London is ‘blessed’ with 3 airports. Luton, which is about 70 miles from London, and has that inbred rustic feel to it since they shut the Vauxhall factory down and left the place to the ‘natives’. Its about as ‘London’ as Beirut. Yet is convenient to get to.

Then there’s Heathrow or The Big One, as I call it and really our only ‘proper’ airport, even though its famously lacking in the runway department.

And lastly (by a fucking long way) there’s Gatwick. The airport time forgot and people wish they could. But every now and again, some bizarre and horrible convergence of travel arrangements leads me back to the airport that is geographically, emotionally, conceptually and culturally; Hell.

From north west of London just getting there is a mission. Though today, at 6 in the morning, Boxing Day, I can’t really complain about the traffic, because there simply wasn’t any. The bad side of which is that you arrive at Gatwick that much earlier. To learn that your flight is delayed by 3 hours. How 1972 is that? What is it, ‘retro week at BAA’??

Ok, shit happens. This delay due to a power cut 2 days ago that they haven’t quite caught up with yet. Great. So that’s 5 hours to spend at Gatwick. The second prize is an entire day. And as there have been days and days of loooooonnnnngg delays, this is no massive disaster.

And its all very 3rd world here and lacking in the gleam and lustre that Terminal 5 at Heathrow has. The shops here are just that much more kind of ‘tired’. As you’d expect in the south of not just London but all of England. The people just that little bit more recessively genetic.

So today’s picture is not the expected one showing sun-kissed beaches and tropical seas, but instead, the lounge at Gatwick North Terminal. Or, ‘home’ as we call it.

Happy, unexpected cos I thought I’d be on a plane, Thursday,

A xxxx