Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 24 July 2004

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

issue 24 July 2004

Dear Mary

Q. I am commuting to Italy most weekends this summer and, unlike Charles Dunstone, am an ‘Easy’ rather than a ‘Net’ jet user. What do you suggest I do when without asking the passenger in front tips his seat back into my face? I have thought of various measures such as prevention — walking to my seat with a stick pretending to have a bad leg — or revenge — allowing runny honey to drip down the back of the seat. Or should I accept the growing ‘pikeyness’ of air travel? Cabin staff seem to be there to extract cash from passengers and enforce the increasingly draconian rules and my remonstrations are usually met with blank astonishment.
M E-J., Paris 7eme

A. Ask the offender pleasantly whether, before he settles down, he could see if he has a spare sick bag in the pouch in front of him.

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