In-flight entertainment
by nigel on 14-Apr-2010
I flew Emirates from Singapore to Good Old Blighty (a.k.a England) and back and a jolly good airline they are too. It meant the trip was two sub eight hour flights each way, both legs in nice Boeing 777 aircraft with a modern in-flight entertainment system which had a vast quantity of movies, tv shows, and record albums.
I first watched the movie Up In the Air which I would recommend but then I discovered that the record library was a veritable tour through my 'younger days'. It was full of the stuff that you (illegally) copied onto cassette tape from your friends and fellow under-graduates album collection in exchange for them copying yours. Of course the tapes have long since gone, as have your LPs, depreciated by the relentless march of technology.
They was lots of the Pink Floyd albums, plenty of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Man Machine by Kraftwerk etc. So I immersed myself all the way to Gatwick Airport.
Emirates fly to both Gatwick and Heathrow. I deliberately chose Gatwick on the grounds that it could not be worse than Heathrow (it wasn't, though they do seem to be trying) and I could get a train from the airport to home without using the London Underground and/or paying an exorbitant price for the short journey that is the 'Heathrow Express'.
There is a scene in the Up In The Air movie where George Clooney's character chooses which airport X-ray bag screening queue to join based on his observation of who is already in the queue and how prepared they are for the process. I should have remembered that when I came to depart from Gatwick. I had all my metal items out of my pockets and in the cabin bag before I joined the queue but I was directly behind a family for whom this was obviously a first experience. Father walked through and set the metal detector off and was sent back to enter his pockets again. Mother was told see could not wheel baby through in the push-chair. Father set the detector off and was sent back to take his shoes off, so the entire family took their footwear off. Then mother set the detector off and was sent back to remove the bangles she was wearing. She removed everything including her earrings, so did the two teenage daughters. Finally I walked through the detector to join the chaos of the family attempting to reboot, fit earrings in ears, baby in push-chair and pick up all the rest of their bits and pieces.
On the way back I watched The Men Who Stare At Goats which I enjoyed but then it was back into that album collection and on to the later stuff, some Eurythmics/Annie Lennox, Simply Red, Moby and much, much more.
Next time I fly I may take a digital recorder and copy as I fly, I will take my CD collection so they can record that in exchange.
I first watched the movie Up In the Air which I would recommend but then I discovered that the record library was a veritable tour through my 'younger days'. It was full of the stuff that you (illegally) copied onto cassette tape from your friends and fellow under-graduates album collection in exchange for them copying yours. Of course the tapes have long since gone, as have your LPs, depreciated by the relentless march of technology.
They was lots of the Pink Floyd albums, plenty of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Man Machine by Kraftwerk etc. So I immersed myself all the way to Gatwick Airport.
Emirates fly to both Gatwick and Heathrow. I deliberately chose Gatwick on the grounds that it could not be worse than Heathrow (it wasn't, though they do seem to be trying) and I could get a train from the airport to home without using the London Underground and/or paying an exorbitant price for the short journey that is the 'Heathrow Express'.
There is a scene in the Up In The Air movie where George Clooney's character chooses which airport X-ray bag screening queue to join based on his observation of who is already in the queue and how prepared they are for the process. I should have remembered that when I came to depart from Gatwick. I had all my metal items out of my pockets and in the cabin bag before I joined the queue but I was directly behind a family for whom this was obviously a first experience. Father walked through and set the metal detector off and was sent back to enter his pockets again. Mother was told see could not wheel baby through in the push-chair. Father set the detector off and was sent back to take his shoes off, so the entire family took their footwear off. Then mother set the detector off and was sent back to remove the bangles she was wearing. She removed everything including her earrings, so did the two teenage daughters. Finally I walked through the detector to join the chaos of the family attempting to reboot, fit earrings in ears, baby in push-chair and pick up all the rest of their bits and pieces.
On the way back I watched The Men Who Stare At Goats which I enjoyed but then it was back into that album collection and on to the later stuff, some Eurythmics/Annie Lennox, Simply Red, Moby and much, much more.
Next time I fly I may take a digital recorder and copy as I fly, I will take my CD collection so they can record that in exchange.