Is something bringing you down?

At the moment of writing this, I am flying through the sky at 520 miles per hour, cruising at an altitude of 29,000 feet above the North Sea. I know this from the info on the video screen in front of me. Isn’t technology wonderful? How far we have come since the time when our ancestors slapped the arse of a donkey to get us up a hill, or shoveled thousands of pounds of coal on to a fire so as to change the state of liquid water into gas and push us onwards on our way towards a better life.

But then I think, how far have we really come? When we take to the air today, we are constantly reminded of how little we trust our fellow passengers and how truly paranoid we are conditioned to be.

Ok, before any of you conspiracy “But Osama has still got a plan to get us” theorists out there threaten me with a bottle of Evian mineral water or come after me in the street with a pair of tweezers, you should note that these gripes are not just mine. They are shared by most of the people I know who live in a part of the world where we are lucky enough to have the chance to avail of air travel. I mean, come on, it is a pretty well known fact that it is nearly impossible to bring down an aircraft with diet cola and the threat of plucking “every last bastard eyebrow hair out unless you fly this plane into that building” is unlikely ever to find an airing (forgive the pun) in seriousness.

We have had tragedy visited on us and we have caused tragedy to be visited on others, but in my opinion, this does not warrant the over protective and frankly annoying culture of meaningless “security” measures.

Look, I am so willing to be proven wrong in this and I would love to hear from someone who knows about it but, liquid explosives? Really? That’d pretty hard to carry around! I think gasoline has more energy than TNT per pound but it only burns, it doesn’t explode. That’s Hollywood bullshit. Stuff they made up for the movies. So, why do we believe it? Who is making up these rules?

I agree, don’t let people on planes with knives and guns. Screen the bags and frisk till your fingers are content, but please let me bring a bottle of water with me. I just ate dinner on the flight and they served me with a steak-knife! Honestly, they took the nail-clippers away from me but I can have this 6 inch stainless steel, serrated edged blade - but only to eat dinner with. No grooming!

I do feel truly blessed to be able to get on a plane and be in another country within a few hours. I think that I am so fortunate to be able to do this in relative safety, so people who sit on the right of the fence, don’t misunderestimate me please. I just think that we have learned to go along with certain shit because they tell us to. Of course we need security measures and we need to take great care but I had to take off my jumper and shoes twice today on the way to the gate. They made me throw away my drinking water. Soon I’ll be walking through the airport in the nip. “Shoes, pants and underwear off Sir”. “Please touch your toes and Sir”. Where will it end? Rubber gloves anyone? I think I’ll take the boat.

This may appear to be the king complaining that his gold plate does not match his silver cup but it’s nothing more than a simple overflow of what’s up in my head when I’m up in the sky. I am halfway to Berlin and I’ve only been sitting here for twenty minutes. It is bloody good this flying thing. Well done the Orville and Wilbur! What would they have made of all this winged insanity?

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for listening, we wish you a safe and pleasant flight. Your lifejacket is under your seat. Now, wouldn’t you feel better if that were a parachute?

Jx