I’ve got a shocking admission for you- I like flying. There I’ve said it. I’m a dirty, dirrrty boy, a carbon raping, environment buggering, sea-level rise causing blaggard. Thing is I don’t care what the Global Warming Nazi’s think. Those planes will be flying anyway and it’s far more efficient for the seats to be filled than empty. A full plane is more efficient for moving the same amount of people than by other means (source: the same magic fact factory that has no factual accuracy- the interweb!) and it’s far cheaper to fly than by any supposed greener means.
But still, I am digressing. I can’t quite bring myself to get to the point. The title of this column is a clue- Snake, singular, as in the addictive game on old school Nokia mobile phones. ‘What’s your point?’ you cry, cos mobiles must be switched off on planes, otherwise all kinds of nasty shit happens. Or that’s what we’ve been told for years anyway? Well, turns out that was all a big bunch of fibs… Because the new, whizz-bang news, the news I really can’t bear to utter is- they are going to allow mobile phones to be used on planes real soon.
The horror, the horror! Can you imagine it? Braying simpletons being allowed to have their inane conversations while stuck in the seat next to you. It’s bad enough on the train. It can’t be allowed to happen. A plane is a quiet little bubble where no one can get to you on email, phone or otherwise. It’s a haven of peace, a sanctuary, especially if you have some of those rad, noise-reducing headphones. It is a rare chance to spend hours just listening to music or watching movies with no distractions apart from cute air-hostesses wiggling their pert bums.
The new EU rules state that phones will allowed once the plane’s above 3000m and should work across all of Europe. The plane will be fitted with its own lil mast which’ll suck up the signals and beam them straight to satellites for relaying to ground. We can only hope the cost is prohibitively expensive as otherwise there’s gonna be some serious rucking. Planes will become flying hellholes. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Being pinned in the window seat by some fat pikey bleating down their phone, “yeah, I’m on da plane, da PLANE, yeah, it’s well cool, oh, I’m over France now, yeah FRANCE, it’s -25 outside, no I ain’t gonna wind the window down you nutter! What are you like! all the films were shit cos I seen em all on dodgy DVDs from down the market already, and I’m still on the plane, gonna be there in one hour fifteen minutes, ooh, fourteen minutes now, yeah FOURTEEN, HELLO? HELLO? Oh yer still there, cor its amazing being able to talk on the phone, I’m on a plane! Who’d a thought!” Etc, etc…
The term ‘air rage’ will not suffice…