I wish to complain about the airport. Every fucking airport in the world. And, before you accuse me of hyperbole, I have visited EVERY SINGLE ONE. The lot. Because they all suffer from the same pitiful inadequacies. Exemplified by here, today, at Tenerife airport. And the problem is: there’s too many people here. And not just any people, really scummy, holidaying Brit type people. And trust me, I’m no snob. I would never judge a man by his face-full of tattoos any more than I would by his replica football shirt (away colours). I grew up in Ilford, FFS, I couldn’t even spell ‘princess’ til I was 19, let alone act like one. But when I’m stuck in the endless queuing system of queuing systems which we call ‘air travel’, I can’t help but examine my surroundings. And those with whom I share them temporarily.

The Island of Tenerife is neatly divided into two parts. Not, as travel agents would have you believe, into the north and the south, but in fact into the ‘posh’ and the ‘scuzzy’. Yet at the airports these two groups are forced to converge so they can fleetingly breathe the same horrible recycled air for the duration of BA 7463 and then diverge once more upon landing. Separating back into their life’s paths, with no more choice than salmon returning to where they were born, in order to spawn. So as we speed off back to the leafy confines of North London in our environment-nurturing, battery-powered sense of superiority, ‘they’ get picked up in their brother-in-law’s Transit van which isn’t allowed within 36 miles of London due to the excess diesel fumes it spews out in second gear, to chug them back to a trailer-park in Milton Keynes. I’m not saying it’s the correct order of things, it’s just what it is.

Before we’re allowed on the aircraft there’s the essential ‘water-dance’, without which the plane can’t take off. It’s quite a simply dance really. Here’s what you do: you get to the airport and you’re forced to discard the bottle of water which kept you hydrated on the ride there. Then after you’ve done the queuing thing, then the hokey-kokey and turned around, you go buy a new bottle of water. It may look like the one you’ve just thrown away but it’s not. It’s ‘safe’. Bought from ‘air side’, thus has no toxins, ricin, nitroglycerin, nerve agents, chemical warfare shit or other military grade explosives. Just water. But such pure and wonderful water that you can ONLY buy it if you have a valid boarding pass for a flight. It’s distilled from the urine of pre-pubescent Unicorns. Which is why it always costs 3 times the price of that ‘land side’ rubbish. Fair enough. Presumably the boarding pass is so the water is ‘duty free’, because the import tax on Unicorn’s urine is 82%, as everyone knows.

And now I’m home. And it is fucking cold. I’m going back. Where’s my bottle of airside water?

Happy Thursday

A xxxx