At first glance, the proposed crackdown on the sale and consumption of alcohol in British airports seems a no-brainer. Why should airport staff or plane crew be forced to deal with abusive or violent passengers? In an era of critical security issues, why should police time be wasted on inebriates? Does it enhance the journey when people have alcohol-fuelled “disagreements” in their seats or someone vomits into their cupped hands on take-off?
On this note, I’d like to apologise for my past misbehaviour. In retrospect, it was a bad idea to ask the airport bar guy for a Jack Daniel’s with the mixer of… two more Jack Daniel’s. To decant vodka into an Evian bottle as a precaution against flight attendants ignoring us. To spend transatlantic red-eyes ranting drunkenly about relationship disasters (that were never my fault, oh no!).
And while there’s a tendency to look back on the time when you were allowed to drink and smoke on planes as a study in Mad Men-style elegance, I belatedly accept that this bears little resemblance to what usually happened: over-ordering drinks, lighting up duty-free fags so often that your seat resembled a hazy micro-climate, rising from said seat with as much plastered dignity as you could muster to weave to the loos, occasionally clutching sleeping strangers’ heads for balancing purposes, sometimes falling on to sleeping strangers, and so on…
Irritating, right? Who’d want to sit next to that? Not me, not any more, but that’s the point – my misbehaviour mainly occurred back in my music hack/“rock chick” days. I’m older now, officially no fun any more, firmly at the “tut, tut, I judge you” stage of the human life cycle.
But just because I’m resolutely past it where alcohol and flying is concerned, does this mean that everyone else has to fall in line? Moreover, are we all supposed to pretend not to notice the unlovely whiff of class contempt swirling around this planned curbing of public hedonism?
To my mind, this proposed legislation seems largely aimed at youthful and/or working-class travellers, with an unexpressed but palpable nod to wayward hen parties, disorderly stag outings, raucous festivals or the kind of package deals that offer two weeks of all-inclusive, unbridled misbehaviour in the sun with your post-Brexit depleted euros.
One can more readily endorse other restrictions on drinking. These proposals came in the same week that a Latvian Air Baltic pilot was sentenced to six months in jail for attempting to fly while seven times over the legal limit. Which, I read, is a very rare occurrence, though “rare” doesn’t sound that soothing when planeloads of passengers are involved.
Elsewhere, there’s a study reporting a rise in middle-class people taking class A drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy and a drop in working-class people doing it. Which raises interesting issues – sometimes perhaps it’s not about the illegality of what you consume, rather the setting in which you do it and whether you’re a public nuisance.
But is this yet more class-based hypocrisy, with an element of the “right” and “wrong” kinds of hedonism? I couldn’t care less if middle-class people perk up their dull dinner parties with a bit of toot. However, I do feel that this quasi-acceptable brand of “sophisticated” illegality could bear contrasting with legal drinkers in airports, most of whom, remember, don’t cause trouble.
Isn’t this what’s going on here – proposed legislation that affects everybody, but is actually an attempt to target and control people who have been outrageously pre-branded as “out-of-control lairy proles”? I repeat, it’s never right for airport staff, flight crew or anyone else to be drunkenly abused or attacked.
However, that’s a totally separate issue to people merely drinking. Most manage to do so without committing any criminal or antisocial acts or even being as profoundly irritating as I used to be.
Let’s do it, let’s put Victoria Wood on a pedestal
Victoria Wood’s brother, Chris Foote Wood, is proposing a statue of the comedy genius, who died in April, in her home town of Bury. He envisages it in the style of the Eric Morecambe statue on Morecambe promenade, featuring Wood at her piano or in her mac and beret.
While there’s dark talk of crowdfunding, I hope that Bury council is able to stump up for this. I was going to ask of whom Bury could possibly be prouder. As it happens, Bury has been fairly stuffed with notable people, including Robert Peel, who already has a statue, Danny Boyle, Dodie Smith and footballers Gary and Phil Neville.
However, Wood occupies a cherished place in the communal British heart. As with that other recent devastating loss – Caroline Aherne – Wood was an ordinary woman who proved to be extraordinary; even as her talent took her to great heights and new places, she still managed to remain true to her roots.
Personally, I’d be satisfied only if Bury immortalised the entire Acorn Antiques cast in the town square, but never mind me. Whatever form the statue takes, come on, Bury, let’s do it.
Walking back to happiness? It’s easy
The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has expressed concern about a study that says that average walking levels have fallen by more than a third in the past three decades. Hunt sports a Fitbit to track his steps, though sadly it’s proving inefficient at monitoring the calories burned while grovelling to Theresa May to keep his job.
The slide in how much we walk is an issue that goes beyond health. On top of my sedentary job, I’d classify myself as fairly bone idle – I’m often surprised not to find a thick web forming between myself, the sofa and the television.
However, I don’t drive (too stupid to learn), so I’ve always walked pretty much everywhere, whatever the weather, within manageable distances, and I’ve made my children do the same.
Some people are amazed that I’m happy to plod about like this. I, in turn, am astonished by some of their short car journeys as well as the way that hordes of commuters are happy to stand waiting for a bus that is nearing the end of its route.
While I’ve been the grateful recipient of many a lift, I find this bus-behaviour mystifying. If you can walk, why not do it? Why would anybody choose a rammed bus over the blessed autonomy of their own two feet?
Some people need to realise that those long flesh-and-bone things hanging from their torsos are there for a reason, other than as a place to hang their jeans and display their shoes. With all the exhibitionist displays of public fitness going on (cycling, jogging), it seems strange and sad that the easiest, quietest, most enjoyable form of exercise of all could be grinding to a halt.
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Airport drinks ban? What a joyless prospect | Barbara Ellen
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