With the single exception of the in- flight live map with its wonderfully eccentric ideas about the relative importance of towns and cities (what’s so special about Chartwell?), I don’t often use the in-flight entertainment systems on planes. I’m not sure I want to watch Avatar on a nine-inch screen — or on any screen, come to think of it. In fact I think it would be better if, a week before the flight, your airline just sent you a £10 Amazon voucher along with a few book recommendations.
In a way, the best improvement to in-flight entertainment has been the BBC’s and Sky’s creation of desktop software which means you can download television programmes to a PC. This means that, before your trip, you can download many hours of television to your laptop and then watch it at leisure while you’re abroad.
In my case this largely means programmes from BBC4 — a miraculous channel which seems to absorb little more than 1 per cent of the BBC’s budget while producing around half its worthwhile content.
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