A few years ago, I flew to Turkey from Gatwick airport and vowed never to do it again. It was such a horrible experience, I knew I couldn’t put myself through it. It was like all the worst people in society had gathered in one place at the same time, just to show how proud they were to be English. 

I actually convinced myself that I would never fly again. Yet here I am, in the air, Turkey bound. The difference being that I stuck to my guns about never entering Gatwick again, flying from Bristol instead. This, after a night in a Premier Inn, in Bristol’s modern, sanitised and slightly dystopian riverside area that has replaced the edgier feel to it that I remember.

Bristol

So, is Bristol a better airport experience than Gatwick? Well, it’s certainly smaller, therefore easier to navigate but it’s still a horrible experience. I always say if I suddenly became rich, I would try to stay humble. The truth is, I would buy myself a private jet complete with a pilot and kiss goodbye to queuing like I was going on the log flume at Thorpe Park.

As someone who finds multi tasking beyond me, the airport experience is a nightmare. Finding where to park, getting on a shuttle bus with vacant proletarians, taking off my belt, emptying bag contents into a tray and constantly looking for gate numbers. I hate every second of it. A few years back when travelling to Latvia, I filled a tray with my possessions and in a state of “where’s my passport” panic, I forgot to pick it up at the other end, only remembering it when we were boarding.

Ritalin Boy

When I got on the plane, I soon started fantasising about my private jet again. Behind me were sat a family from Birmingham. Right characters they were, especially a boy of about 10 who I wanted to pump full of Ritalin. The little twat wanted to tell the whole plane of his excitement. Worse still, his parents, rather than calming him down, looked knowingly at other passengers to see if they wanted to laugh along with the cheeky little chap. No one did.

Then, just as I drifted into the type of sporadic nightmares I only have on planes, the flight attendant announced a special offer on chocolate fingers. “Oh yes please”, I thought. I mean, who wouldn’t want chocolate fingers on a 7:00 AM flight out of Bristol? Especially at half price! I predicted the kid behind me would partake and I wasn’t wrong. “More sugar for the lad, that’ll do it”, I thought.

Any Rubbish?

Still, the Welsh couple next to me (yes Jennifer had put me on my own) were refreshingly pleasant. This lifted my spirits, at least until I ordered a teaspoon of topsoil posing as coffee and a hilariously titled ‘rustic bacon bap’. Basically, a tooth snapping roll with a slice of bacon in it. Rustic bap indeed. I then split the milk sachet and it landed on my lap. This left me looking like someone who masturbated on planes. Great.

My next attempt at sleeping was ended before it started by an attendant walking along saying “anyone got any rubbish?” in the same depressing and monotone way you would imagine someone saying, “bring out your dead”, during the depths of the bubonic plague. By this time, after brief respite, the boy behind me had polished off his chocolate fingers and had turned into Zebedee on speed once again.

 I accepted I was a beaten man and there was nothing more I could do other than have a a spiced rum and coke, and fantasise about that private jet again. 

It’ll be fine once we get there.