Tag Archives: Flying

Post-Pandemic Bliss

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I am on my first work trip abroad for 20 months and it is so exciting. The return to ‘in-person’ meetings after what seems like a lifetime of being on Zoom and Teams is sheer bliss for many reasons. Not least experiencing again all that we took for granted but for so long has felt  like a distant memory, like using body language, sitting round an actual table, sharing cakes, buying a colleague a coffee, having a side conversation with the person sat next to you, smiling at someone across the table, to name but a few. While I agree with many colleagues that we managed very well during the pandemic and there are some advantages to meeting online – not least you can work more efficiently and have more meetings in a day, and you don’t have to travel – I have sorely missed talking while being co-located and in-person; the conversations can meander and allow for sensitive and unexpected topics to be touched upon and explored in more nuanced ways. Also, I find it discombobulating to hop from one online meeting to the next in a matter of seconds barely any time to catch your breathe. Being 5 minutes late for a physical meeting is acceptable; being two minutes late for an online meeting and item 2 on the agenda is already under way! I like to walk between rooms where different meetings are being held to gather my thoughts and reflect on what was said, what was not said and what we might do next.

But it is more than meeting others in person. It is the travel I have also terribly missed – by whatever means of transport. Flying is a real treat. It has been very easy to feel smug about not using planes for nearly 2 years and how much reduced our carbon footprints have become. But for me travel has always been core to my job as an academic. I cannot do my job without it. So I am very happy to be able to travel again to foreign lands, sharing wisdom, ideas, and advice while listening to others. I am more than happy to travel by  slower means (i.e. by train) when it seems sensible, but sometimes it is necessary by plane when it is too far to do so. I live in hope that our engineers will build viable zero emission planes in the not too-distant future. Airbus is already on the case.

So, to Berlin it was for me this week to give a keynote followed by attending an in-person research meeting with many European partners I had not seen for eons. I arrived at the North Terminal in Gatwick on an autumnal Sunday evening. After a slick check in and a super fast security check, I walked through the labyrinth of brightly back-lit duty-free shops when my senses began to go into overdrive. Colours, sounds, logos, smells…bang, wallop, bang. Then, out into the even brighter lit terminal building, where I found myself drawn to more back-lit rainbow-colours – this time a new bar just opened with socially distanced bar stools around it. Before I knew it, I found myself perched on one of the empty stools, gazing intently at all the lovely different kinds of spirits evenly and artfully spaced in beautifully coloured bottles. I had forgotten how magical it is just to look at aesthetically pleasing and perfectly placed artefacts. I sat there for an hour nursing a drink just staring and enjoying people watching.

And then I surprised myself by asking a guy, seated at the next-but-one barstool to me, where he was flying to. He was so surprised that a stranger had spoken to him that he appeared rather startled. But then when he saw I was just being friendly he relaxed and regained his composure. We then started chatting merrily, just like in the pre-pandemic times, about this that and the other for a good period of time, before realising we needed to to head off to our respective gates. I thanked him for talking to me and he reciprocated, saying this was the first time he had spoken in person to a stranger for so long and what a joy it was. We both learnt something about each other’s life we could take away with us. I now know much more about US banks in Europe and he more about human-centred design.

The flight was over in a jiffy. After the plane had landed, my journey out of the brand-new airport (I barely noticed it as it was dark) was smooth, effortless and fast. Straight through security, no queue at the taxi rank, roads empty, and another super slick check-in at my hotel.  Hassle-free travel. My room was weirdly modern with a sofa that looked like a green vegetable on steroids. The next morning, I enjoyed the delights of an over-flowing buffet with a sculpted watermelon on show. I felt like a child in a sweet shop.

 

I gave my keynote in a small loft room to a group of seated students and faculty. To begin, I focused on 2 or 3 smiling student faces (always helps to calm the nerves) and enjoyed the occasion flexing my full body while flailing my arms. The talk was also relayed via Zoom to other students who were sat in another building (German universities have strict guidelines on the number of people allowed in the same room). It seemed to work although I could not see any of the remote audiences. One remote student asked a question at the end which I had to repeat so those in the loft so they could hear. Later in the evening at the reception, the student who had asked the question revealed herself and told me all about her PhD journey originating in Mexico, via the USA, Germany and ending up in the UK. She was full of joie de vivre.

Flight Encounters

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I’ve just returned from an epic journey, travelling from Austin, Texas to Cape Town. We left about 3.00p.m Thursday and arrived back home at 9.00a.m Saturday. It involved long periods in airport lounges, and two whole nights stuck on planes, where many hours were spent sleeping next to and talking with complete strangers. During such times, one is forced to endure considerable discomfort but one can also entertain other possibilities. I often wonder which way I will turn: will I stay locked in a digital media bubble, watching endless videos on the headrest of the person in front, or will I start talking to my fellow passenger. The decision can be fickle.

My first night in the skies was on an American Airlines 767 flight from Dallas to London, in economy class. It was literally a case of sardines in a vacuum tin. Shortly after squeezing into our seats I got talking with my Texan neighbour, who was tattooed from head to foot. I’ve always been intrigued by those who go the whole hog and so somewhat brashly asked him about his tattoos. He told me he had been painting his body from the age of 17 and had finished his complete bodywork, a couple of years ago, in his early 40s. Not an inch of his exposed skin was left un-inked – except his face – but he’d made up for sparing that part by covering all his extremities, including feet, toes, soles, fingers and palms. I asked him how it felt now he no longer had the joy of thinking about what and where next to have a new tattoo. He just stared sideways at me with droopy eyes and a big moustache twitching slightly. Then in a measured Texas drool simply said that he was very content now that he had completed his whole body and that instead what he enjoyed was tattooing other people’s bodies with their latest designs and whims.

His tattoos, I am afraid to say, were not very striking or beautiful, except for a big colourful mallard duck on his neck – which was kind of cute. He told me he had a thing about ducks and that he had more of them on other parts of his body. At that point I had this terrible urge to go “quack quack” and could feel the words coming up through my larynx, but thankfully was able to swallow them (where do such childish impulses come from?). The rest of his designs were the usual medley of symbols, scantily dressed women, names of significant family members and other stuff meaningful to him, all mingled together in a way that only real ‘tat’ aficionados can fathom out.

I carried on asking him silly questions, such as what was the most difficult, painful, coloured… He answered me patiently and I began to feel a bit like a phoney Louis Theroux. But there was absolutely no sign of chemistry or connectedness between us – or attempt at reciprocation. The only time he lit up was when he started telling me how he dreads getting on planes that have a 6 in the middle of them. The 767 we were on in his classification, was truly ancient, offering only a bank of 3 pink-tinted shared screens miles ahead of us on the wall for our entertainment system. It made him almost chuckle that we were stuck on a clapped out piece of junk.

Eventually, he tired of regaling his tat stories and fell silent. I, too, tired of tat details. We both then fell asleep within inches of one another. I always find that very strange to be so close to someone locked in an activity that is normally so private and where one is so vulnerable to the other.

When we were both abruptly woken by the bright lights being switched on from above, we remained in our own bubble and did not acknowledge each other’s presence again. I find that also strange, as waking up next to someone in the morning is normally such an intimate thing. Instead we both stared blankly at the plane icon flying over the shuddering map of Britain in the distance, until it hit the outskirts of Heathrow.

We did not even say goodbye or look at each other as we stood up and disembarked. So very different from my encounter with Fabio Capello, a couple of years ago, when I could not stop jabbering for the whole duration of the flight.

The next guy I sat next to en route to Cape Town from London could not have been more different – a very friendly Afrikan guy who was in his mid 50s, very outdoorsy and extremely proud of his sons. This time, he initiated the conversation, by asking me questions about where I had been, what I was doing in South Africa and the usual polite chit-chat stuff. I reciprocated in my questions, and he told me how wonderful his country was, etc. It was a very agreeable conversation. He seemed such a content and positive chap, telling me all about his passion for fishing, hunting and hiking in the deserts of deepest Africa.

But then out of the blue, he started telling me about how he and his family had been robbed by a gang of six black men, who had entered their house one evening, armed with knifes. His story of what happened next was scary and gruesome. His voice changed and he stared ahead. His son had left a door open within their compound to let his new puppy go walk about. The gang had been watching for a while and pounced on the momentary slip-up. The gang went straight for the jugular, taking all his guns and then his wife’s worldly goods.

He then said very softly that his family all had counseling afterwards. And how his son still suffers. And now how his home is like Fort Knox. Scarred and scared for life. Then it was time for lights out and the eye patch on.

Next morning he asked me how well I had slept. The ensuing conversation was very polite and pleasant. Then as the plane began to disembark we shook hands, said our farewells and exchanged business cards.

One of my lasting memories of South Africa is how kind, interested and gentle the people are who live here.

The cartoon image at the top is from Cindy’s blog which provides a list of annoying things you can do on a boring plane ride. The photo on the left I took from a shopping mall car park north of Cape Town. You see Table Mountain popping up everywhere but sometims it pops up in the most unlikely places. I particularly liked this juxtaposition as the backdrop to an urban landscape.