I’ve suffered travel horrors all round the world but one UK airport has been so hellish it earned my pathological hatred
I HATE all airports. I hate the queues and the unnecessary security checks and the endless perfume shops.
And I hate the way I always end up in a queue for the X-ray machine behind someone who takes half an hour to undo their shoe laces and then walks through the arch with a phone in their back pocket and a belt made from knives and forks.
So they have to come back, get even more undressed and then walk through again.
And I hate the way they tell you your flight is boarding and then, exactly one second later, say the gate is closing.
And I especially hate the way that there are only ever two people checking passports when you land, and you get sent to the back of the queue if you’ve filled your form in wrong.
Which I always do because I can never be bothered to reach into the overhead locker on the flight to find out what my passport number is, so I just make one up.
And I loathe the ridiculous distances you have to walk to reach your plane.
Yes Dublin, I’m talking about you here. But you’re not alone.
At Dallas Fort Worth, I once walked TWO MILES to reach my plane. And I’m not making that up.
At Bangkok, I once walked so far that my shoes melted.
For me, though, the worst airport in the world has always been Gatwick.
It was always full of lost, dithery people in Juicy tracksuits and while it may be extremely convenient if you live in Crawley or Redhill, it is extremely not convenient if you live anywhere else.
James May and I were so pathological about our hatred of Gatwick that we once ignored a direct flight to Tbilisi in Georgia from there and flew instead out of Heathrow, even though it meant we had to have a romantic overnight halt in Istanbul.
I wasn’t even slightly surprised then to read recently that on top of everything else, Gatwick is now the worst airport in Britain for delays.
But then I looked more closely and discovered that the average delay is 23 minutes. That’s not so bad.
And then over Easter, because there was absolutely no alternative, I had to fly out of the godforsaken hellhole.
And I don’t know what’s happened since I was last there, but it was fantastic.
The staff were super-friendly and helpful, there were no queues, all the passport checkpoints were manned, the lounge was virtually empty, and even though my gate was at the far end of the corridor, and the waiting BA 777 was older than Stonehenge, the walk wasn’t too bad.
It made Heathrow feel Third World.
My mind has therefore been changed. It’s still in the wrong place and it’s still an airport, so it’s terrible.
But it’s about as good as terrible gets.
BEST BE READY, BRUCE
BOFFINS have been given £50million to develop a suncream lotion. For the planet.
Seriously, they are going to try to develop a sort of aerosol spray which could be applied to the top of our atmosphere to absorb some of the sun’s rays and, consequently, arrest global warming.
Scientists are also working on a machine which would spray sea water on to the top of clouds that form over the ocean, hoping the salt will make them whiter and therefore better at reflecting the sun’s power back into space.
I like the thinking with schemes like this. It’s better to use science to cool the planet rather than asking everyone to have an electric car and live in an unheated cave, eating only weeds.
But I do worry about the consequences if they get their sums wrong.
I mean, have they not seen every single Hollywood disaster movie ever made?
A scientist has a plan. It goes wrong. And the next thing you know you need Bruce Willis on an asteroid and Hilary Swank in a weird submarine that can go through rock.
SEX AND DRUGS? NOW IT’S MORE LIKE TEA AND JAM AND ROCK ’N’ ROLL
I REMEMBER well all those bare-chested rock and roll giants from the 1970s, backlit by jumbo jet landing lights and lasers, and amplified through speaker stacks a hundred feet high.
They were gods. Only louder. And hairier.
Bad Company. Led Zeppelin. The Who. They provided the soundtrack of my youth and made my ears bleed in the process.
Many, of course, are still going. We learned this week that Alice Cooper is to release an album using the same band he had 50 years ago.
And Bruce Springsteen is still touring as well.
But we look at these guys now and what do we see? Robert Plant is just an old man with a Black Country accent.
Alice Cooper is a pensioner who looks like he’s been made up by his two-year-old granddaughter. And Bruce Springsteen now comes on stage in a tie.
They play their songs, quietly these days, and then they go backstage for some cocoa, before their carers take them back to the home.
The magic, I fear, has gone. Mercifully though, the music is still there.
A BUM STEER, RACHEL
RELAX everyone.
The former chief executive of the Bank of England, lion tamer and astronaut, Rachel Reeves, has put down her spreadsheets and stepped into this almighty trade tariff war with America, saying she has a plan for solving it.
Phew.
Apparently she is going to offer Mr Trump a deal which will cut the tariffs we charge American car makers on anything they export to the UK from ten to just 2.5 per cent.
Rachel from accounts is very pleased with this idea, believing that this will open up the British market to all those Cadillacs and Chevrolets.
Hmmm. I wonder though.
Because even if cars like this suddenly become cheaper, there’s no getting round the fact that the steering wheel is still in the wrong place.
AN EMPTY JOB FOR JAMES
A HAMPSHIRE-based inventor called James Bruton announced this week that after years of experimentation, he’s finally developed a motorcycle that has balls instead of wheels, so that it can go sideways.
I’ve watched videos on the development of this machine and have to say, I’m inspired by his Brunellian determination to overcome all of the obstacles that physics put in his way.
But I can’t help asking myself, “Why?”.
Why would anyone want such a thing?
James says it drives people to his YouTube channel, which is certainly true.
It drew me in. And the income resulting from this can now be used to invent a new device which makes doing handstands easier.
Apparently, he’s had the idea of fitting fans to your ankles which will raise your legs, effortlessly, into the air.
Again. Great. But why?
He’s obviously a clever chap and I wish him well, but I wish he’d now turn his attention to solving something more important.
A dishwasher that empties itself, perhaps.
ACCORDING to yesterday’s Sun, Halle Berry is the best bond girl ever.
Yes, but she isn’t though.
The best Bond girl was Maud Adams, who was so good, she played the role twice.
Once in the The Man With The Golden Gun and once as Octopussy.