My jet set life continues – I headed to Luton Airport to fly to my gig in Galway. Sometimes I feel like I spend my whole life in airports. And then I remember it has just been Monday and Wednesday this week and Sunday and Monday last week. Still.
Once through security, having had my computer meticulously scanned (though it doesnÂ’t seem to have fixed its continuing problems - back to the store on Friday to see if they can do anything about those) I had a couple of hours to kill. I bought a memory stick at Dixons as I was wary of losing my recent work. It came wrapped in one of those impenetrable plastic containers that Grumpy Old Men and rubbish comedians are fond of complaining about. However hackneyed the observation, it is true. They are impossible to open. The packaging advised that I use a pair of scissors to get to the product, but then I had just bought it at an airport and gone through a security screening process which did not allow me to bring anything sharp into the area. I went back into the shop to ask the assistant if he had any. "Not strong enough to open it with your bare hands?" he asked, which I thought was a bit rude and undermining. Especially as he then used a blade to cut open the front. "Not strong enough to open it with your bare hands?" I should have said. But I didn't.
And if that man is allowed to have a blade passed the security gates, what is to stop him giving it to a terrorist? Or a terrorist just to know he has it and to steal it from him? If you are a terrorist, the man in Dixons has a blade you could steal.
I thought a little bit about the security guards who had let the 9/11 bombers through with their box cutters, wondering if they had even noticed the box cutters and thought, "Box cutters, that's a bit weird. Fifth one today too! Ah well!" and now spend every waking minute wishing that they had thought to say something before the planes took off. But maybe back then everyone had a box cutter and a porn mag in their hand luggage.
The flight was quick and unexceptional. The woman next to me was slurping a little noisily on a Polo, but I managed to control my annoyance and get one with rescuing my files and finishing off a treatment for a potential book. I kept my head down and didn't interact with anyone in this strange metal tube. It is the British way.
The landing though, was rather cack handed. The plane hit the runway much too hard, as if it had been clumsily dropped out of the sky and then veered side to side as the pilot attempted to compensate for his error. For a second I wasn't sure what was going to happen and let out a short, but audible groan of concern. But everything ended happily. Yet clearly the passengers around me had been similarly momentarily panicked and the Polo sucking woman pulled a relieved face at me. I commented that that had been a bit of a bumpy one and the man in front of me turned round and nodded and smiled. Even though weÂ’d been on the plane for over an hour without acknowledging each other's existence, having been through a sixtieth of a minute of mild panic together meant we had shared something vital and because of the minor error of the pilot we were sort of friends now.
In the baggage retrieval area I happened to pass the Polo sucker again and she smiled broadly at me. It's funny how a small glimpse of someone elseÂ’s humanity can make us change our whole perspective on them. We had shared a flicker of fear and now we were friends, if not for life, then at least until we were out of the confines of the airport. Maybe the pilot did it all on purpose, knowing it would bring us together.
