Quote of the Day

"You know the rule of departure queues: the longer the line, the better natured and politer the queue. Economy disappears into the distance, made up of passive people chatting quietly and reading books. Business class is 15 snappy irked souls, hissing at stroppily overdressed toddlers and kicking too much matched suede luggage with a pursed fury. The first-class desk, with its vase of real flowers, has a queue of one: a woman carrying a £4,000 handbag, venting a tantrum that would shame a dyspraxic two-year-old in Hamleys...Martin Amis pointed out that if you walk the length of a plane, you’ll notice that the quality of the literature is in inverse relationship to the legroom. At the back, by the bogs, it’s Penguin Classics and new translations of Finnish magic realism. You travel up through television adaptations, historical fiction, romances, chick lit, molester childhoods, until you get to the beds in first, where it’s Hello! and Jeffrey Archer."
AA Gill on airports and airplanes