Hot air
Boyd Farrow on what gets him hot under the collar
Who on earth buys those aggressively titled business books at airport shops? Books with titles like Sleep Is For Losers or Negotiate The Guantanamo Way. Even the shops in terminals that cater for people who cannot read their own tattoos have sections dedicated to these ball-busters. Are there really that many deluded drones out there that believe they will shuffle onto a metal tube wearing odd socks, and stride onto some foreign tarmac two hours later a captain of industry? Does anyone really think they’re going to impress their fellow passengers by burying their nose in Bludgeon Your Rivals To Death Before Breakfast? The majority of their fellow passengers struggle to digest an entire issue of Heat
Or maybe they expect some alpha male-craving flight attendant will supplement their sandwich with a phone number and an aide memoire too risqué for YouTube. In truth, all these fantasists are going to pull with their powerful new tome is a muscle, from trying to position it when the passenger in front tilts their seat back. Worse, they might give somebody else concussion when it topples out from an overhead locker.
Now that so much of our air travel has been democratised by low-cost carriers and robust security measures, the precious few items we are allowed to carry assume staggering importance. This is why every male who has ever fastened his top button will grip a copy of the Financial Times like their kid’s ransom note, yet would not feel the slightest urge to read it, even if there were room to do so. (Most men could circle Earth for months in a spaceship without picking up that issue of The Economist that NASA packed but if another astronaut sat down next to them they’d lunge for it like John Maynard Keynes trapped in the heavy metal tent at Roskilde.)
Likewise, every post-pubescent female will obsess about her luxuriously packaged collection of emollients and emulsifiers that are absolutely crucial to the flight and will continually douse herself with ostentatiously branded perfume, even though she knows that wearing pricey scent at 35,000 feet would be as pointless as wearing roller-skates even if the stewardess wasn’t enthusiastically charging down the aisle with bug-spray. The point is, of course, the label will immediately be noted by every other female of spritzing age, including those still on the ground.
This is the only reason people schlep their personal blankets, throws, pashminas, ponchos and cashmere socks onto aircraft – it has nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with inflicting emotional distress on less-swaddled fellow travellers. Then, of course, apart from the merely comfortable, there’s the comfortably numb – the faux hippie brigade, clutching vials of “essential” eucalyptus oils and lavender sachets as if they’re the only things keeping them airborne. Don’t these people think it’s a little too late to be awed by the natural. Hel-lo? You’re flying
Which leads us to the real emotional baggage. Forget the crocodile-skin holdalls, briefcases, handbags and washbags; the truly status-obsessed have crocodile-skin luggage tags to tie on them. They have crocodile tail slippers, crocodile teeth contact lens holders. And lots of little logoed pouches to encase their ego-boosting laptops, portable DVD players, iPods and Blackberries, sunglasses, air-purifiers and portable cooling fans. God alone knows what will happen in the near future when everyone is allowed to use their mobile phones on-board
The ironic thing, of course, is that, contrary to the principles of the business books, there can never be a winner in this escalating battle to impress our fellow passengers. Which is why the really wealthy and the really important travellers always appear so dishevelled you’d swear they had spent the night on a bench in the departure lounge.
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