Airport Etiquette

Michelle and I have come away on holiday for a few days.

This has meant we have had to get on a plane. This in turn means we have had to go to an airport. In this case; Heathrow.

What is it about airports that turns normaly sane, rational and polite people into utter morons incapable of thinking outside of their own selfish wants and needs?

Today I have seen Brownian motion in action with people. They wander round the departure lounge in seemingly random directions with no sense of direction ;indeed no sense, and get in other people's way seemingly deliberately; certainly with no thought whatsoever for the consequences of their actions. I talk here, of course, of 'Homo Airportensis' a category of Homo Sapiens, with very little of the Sapiens. I have seen goldfish move around with more thought and purpose than these primitive creatures. The humble mollusc has more social awareness. Show these beings a duty free shop and all pretence of civilisation disappears. They do have self awareness, more like a two year old, but any resemblance to a human being is quickly dispersed once a bargain is spotted in the numerous emporia in the terminal building.

I sometimes wonder whether the building is aptly named; in that we are witnessing the terminal decline of human beings.

Fortunately my torture is short lived and we are directed towards th gate where our flight will depart. Unfortunately my fellow passengers are also pointed in this direction. How do the ground staff cope with the incessant flow of idiots, who think they have to get on the plane before anyone else. The social inadequacies come to the fore again. Don't these people realise that,once they and their luggage have been checked in the plane will not depart without them unless they stubbornly refuse to board that is.

The staff had tried to assert some form of control over the flying public and so tried to have the passengers board in a particular order. We were, of course, the lowest of the low and were amongst the last to be called. We saw our more fortunate fellow travellers depart on a bus marked Helsinki. I was slightly worried here, was this a bus replacement service? If so, it was very crowded and there appeared to be no toilet facilities. A three day journey seemed out of the question really. My dismay turned to relief, when the bus we were on stopped at a parked aircraft and the contents of the bus disgorged itself towards the steps leading into the plane.

We are now firmly ensconced in our hotel room in Helsinki where I a writing this. We are both looking forward to the next few days, though I think that I really ought to have applied for a few more credit cards.

I would have liked to be able to travel over to Turku during this trip to some good friends. Unfortunately I don't think that is possible this time. The good news though is that I may well be going there for work fairly soon.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day and this time there will be a different sort of Brownian motion. This is Homo Shoppingensis, a species dominated by the need to shop, and almost uncontrollable when the word 'Ale' (Finnish for sale)appears in the shops.
We arrived safely, went to our first restaurant of the holiday an finished in the bar on the top floor of the Torni Hotel.

We are both looking forward to the rest of the holiday and the great food and drink. We will, naturally, also be experiencing all the culture Helsinki has to offer, Fazer chocolate, ice hockey and Koskenkorva.

After a few Kosus, I think we will probably indulge in a little Brownian motion of our own, trying to get back to the hotel.

The Countdown has started

Only a few days to go now and I will be on holiday.

In the meantime, however, I'm still in Dundee commissioning. We're close to the end of this stage and should be finished by the time I get away on Tuesday. Once in production there shouldn't be too much standby, so by the time I get home from holiday there should be a brief free couple of weeks before the next phase for some golf.

I'm really looking forward to the break and the chance to lose some more balls. Hopefully the weather won't be too bad. There will be a couple of trips to the driving range required, I've almost forgotten how to swing a golf bat. Once I come back up to Scotland the days will be getting longer and the opportunity to play here will arise. Fortunately there's plenty of room in the boot of the car for the clubs.

I also can't wait to see Michelle, I've really missed her, and the rest of the family of course. We bought our iPads so that we could use FaceTime to keep in contact , but unfortunately the wifi in the hotel has been poor and we've been unable to use it. With any luck when I come back next time I'll be in a room with better reception.

There has also been very little time to blog, and certainly nothing really interesting to blog about. No exploits down the pub, I've been really boring and generally getting back to my room between 9 and 10 o'clock, and even staying in 3 nights a week! A far cry from when I last did this job, a combination of age and a desire not to look like a barrage balloon.

Tonight I've got back early, hence the blog, the downside is that I'm going back into work for tonight's run. It's an important one so there will be two of us in, hopefully we won't be too late as we're back into work tomorrow morning.

Still it will be one day closer to home,