Slow Thoughts from Dale du Preez

After flying with British Airways on two Boeing planes, I must say that I find Airbus planes to be much more comfortable. The issue starts with legroom. I am 6’2″ and legroom isn’t only about comfort; it’s about me having enough room to fall asleep in. On the Airbus A340, I simply have more legroom. And then there is the issue of the personalised entertainment available on the Airbus. It may be that new Boeings also have it available, but the two that I flew on only offered scheduled viewing on small screens. Needless to say, I didn’t particularly enjoy my flights.

[End whining.] One of the other things I noticed while on my way back from SA was Terminal 4 at Heathrow Airport. It is, in fact, quite hard to avoid noticing Terminal 4 once you are inside. Well, it’s hard not to notice the stores that populate Terminal 4, if not the terminal itself. It’s hard not to notice stores like Cartier, Chanel, Swarovski and Harrod’s in an airport. From my experience of airports, this is not normal! There are normally places to east and a few places to buy jewellery and clothes, but they tend not to be quite as illustrious as the above names. People travelling by air are clearly wealthy to some extent, but I never expected to be classed with someone who would be buying a sparkly “trinket” from Swarovski. It was an odd sight, made twice as odd by the fact that I was already jet-lagged. Maybe that would contribute to people actually buying items from these stores, but I am not a psychologist, so I can’t answer that.

I can (and most probably will) remain mystified, however.