Taki Taki

Flying high

Broadsides from the pirate captain of the Jet Set

issue 18 June 2005

London

‘Where did it all go?’ asks Mark Steyn in the National Review, talking about airline service, or the lack of it, rather. Well, I read the piece before getting on a BA flight from the Bagel to London in order to prepare myself for the worst, and I had a very nice surprise as a result. Mind you, I had a first-class sleeper-bed and was lucky with my fellow passengers. Jeremiah O’Connor and his wife Joan are not your usual travellers. (Why, oh why, do slobs travel so much?) They were friendly, polite, quiet and had a sense of humour. I was obviously a little worse for wear when the real-estate tycoon introduced himself and told me he was an avid reader of The Spectator. It’s rare to find American tycoons reading the world’s greatest weekly, but Jeremiah (I love that name, it reminds me of 18th-century American patriarchs opening up the south-west) was very well versed in the Speccie.

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