Tuesday 15 August 2006

Hell is entirely relative

The other day, I overheard someone tell someone else to "Go to hell!" And, instead of quivering in fear, the other person (or the damnee, as we shall call him) merely laughed. "Ha ha!" he exclaimed. "Suits me! That's where all the cool people go!" But he's wrong because, you see, hell is relative.

There seem to be two schools of thinking on what hell is all about. The traditional idea of hell, as preferred by bible bashers and Catholic priests the world over, is a place made of fire and brimstone; a place of eternal agony and torment for murderers and people who don't eat their vegetables.

In some versions of the story, the place is guarded by a three-headed dog called Cerberus. In other versions, the place is ruled by Satan, images of whom range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The one common theme throught the various versions of the religious hell is that, once damned, you will spend eternity being flogged with a cat o' nine tails and being forced to commit unholy acts, such as work as a telephone operator, or ungodly chores, such as washing Hitler's underwear after curry night. And guess what? Every night is curry night in hell! Muhahaha!

The other more modern and trendy school of thought on hell is that hell is where all the cool people go. This really annoys me. Hell is not a biker bar with unlimited free booze and a fantastic jukebox, where you can still smoke and shoot pool, and which is full of cool people like Jimi Hendrix and Bill Hicks.

You see, the whole concept of hell is that it's supposed to inflict pain and suffering on the person who's been damned, and we all know that one man's heaven is another man's hell. Therefore, hell is relative. Ipso facto.

From dictionary.com:

hell ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hel) n.

1. a. often Hell. The abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan.
b. A state of separation from God; exclusion from God's presence.

2. The abode of the dead, identified with the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades; the underworld.

3. a. A situation or place of evil, misery, discord, or destruction: War is hell (William Tecumseh Sherman).
b. Torment; anguish: went through hell on the job.

Hell is the absolute worst case you can imagine. And then some. So, to picture your own personal hell, here's what you need to do: (1) Think of the worst place in the world. The one place where you would give anything not to be right now. (2) Think of all the people you'd be more than happy never to see ever again. (3) Think of the one activity that you would sell your left kidney never to have to do ever again.

Now, imagine being in that place, with those people, doing that activity, FOREVER.

Congratulations. Now you know what hell will be like when you go there.

For me, hell would be sitting in my office, with my boss constantly interrupting me, trying to edit the typeface on a huge report that I've been working on for months, but he keeps making changes to the report, and I have to keep going back over it to update the font. He's constantly making crap and/or sexist jokes, and asking me inane questions about reports that I completed months ago, and then getting pissed off when I don't know the answer straight away. For eons and eons and eons.

So, yeah, I'm pretty much already there. I knew I shouldn't have laughed at Denis Leary's Jesus joke.

So, remember kids, the next time someone tells you to go to hell, don't flash the smug grin and make some lame joke about how you'd be more than happy to go and drink tequila with Bill. Because hell, for you, is more likely to be a New Kids on the Block reunion concert. In Milton Keynes. And, trust me, you really don't want to go there.

Wednesday 2 August 2006

Heaving on a jet plane - Part III

The pilot eventually shut up, and we only had to sit on the tarmac for another ten minutes or so before he started driving over towards the runway. Of course, because we were so late taking off, we had missed our scheduled take-off window, and had to sit there watching all the other planes take off for sunnier climes before we were allowed go.

Finally, hurtling down the runway at over 100 miles an hour, I began to relax. I picked up my book and started reading. The sound of the wind rushing past drowned out the sounds of quiet chatter from the other passengers, and I snuggled down into my seat, delighting in the fact that for the next forty minutes or so, I could read uninterrupted.

And then the trolley dollies started making their announcements.

"Please remain seated... blah...."

"We will shortly begin our snack service.... blah blah....."

"We have a range of duty free..... blah blah blah....."

Of course, all announcements are made in some Eastern European accent which, I'm sorry to say, is difficult to understand at the best of time, let alone when it's at ear splitting volume. I've noticed that PA systems on airplanes have only two volumes - the barely audible mutter and the ear-bleed-inducing piercing screech. And the trolley dollies always seem to use the latter.

I always find it quite funny when you see these trolley dollies, on the short-haul flights, trying to flog as much booze/tea/coffee/sandwiches/snacks/duty-free as possible in thirty minutes. As soon as the plane is in the air, they're up out of their seats, getting their trollies ready. Then they whip up the aisles asking "Any drinks or snacks? Any drinks or snacks?" but not actually watching the passengers to see their reactions. I don't know how many times I've thought "Oh, I could murder a cup of tea and a Twix" and then tried, in vain, to get the dollies attention before they speed walk past my row. I've only ever managed to catch the guy's attention once. I've since given up.

Incidentally, the 'hot' drink selection only has two options also - it's always either luke warm or scalding. Anyway, if they do deign to look at you, as soon as they've handed you the cup, they're on their way back down the aisle, clearing up as "We're now ready for landing." So you have to neck back the scalding cup of tea whilst the trolley dolly stands beside you, tapping her foot with impatience, waiting for you to hand her your empty cup. But, wait! Before we land we'd like to offer you a chance to purchase some of our fantastic duty-free perfumes or booze, or maybe you'd like a scratch card? There's plenty of time for that! Ever heard a north-Dublin trolley dolly trying to sell J-Lo's new perfume? No? It's worth taking a trip on Ryanair for that alone.

Let's hope her salary isn't commission based.

But I digress.

The pilot, in fairness to him, made up some of the lost time and the flight only took about 40 minutes in total. Before long, we were beginning our descent into Southampton. The descent was surprisingly smooth, considering the massive thunder and lightening storms around the whole of Southampton. So I was really, really surprised when the pilot then whalloped the plane down onto the tarmac. I'm sure it must have been his first time landing a plane. There's no other excuse for such recklessness. I could have done it better myself, and I'm a girl! All around us, people gasped and gripped their arms rests with white knuckles, and I'm not ashamed to say I was doing the same. That was one of the worst landings I've experienced in a while.
Is it just me, or have airlines decided not to bother training their pilots how land airplanes anymore?

Anyhoo, two days later, I'm back at the airport for my return flight. I got to the airport about two hours early, but figured I'd connect to the wireless network and waste some time on Myspace, have a beer, etc. Southampton airport is pretty small, and once you've checked in, the only place to go to is the departures lounge. There's not a whole lot else to do there.
So, I went through security with no problems (*gasp!* I know! But I never have any problems in S'ton! Weird, innit? Hmm...) and looked around for the wireless 'hot spot'. And there it was, upstairs, right below the huge glass skylights with the sun beaming down through them. Somebody really didn't think that through when designing the place.

"Let's see.... where could we put the computer corner? Oh, I know! Let's put it over here in direct sunlight so none of the nerds can see their laptop screens! What a great idea! And when they go to sit down, they'll scorch their cord-covered arses on the really hot metal seats! Hahahah, fuckin' nerds....!"

On second thoughts, perhaps they knew exactly what they were doing.

Anyway, before I got my computer all hooked up, I decided to get a beer as it was really hot that day, and the old air conditioning wasn't really up to much. I went upstairs to the restaurant-type place, and queued for about five minutes. When I got to the counter, I ordered my beer, which came to £3.80. I handed the lady my company credit card (natch) to pay for it, and she then informed me that there's a £4 minimum when paying with plastic. Why? There just is. But I'm only 20p under. Sorry, ma'am, no can do.

So I had to hold up the entire rest of the sweating, hungry, cranky queue whilst I searched for something to add to my beer to bring the total up to, or beyond, £4. Didn't feel like eating anything (remember kids, eating is cheating!), but eventually I found a bottle of water, paid for my drinks, and scurried away before anyone tried to poke me in the eye with a fork. Having thought about it, perhaps I should have just ordered another beer. Damnit brain!

The plane was only delayed by half an hour this time. My taxi driver only got lost twice on the way from the airport to my house. He insisted that he knew all these shortcuts, and I didn't complain as the taxi was paid for by the company. But I did get a bit pissed off when he, yet again, I told him to go straight on, but he insisted on taking a right as "it's waaaaaay quicker than going straight on". Then we'd get to a junction and he'd turn around, eyeball me impatiently and say "Well, where do I go now?" I swear, I was beginning to think the whole trip was one big Candid Camera set-up.

And, do you know what the best part of all of this is? Can you guess? Yep, I get to do it all over again next week! Woo hoo!

Ok, that's out of my system now. Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

Tuesday 1 August 2006

Heaving on a jet plane - Part II

Having survived the ritual humiliation of getting felt up by the butch female security guard, I now had to face the gut-wrenching wait for the muppets to announce which gate my flight would be leaving from. I hate this part because they usually only post up the gate number about 20 minutes before the plane is scheduled to leave, and then everyone rushes down to the gate and you end up standing there for ages and every time I swear to myself that I'm not going to do it, that this time I'm not going to run down there like a lunatic, and then every time I panic and think "If I don't run to Gate 11 this very minute, the plane will take off without me." Of course, it never does.

And then you spend the next forty minutes trying to surreptitiously shuffle closer and closer to the desk where they check your tickets so that you'll be the first on the plane as if it was some sort of prize; as if spending half an hour longer sitting in that cramped metal tube waiting for the rest of the morons to board was some sort of goal that leads to inner enlightenment once achieved.

Anyway, they announced the gate, and I dutifully trundled along with my fellow passengers. Luckily there weren't too many taking this flight, so there were plenty of seats to spare. The flight wasn't due to board for another five minutes or so, so I took a seat. And waited. And I waited a bit more. I took out my book and started distractedly flicking through it, thinking there's no point in getting stuck into it, as we'll be boarding any time soon.

Aaaaaaaaaany minute now.

Oooh! There's the trolley dolly, I mean, air hostess. We must be boarding soon.

Then I looked out the window and noticed that there was no airplane. And my heart sank. I understand that if you're going to pay budget prices for your flights then you have to expect budget services. But I am shit sick of waiting for the damn plane to show up. This seems to happen every time I fly on a low budget airline. And it's not as if the tickets are that cheap either! I was only flying to Southampton, but it still cost me (well, the company) almost £150. I'm tired of budget airlines thinking they can treat passengers like cattle just because we refuse to pay astronomical prices for the privilege of being given an actual seat number with a bigger airline. If your don't have the fleet numbers to be able to provide airplanes at the allotted time, then change your fucking timetable. If you only have three airplanes, and you're offering ten flights a day between London and Paris, then you really need to rethink your business plan.
Anyway, the trolley dolly announced that they were still waiting for the plane (duh) as it had been late taking off from its previous destination, and there would be a 15-minute delay (yeah right) and that they apologise sincerely for any inconvenience this might cause (uh huh, sure).

Then my boss arrived. I prayed to all the gods I could think of that, just this one time, they would grant me super-chameleon powers so I could blend in with the awful upholstery of the chair I was sitting on, so that he wouldn't see me and he'd walk on by. The gods did not look favourably upon me (I don't blame them, really. I'm not a very nice person). He came over and sat right beside me and, whilst trying to block out his noise, I stared daggers at the trolley dolly in a vain attempt to let her know that this is all her fault and, come judgment day, she'll be first against the wall.

The plane eventually arrived, only forty minutes after we were supposed to actually depart, which was about five minutes before we were due to land in Southampton, had everything gone to plan. We had to wait another twenty minutes or so for the arriving passengers to get off the plane, then for the pilot to have his regulation cup of tea, then for the throwers, I mean, 'baggage handlers' to load the luggage onto the plane, and then we were allowed to board.

When we were all settled and seat-buckled in, the pilot made an announcement over the PA, apologising for the delay but saying that it was due to a technical fault before they took off in Southampton. He then proceeded to describe said fault, in almost excruciating detail, which I find completely unnecessary. Again, this is something I find completely irrational in the wake of 9/11. Before the terrorist attacks in the USA, pilots would never discuss this kind of stuff.

They'd never tell you that the reason they were late taking off is because they had no power on the plane when they were on the ground in Southampton because they couldn't find a power cable to go into the ground and therefore couldn't switch the engines on, and when someone eventually found the power cable, they then realised that they had an electrical fault with some of the equipment in the cockpit and they had to wait for someone to find an engineer to take a look at it, and then when the engineer arrived he had to go off again to find some part to fix the problem. And all this had made them late taking off.

No, the pilot would never have told you that. He would have said that some passenger was too pissed to board, so they'd chucked him off and had to wait to find his bags in the cargo hold before they could depart. That's a nice, comfortable, safe lie.

This era of FTMFI (that's 'far too much fucking information' for those of you who don't deal in acronyms) is starting to carry over into other industries too. A few weeks ago, I was on the train to London and we had to stop for half an hour whilst the driver explained in minute detail why he couldn't continue on the track because someone had thrown something onto it, and then explained all the possible accident scenarios that could have happened, had he not stopped in time in front of this obstruction.

And I know why they do it too. They're just trying to pass the buck. They're ensuring that people know it's not their fault that the plane/train/whatever is late departing. They're doing all they can. In fact, if they could, they'd just pile everyone into their own car and drive us to our destination; that's how nice the pilot/driver is. But, you know, company regulations, blah blah blah. So, instead, here's a whole lot of technical info which proves that I'm not making this up and the situation really is out of my hands.

But, all that does is make me wonder, well, even if they do find a power cable and plug the plane in so he can start the engines, what happens when we take off? Is the cable long enough to make it to Southampton? How can they make power cables that long? What happens if it snaps? Or comes out of the ground? Is the pilot planning on freewheeling it all the way to the other end of the country? Those are not things I want to think about on an airplane. Neither do I want to start thinking about the 'real' electrical problems they're having in the cockpit (i.e., that the co-pilot has spilt her coffee all over the dials and they're currently arguing about the best way to remove it), and how that might possibly affect the functioning of the plane.

Too much information. We don't need it. Stop telling us that kind of stuff.