The Plane Boss, the Plane....
Airports,
They can either be places of wonder vast ,modern buildings that are gateways to exotic places or small, cramped,hellish and filled with pictures of the East Midlands.Travelling to Spain, as we did recently, meant using a small one, one filled with pictures of the East Midlands.Please don't think I have a problem with anything Midlands related, I'm from them myself, it's just that big airport shoved into a small airport thing they have there.
It's me really, I have this thing about space, I like it, apart from when in bookshops which should be small and crammed by default. It doesn't work when everything that goes into a big place comfortably is crow barred into a small space, it highlights everything, including peoples' misery. It was early, we had a six o'clock flight ourselves so had been there since four in the morning, neither of us was a picture of freshness but some of the people I saw slumped and wedged into the one shape doesn't fit all seats that populate many public buildings these days, just made me think about railways stations in 1940's Europe and one way trips to places where work didn't really make everyone free, no matter what it said over the gateway. This of course was made all the more painful to witness due to the fact there were other people not twenty feet away laughing and drinking alcohol at five thirty in the morning. There's another thing, people undertaking that drinking early in the morning because they're on holiday ritual What is it about us that makes us do these things?. I couldn't, not now or any other time I could think of, except for one lost weekend in Bruge. As pointed out, in a large airport no problem, enough space for all acts to be played out but close together, it's just like tectonic plates slowly scraping against each other, juddering towards the inevitable earthquake, jarring, magnifying the cattle market like discomfort opposite and stuck between it all, there we stood, us and our boiled bacon bap that cost four pounds.
The most hellish of all things though, is the shopping experience. The prospect of seeing people stuck together like the contents of a forgotten bag of Jelly Babies is nothing to the concentrated sell of the high street in a box. From the moment of having to redress your self after discovering all your clothes now set off security metal detectors, you can shop, straight away...don't think about it!! Again, I'm not a complete hermit, I do enjoy some forms of shopping,looking for important things like rucksacks, books and second hand X Box games. I enjoy walking around and looking at things and observing people while they shop. I enjoy doing this in spacious open areas where I can let the flow of the day take me where it will. When it's decreased in size but not volume everything screams at me that a lot of the images we're given when shopping, images of the ideal in everything are just so much bullshit times ten.I was constantly reminded that the magazine I was buying wasn't part of the "Men's lifestyle" section because it said it in big blue letters over the ones that were. I don't have a lifestyle, certainly not a mans one, and I don't really want one either . Small duty free shops are matchless in giving a true picture of what it is to live in a consumer society. There's no disguising the intent behind of any of the images plastered over the shiny things for sale. This is the life you really want, buy it..
I'm griping and shouldn't be.I'm lucky to be able to go to different places.Many people don't have the choice, especially at this point in our uncertain times. I bought what I wanted and ignored the rest.
I just hope the man I saw, who had slumped so much in his seat, that I wasn't sure if he'd actually given up and decided to travel to the next world and not Europe had a good time where ever he went because we did.
I may have massive hang ups about the big sell in a small place but I love flying. Just don't get me started on the in flight safety information......
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