Having a child growing up in Italy means regular flights there and back from Stansted airport. This is unfortunate, as I find nearly any other form of transport preferable. It isn’t so much the flying itself – I lack the imagination to envisage what it really means to hover 38,000 feet above the earth in a fragile aluminium tube – but the malarkey which surrounds it. I am talking about airports: getting to them, getting through them, getting out of them. The tunnel of trauma, the concentrated drudgery, the dismal, dehumanising price you must pay for your place in the sun.
The passport gate takes your picture as you pass through and thoughtfully flashes it back to you so you can see how shagged out you look
Naturally, the only flight I can afford leaves at the worst time of day – usually around 7 a.m. – which means, since I live outside London, getting a night coach to the airport.
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