Mrs. Masher and I have just got back from a dirty long weekend in Madrid.
We only had a couple of days to see the sights, because two days were taken up with getting there and getting back.
I know we all marvel at how aviation has made the world smaller… and it has: it only takes two hours to fly from London to Madrid.
But, either side of the flying bit, there is a whole load of shit to put up with. Getting to Heathrow airport first thing in the morning is no easy task, I’ll tell you, what with the traffic and then the parking and having to catch the shuttle bus.
Then there is the endless queueing: queueing to check-in; queueing for Passport Control; queueing for security; queueing at the gate and finally queueing on the plane to get your seat, while people with too much hand-luggage try desperately to squeeze it all into the overhead locker. And, what is it with that? Every airline states that each person is permitted to take on a single piece of hand-luggage, small enough to fit into that measuring thingy that everyone ignores, at the check-in desk. But, you always get these people stuck in front of you, as they try to squeeze their regulation sized hand-luggage into the overhead locker along with a rucksack the size of a Renault Clio – which, for some reason, was invisible to the check-in desk and the flight attendants when the passengers boarded the aircraft. And, once that’s all been forced in and the locker has been closed, they’ll produce two large plastic carrier bags with the words “Duty Free” emblazoned across them, full of vodka, whiskey and Toblerones, which have to somehow be squeezed in there too.
“One piece of hand luggage”, my arse!
And when you land at your destination, there is the same again, as everyone jumps to their feet as soon as the Fasten Seat Belt light goes out and then they stand in the aisle with their luggage for ten minutes. Then there’s Passport Control; Luggage Reclaim; finding the car rental place and filling in a dozen forms in triplicate.
It all takes an age. We left home at 7am and didn’t reach our hotel till 5pm.
By then, we were exhausted and needed a holiday.
I have a cunning plan that might help you next time you want to avoid queuing with the proletariat, just change your name to Philip Schofield and your assistant to Holly Willoughby and you should have no trouble.
If anyone complains that it’s not fair just tell them it’s ok as your a journalist reporting for masher.tv
That IS cunning, Awful Pewty!
I’ll do that next time.
Definitely.
Thanks for the tip.