Terror At 30,000 Feet

15 September - Okay flight to Frankfurt - because we're leaving Thailand on a German carrier we have three languages to contend with. First there is the announcement in German, then in English (where they repeat the video if necessary) and finally in Thai (i'm pretty sure it's Thai but they don't get a video repeat). Stuck in the aisle but the legroom stretches out to infinity compared to some of the buses i've been travelling on so i'm not complaining. Avery bad whiskey was delivered up followed by a very nice dinner (at 2am Thai time, I have quite the feeling that i'll be suffering from bit of jetlag not having slept properly since Ko Phagna a few days ago). I still cannot understand why airport food is so bad and airplane food is so good (maybe not British Airways airplane food at the moment but generally it's all superb).
Caught on some newses before watching the movie (at around 4am) - The 'Fever Pitch' remake about a baseball tragic who falls in love the year the Red Sox broke the curse of the bambino. I thought it was pretty good, but really, it's got very little to do with the original other than the fact that it's a sports rom com (and I am biased towards sports rom coms). If it had been given a different title it would hardly be recognisable as the same film and it wouldn't invite comparisons to the original (which was good but not amazing). In any event, the Boston Red Sox triumph over an 80 something year losing streak is a bit more signficant than a 20 year one for Arsenal. In any event, a movie worth watching unlike the other one we had, Madagascar. The only fondness for that film I have is in its name as it reminds me of the Cambodian children quizzing me on its capital but other than that it's a complete waste of time (there are a few amuzing scatological jokes from the monkeys). I'm not sure exactly what the makers of this film are trying to tell the audience but it's obviously something along the lines of 'following the natural order is wrong'. A lion gets stranded on an island and starts to think of his friends as food - the other carnivores in the film are mutes with animal instincts and all the herbivores ar intelligent talking anthropomorphised beings - the other animals never accept that the lion is designed to eat them and the eventual solution is that the lion can eat fish (don't fish have feelings, too? Maybe not but then again, neither does a zebra). Other animated films have done this too, The land that time Forgot and Dinosaur (both by Disney, I think) were dinosaur films with intelligent talking herbivores and evil animal minded carnivores prowling them. Finding Nemo at least had intelligent sharks but these sharks had reformed and learned that eatingfish was bad; In babe, the dogs that attacked the sheep (following natural instincts mind you) evil - farm animals good and very talkative. And even in the films where the carnivores are intelligent they're always evil (Jungle Book, Shark Tale, even the seminal Animal Farm) I think that these films and stories send a very warped message to children - are they funded by a vegan lobby group or are the makers just trying to deny the reality that we're an evolved ecosystem that happens to have a food chain in?
In any event - i'm glad i'm at the top of it ...
The connecting London plane had some kind of problem so we had to wait for a replacement - lots of grey men in grey suits milling around the lounge - certainly makes business travel a lot less glamarous when you're waiitng for the plane and you're not business class - also, some woman wanted to sit with her daughter so I swapped seats with her and lo and behold she happened to be sitting in the very last row of the plane (with a spare seat to me so I think they're tryingsomething on) - the back of the plane feels the turbulence the most (not the first time i've taken pole position) and felt myself stomach roiling and I had no bag - luckily I kept it down ... So, London, here we come, aye???