THE HOOTERS STAG
I thought I was imagining it. A grown man in the tightest, pinkest, shortest shorts you ever did see, massive curly wig, pantomime dame-style make-up and teeny weeny Hooters' girl T-shirt. And he was heading for passport control. No wonder anyone can get in and out of the UK. He was the stag leading a party of mates on a wild week away. I often wonder what the rest of the world thinks about the Brit passion for fancy dress. Anyway, the drinks were already flowing. It was raucous but friendly raucous. He made it through passport control, as did his chums, and I have never seen a plane drinks trolley emptied so quickly. Bottles of Champagne were bought en masse ... along with gin, vodka, beer etc etc. You get the picture. The funny thing was there was also a hen party on the plane but by the time the drinks trolley reached them the booze had gone. The looks of fury on the girls' faces were priceless, especially when the stag lads toasted them, glasses raised, and said 'cheers!'
THE PORTUGEUSE CHUCKLE BROTHERS
Flight attendants are usually a slick bunch but on one flight I met a pair who were so wonderfully hopeless (I loved them for it) I wondered if they were Ant and Dec in disguise. For foreign readers, Ant and Dec are UK entertainers who often don spectacular disguises to pretend to do other people's jobs (badly) for comedy value. The Portuguese Chuckle Brothers kept forgetting things, got stuck in the aisles, stuck by the trolley, just generally stuck. It was as if they had never set foot on a plane before. The clever mid-aisle gesturing to colleagues for another bag of Maltesers, a skill most flight attendants have, was simply not there. I have never seen two people hurtle back and forth up a plane so many times. It was chaos, but entertaining chaos. Despite it all, they never stopped smiling. those good old Portuguese. Nor did I!
THE LAD WHO BEGGED FOR MILK
Stags and hens may be wild en route to the sun but coming home is a very different affair. The change in behaviour is immense. One group of stags looked a sickly bunch as they flew back to England. After days of over indulgence, young men who had demolished the drinks trolley out-bound were now pale and pasty wrecks of their former selves. Some could hardly talk. One lad was particularly delicate. I heard him ask the air hostess in a croaky whisper: "Can I have some milk please?" He then went into a comatose state and, throughout the flights, his 'friends' balanced an interesting variety of items on his head, such as empty beer cans, and then took pictures of him, no doubt to produce a lovely set of holiday snaps to show his mum!
THE MAN WHO COULDN'T FASTEN HIS SEATBELT
I have seen some weighty people on planes before but one chap across the aisle from me was so large his stomach touched the seat in front. There was no way on this earth he could fasten his seatbelt. He was wedged tight. But he never stopped eating for two hours.
THE PICNIC FAMILY
Talking of food, lots of people take their own sarnies on budget flights. I have no issue with that but once found myself sitting among a large group of Brits travelling together. Between them they had the contents of a small supermarket in their hand luggage. It turned out to be intensely annoying. Sausage rolls, sweets, sarnies and crisps were thrust past my face at five-minute intervals throughout the flight and comments like this were yelled in my ear (meant for a woman just the other side of me in the next row): "Mavis, Mavis, MAVIS, ask Mavis if she wants some Maltesers." I was ready to crush the Maltesers!
LOUD, ROUGH & RUDE
Here's the thing. I detest people who are vulgar, swear, shout, glare, look for arguments and have the manners of a wild beast in public. That's in the street, on a plane, at an airport, anywhere in fact. It's basic manners, basic common sense. It's about respecting your fellow human beings and their space. It's about respecting the fact that parents don't want their toddlers to learn the f-word courtesy of a lewd and uncouth stranger. What you do in your own home is your own business but don't inflict it on the rest of us. I've heard terrible rows in airport queues, effing and blinding, threats of violence, children bellowed at and aggressive nastiness. Luckily, I don't see it every time I fly but standards of basic human decency are unbelievably low among a minority of people. Jet2 is leading a campaign to stop unacceptable behaviour on flights, which, aside from the drunkenness, has included passengers fighting and stripping off. Force them all to read every volume penned by Jane Austin 10 times, say I. Manners maketh the man, and the woman. Grow up and get a grip.
No comments:
Post a Comment