LIZ JONES: I've nearly been arrested TWICE while enduring the hell of flying (Give me a Knee Defender and it could be third time lucky)
A United Airlines plane had to be diverted last weekend after a cup of water was thrown over a male passenger who used a banned device called a Knee Defender – a pair of clips that lock the seat in front to prevent it being reclined.
This incident made headlines worldwide, and I have huge sympathy for the man who didn’t want his meal overshadowed by a woman in front of him who desired all the comfort of business class but was too cheap to pay for it.
I can’t think why more people aren’t enraged by air travel or why there are not more mutinies. My rage always begins to simmer at check-in when the automaton behind the desk finds the weight of her false eyelashes too great to raise her eyes.
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The Knee defender, pictured, consists of two small plastic clips which prevent the seat in front reclining
The worst offenders by far are easyJet employees, whose only focus seems to be to charge you more for carrying anything other than a credit card in your pocket. None of them speaks English, viz one young man who, on spying my bag, screamed: ‘Your caase. Eez saaaft! You deposit over THEYARE!’ before gesticulating that a soft bag (Ah! That’s what he meant!) needed to be checked in elsewhere, and that I should queue all over again in order to pay extra.
The attitude at airports is that those of us who have the temerity to want to travel are to be treated with suspicion, despite the fact that confiscating my Sisley skincare is unlikely to prevent the plane being shot down over Eastern Europe.
Challenge any member of staff and they react with shock and disbelief at my refusal to be herded as if I have just been discovered tunnelling out of Stalag Luft III with a dessert spoon.
I also take affront at notices proclaiming that they take attacks on staff very seriously; well, I take having to pad in bare feet on the same patch of fetid carpet as the bloke in front of me seriously, too – why not supply disposable spa slippers in this ebola-racked world?
I know these officious jobsworths have been lying to us all along. One moment we have our mobile phones snatched from us mid-text to the cat-sitter, the next we can telephone at will. One moment we wait five hours before the entertainment is switched on (thus we will cruelly miss the end of Planet Of The Apes because it will come as we’re about to land), the next films start before we are barely in our seats. It’s all a ruse to wear us down for having the gall to buy a ticket and expect something tantamount to service.
I’ve nearly been arrested twice when flying. The first time was on a plane to Pakistan, where I was sent to cover an earthquake. Given the hurried nature of the assignment, I had failed to book a vegetarian meal.
A United Airlines plane was diverted last weekend after a cup of water was thrown over a male passenger who used device - Liz Jones says she has sympathy for the man who didn't want his meal overshadowed
Liz Jones says her rage always begins at airport check-in's with the assistants failing to 'raise their eyes'
When I requested one, I was asked, parrot-fashion: ‘Did you pre-book a special meal?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Hmm. I’m afraid all I can offer you is a chilled bread roll.’
‘But why can’t you provide veggie meals to everyone, so that if you want to eat something that has had its throat ritually slit you’re the one who needs to fill out an extra form? Why should ethical people do all the work?’
Cue a look of shock-horror on the stewardess’s face. What irked me even more was that there was no alcohol on board, given we were flying to a dry state. When I asked for a glass of champagne, I nearly had a fatwa placed on my head.
MY second brush with incarceration was when I flew to the US a few years ago. Whenever I travel there for work, I always lie that I’m going on a friendless, boyfriendless holiday because of the red tape involved in obtaining a journalist’s visa.
When I landed in Miami to interview Justin Bieber, an immigration official asked me why I was entering the country on my own for just three days. ‘Um, I’m going to a Justin Bieber concert,’ I said. ‘I’m a HUGE fan.’ I could see him thinking: ‘This is the lamest old dame in the world.’
He then tried to take my fingerprints, but after 30-odd years of typing a million words a year, I have none, at which point I was frogmarched to a basement and interrogated at length.
‘Why did you travel to Pakistan and Bangladesh?’ another American asked me. I should never have replied: ‘Is it my post-menopausal beard that makes you think I’m a terrorist?’
PS. OH Ru-u-by! After Mary Berry expressed scepticism about using black sesame seeds in ice cream, Ruby Tandoh, the Bake Off contestant I defended so strongly a year ago, wrote in The Guardian: ‘Seventy-nine-year-old Mary [is] confused by any ingredient that can’t be found in Mr Kipling’s.’ Ruby condemned online trolls who called a contestant evil last week – but surely being ageist is just as bad?
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