Like A Virgin

I'm not a great fan of flying, but I do love to travel. If I could be beamed from place to place, as in Star Trek, it would suit me just fine.

One of the things I hate about flying is hanging around airports for hours on end. The current obsession with security seems to give the airports carte blanche to insist on you turning up ridiculously early. I suspect this has less to do with the War on Terror than it has to do with giving you the opportunity to buy more gadgets you never realised you needed in Duty Free Dixons and yet another overpriced greasy bacon roll at one of the airport eateries.

We never fly anything other than tourist class, so the second thing I hate about flying is spending interminable hours with my knees millimetres from the back of the seat in front, and my nose inches from the head rest of the selfish sod in front who has decided that he really needs to recline his chair to the max.

The third thing I hate about flying is what the airlines laughingly call "food". Banging elbows against those of the folk on either side, you wrestle to get into the little plastic bags of unidentified nutrients, or prize the lid off a rectangular tray of indeterminate sludge which you are told was carefully crafted by some overpaid celebrity chef. I've had a few pretty awful airline meals in my time but none quite as bad as the one described by this Virgin Airline passenger.

Maybe I need to complain more?