Friday 21 August 2009

Too Considerate

I'm sitting in an airport lounge with a bag of pretzels and a glass of passable white wine (and if you are really interested, it is the FlyBE lounge at Birmingham International Airport) and I'm not looking forward to the flight.

I've been very lucky this year. Hardly any delays and I have frequently gotten a seat with nobody beside me. That means I can take my shoes off and stretch my legs even further than normal.

Recently, however, it has started to go wrong. I've had to sit beside randoms. Now, don't get me wrong, I like randoms as they can be entertaining. Not my recent randoms though. All alpha males! All arm rest hoggers!

I don't use the middle arm rest. It's not that I don't want it, it's just that it seems polite to allow the more needy the opportunity to use it. But most men seem to hog it regardless. AND IT IS WINDING ME UP!

Why are people so inconsiderate? Why can't people just be excellent to one another (to re-use a well worn phrase)?

So... I'm sitting in 7C tonight. I wonder who will be in 7D!
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Saturday 15 August 2009

What a hero...

Something happened to me today which I thought was quite extraordinary. I have watched many sit-coms set up a (supposedly hilarious) scene whereby the driver of a car gets out of his/her car without applying the hand-brake then watch in horror as their car starts rolling down a hill. The canned laughter is used to ensure that the viewing public are aware that this scene is supposed to be humorous despite the fact that it is plainly not.

I always thought it would be quite impossible for someone to get out of a car and to walk away before the car started to roll.

I was wrong.

A young girl, who had recently passed her traffic test if the 'R' plates on her wind-screen were anything to go by, got out of her Peugeot hatchback and walked along the pavement passed me. As I approached her car, it started to roll.

Without thinking, I stepped out on to the road and (eventually) stopped it crashing into a brand new Audi A4.

I felt very pleased with myself and really rather heroic especially as my daughters eyes lit up at the thought that I had done something so fantastic. Daddies are supposed to be heroes... and now I am :-)

Thursday 6 August 2009

Violated...

A medium-rare fillet steak, chips and pepper sauce was washed down by a bottle of Wolfblass Shiraz. The evening is a success - how could it not be with steak, chips and shiraz? I got back to my hotel room and found that The Commitments was being shown on the television. It gets better!

By the time I decided it was time for some shut-eye I figured I'd had a great night!

I found some soothing tracks on the iPod and plugged the headphones into..... into my head :-)

After just a couple of tracks, I was fast asleep.

For some reason, I woke at around 2:20am. I opened my eyes to find a silhouette of a man standing in the doorway. I didn't panic; I didn't assume that I was going to be robbed or violated; from what I recall, I didn't think ANYTHING.

I merely took off my headphones and the man said "you've left your car lights on".

Apparently, he had been knocking on the door for quite some time. The moral, don't fall asleep with headphones in.