Jean Paul Sartre memorably said: “Hell is other people.” Sartre must have been a frequent flyer. I’d go a step further than JP, for me Hell is the person in the airline seat next to you. These airborne irritants come in many shapes and sizes, and every business traveller knows them. There’s the Enormously Fat Person. The Bore. Smelly Socks. The Noisy Workaholic. The – I’ll be polite – Flatulence King. And just occasionally the I’m-Terribly-Famous-For-God’s-Sake-Don’t-Speak-To-Me, Celebrity.
I once sat, eyes glazed over on a BA leg to Bangkok, as a widowed grandmother from Derbyshire en route to Queensland told me not only her life story, but that of her daughter, Australian son-in-law, and their extended family. Complete with snapshots. Polite nods, eventual yawns, the arrival and departure of several meals, even me raising a large hardback book to my face couldn’t faze this lady. By the time I stumbled off in Thailand I could have gained a PhD in the life history of the Middletons, both the Matlock and Brisbane branches.
An empty seat next to you – especially if you’re slumming it in Economy – can be the promise of paradise. Until that final moment before they close the doors, and you clap eyes on a huge, portly individual, arms festooned with packages, waddling down the aisle, breathless and red-faced in search of a seat. Surely she can’t be sitting next to you? She is, matey. You just lost not only the elbow room next to you, but half your own too. She slumps and spreads like a collapsing sand dune, and you have no feeling on your squashed right side for two days.
Marginally less annoying – but still a pain – is The Workaholic. Hey, baby, he’s telling the world, only mortals need sleep. It may be 4am over Siberia and you’re trying to grab some shut-eye, but Mr Business Motivation 2006 has his light on, and so your attempts at sleep are soundtracked by the frantic chatter of the laptop keyboard, the rustling of papers from his voluminous briefcase and the less-than-sotto voce notes mumbled into his Dictaphone. Then there’s the guy with the – ahem – wind problem. He knows he’s done it, everyone else in the enclosed cabin certainly knows that he’s done it, and yet we are all forced by the norms of polite society to sit in silence while our nose hairs burn away.
And finally there are the minor celebs. I’ve got a message for them: If you think you’re so famous it’s a hassle mixing with the rest of us in First or Business Class then do us all a favour: Get your own plane! My professional life has thrust me unwillingly up against enough celebrities and their egos that I’ve no wish to ever meet another. So when I was comfortably ensconced in Virgin Upper, and one of the stars of The Full Monty suddenly appeared next to my seat, it was one for the Who-Gives-a-Damn department. But I’d forgotten I was a mere mortal. There was no “Excuse me, I need to sit next to you.” He simply grunted and pointed. I politely got up and let him sit down. He then did a Full Monty foot striptease. Off came his boots. Then his thick woolly socks. Maybe I’m overly olfactorily sensitive, but I detected a foot odour.
After settling in he gave me the kind of look that says: “Don’t you dare demand my autograph or even speak to me you nonentity.” I gave him one back that I hoped conveyed an utter lack of interest in either option. When he needed to go to the bathroom, he’d get up, grunt and make a gesture with his arm. The trauma of the celeb lifestyle had clearly prompted a regression to the communication skills of Cro-Magnon man. I was once on the same transatlantic flight as Chris Evans and his then wife Dr Who star Billie Piper. Snuggled under their blankets they slept cuddled up like Babes in the Wood. Aaah… But, bad news for anyone with hopes of sharing a blanket with the lovely Ms Piper – she snores.
To contact Stuart White email stuartwhite383@btinternet.com
