First class treatment

I am currently esconsced in the posh first class lounge at Newark airport, a seven hour layover sort of neccesitated some comfort so I splashed out. Thought I might take this opportunity to update my much neglected blog. There was a severe lack of internet the last 10 days - now up in the Highlands in a tent that was to be expected but I feel a conference with no organised internet is a poor one, but I don’t wish to rant about that. I thought I would talk about the people I have met on my travels - well the planes anyway.

On my last jaunt back this way I sat next to a most odd man, the sort you see on telly who have been bad men and whose neighbours always say ‘he kept to himself’. I am sure he was perfectly nice but that does not a good story make. He sort of smelt funny and it was only when the food was brought I realised the smell had not been coming from him, but the pocket in front of him. He had brought cheese with him… lots of cheese. I am talking parmesan, brie, and cheddar here. Now I find that when it comes to aeroplane food they are always rather heavy on the cheese (so I order a special meal as cheese and me have a love-hate relationship). This man clearly disagreed as he whipped out his bag o’ cheese and added some to the main meal. Fair enough, but then our snack (well his snack) was a four-cheese pizza and out comes the cheese again, huge chunks making it less a pizza and more a tower of cheese with a bread foundation.

Anyway the whole time this is going on all I can think of is that Monty Python skit where John Cleese is being interviewed as one of the ‘mice men’:

"Well… I was about seventeen and some mates and me went to a party, and, er… we had quite a lot to drink… and then some of the fellows there … started handing … cheese around … and well just out of curiosity I tried a bit … and well that was that."

Tee Heee I love Monty Python.