I do quite a significant amount of travel for work. This means lots of time spent on planes, in airports and hanging around in hotels. This has given me a newfound depth of hatred for stuff I never knew annoyed me. I have decided to write about some of these things.
I loathe the….
I loathe the….
- … hopelessly bewildered
People - IT IS NOT HARD. I’m telling you. Signs are usually informative, you should read them. Note this does not mean standing 14 abreast across a corridor designed to accomodate 3 maybe 4 adults thus stopping the rest of the herd from moving. Oh - and get a move on. You might be oblivious to the rest of the world actually trying to get stuff done and get places, but it is sadly impossible to not notice you. Please, do not just fucking stand on an elevator and block the progress of those of us with places to be, who have seen the interior of Heathrow Terminal 5 no fewer than six times in the last three weeks and who just want to go and have a shower to rid themselves of the stench of sweaty tourist (yes dear, I do mean you). You should try doing this on the London Tube and see how far you get. Seriously - you should. I more or less guarantee some sort of psychological or physical injury within your first hour of your attempt. Ditto the magic carpet/travelator - it is designed to move you, and here’s the clincher, OTHERS faster, not to give your poor little legs a rest (which especially fills me with wonderment since you’ve been sat on your fat confused arse for the last 12 hours resting them!)
- …having to queue pointlessly
We invented queueing where I come from. It’s like a national sport. Note the simile there. It is merely an imitation of sport. Actual sport tends to involve physical exertion, maybe an element of skill and more than likely some kind of scoring system leading to perhaps a victory. Darts doesn’t really fit this definition, which I’m quite pleased about. As far as I can work out, making me queue isn’t really a game that I can win - it’s a loss as soon as I start. I resent queueing. Especially at immigration. Your immigration I can understand having to queue at, almost by definition there’s not a lot of physicality involved and there’s not a lot of skill involved (though some places I’ve been, you might wonder). If you’ve got any sense where you come from, the last thing on your wish list to Santa this year (or any other for that matter) is a horde of bewildered zombies cluttering up the corridors in your shiny new airport, muttering and moaning “Ee, do you think the exit might be in the vague direction of the sign marked exit? I’m not sure if they have the same English here as we do back home. This is Scotland after all.” Your immigration I do not massively begrudge queueing at. Mine, I do. I fucking live here. I’ve got a fucking local passport. I queue at immigration somewhere probably on average of once a week (which if you think about it is about 26 times the amount of queueing someone who goes on holiday once a year might do). I’m not a twat about being a card holding member of some airline club, but when they advertise fast track immigration at my home airport for gold or silver card holding members of that club (and I have one of those) I fucking resent being told that this is only for non-UK passport holders. You. Fucking. What?
I am pausing for breath for a while at this point, but rest assured I have plenty more rant left in me. Stay tuned.