I’ve found the answer.
Not sure precisely what the question is, but the answer is painfully obvioius, simple, elegant and achieved by a laterality of thinking that would make Edward de Bono proud.

London is the centre of the world. Well, certainly of my world. And, according to reports, of many other people’s too. So many of them in fact that we can’t get them here and then home again efficiently enough. So we need increased airport capacity for flights. I’m particularly concerned that there are sufficient flights available to deport all the Albanian and Rumanian shoplifters due for arrival here next year. And that drug mules can land here when they arrive back from Peru and Columbia with 7 kilos of Nigella’s finest.

We need more runways. They are the limiting factor. You can build as many terminals at Heathrow as you like but unless you can get more planes on and off the ground all you’re doing is creating shopping malls. Really cold, sterile ones with shoddy restaurants disguised as ‘fine dining and out within 12 minutes’.

Whereas building a new runway increases the number of flights. So Beijing has 9 runways, Germany has a shit load, all civilised countries have seemingly dozens of the things, but at Gatwick and Heathrow combined we currently have just 3. And personally I don’t count Gatwick as ‘London’, more as ‘Hell’.

So Boris Johnson wants to build an Island, Boris Island (vain git), in the Thames Estuary, that can house loads of runways. But its basically North Kent which suffers from Gatwick Syndrome in that most important Londoners live in the north of the city, often the western reaches thereof, and Kent is a royal pain to get to. You’d basically want to fly there. From Heathrow.

There’s also the minor problem that building this proposed ‘island’ would cost 112 billion of your English pounds. So double that for a more realistic estimate (including paint, toilet rolls, etc) and that’s a quarter of a trillion quid.

Whereas putting a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick is ‘easy’. You get those Irish guys who build you a driveway for 500 quid and just tell them to make it a bit longer than usual. Won’t last long but its cheap. Though several small villiages need to be removed to accommodate the new build. So what? We have thousands of small villiages, they’re a bloody nuisance, that’s why G-d invented bulldozers.

Then there’s the noise. Well I’m sorry, you can’t be an international super-Country jetting in millions of world leaders in commerce and artistry if the sound of 28 superjets a minute flying over your house bothers you a little bit. Don’t be so fucking selfish. Why’s it always about YOU???

Anyway, runways, jets, noise, compulsory purchase, mass demolition, the ruination of the countryside, Boris Johnson; its all a big problem.

The answer is verticle take-off. Like the old Harrier jump-jet, bless it. Then you simply don’t need runways. You can take off and land anywhere. Your holiday would end when the pilot asks your address so he can land in your garden. Your mother-in-law can do the customs bit. Get rid of St Paul’s Cathedral and turn the plot into a jet-landing site right in The City itself. Brilliant.

Where’s Boris’s phone number?

Happy wednesday

A xxxx