everyone else in the place by cheerily trying to ponce chairs off them. When they ask me if they can take one of ours I politely tell them to fuck off. Wankers.
But nothing can dampen the holiday spirit and by the time I’ve finished my fourth bacon roll and 7th cup of coffee our flight is being called and it’s time for the six of us to start the holiday proper, by getting pissed on an aeroplane…..
# posted by Bucko! @ 10:00 AM 
