To fly or not to fly, that is the question. But do we really have an option these days?

  

 

Many moons ago I saw an award winning advertisement for British Rail with the tongue-in-cheek pay-off line: “If God had wanted us to fly he would have given us wings.”

 

  

You know what; I don’t have a problem with flying. In fact, most times I actually enjoy it.

 

  

It is the conditions I have to endure th at get to me sometimes. Well, most times in fact, but I don’t want to sound like a whiner.

 

  

I am 1,9m (6’ 3”) tall and cannot be described as “of slight build”. My budget, on the other hand, easily fits this description.

 

  

So it is with immense trepidation that I look forward to every flight, since first or business class, where the spacious seating is, is only something I walk through on my way to my seat in cattle class.

 

  

You will not believe how many times I end up in a seat next to another person as big as or bigger than I am. It makes for interesting contortions during meal times, I tell you.

 

  

Of course it does not help when the safety guidelines in the plane warn you about DVT (deep vein thrombosis) either. This is the last thing you need to know when you are, quite literally, hot under the collar already!

 

 

And talking about these safety tips. I don’t think they are well thought through and have therefore decided to ignore them in future.

 

 

Let me explain.

 

 

One in-flight magazine advises you to “get up and walk around after two hours”. This is highly impractical, as I discovered when I tried to orchestrate a mass walk about on a recent trip. Absolute chaos reigned, I tell you!

 

 

Some of the medical advice is also meaningless and quite incorrect, in my opinion. Advising you to “have as much water as you like” does not make any sense at all. It only causes an excess of bodily fluids which has to be discarded during the flight and it certainly does not make the whiskey taste any better.

 

 

I also remember once reading a recommendation to “scrub body vigorously in shower or bath”. I though this was a good idea, but to my great disappointment I have yet to discover either facility on any plane I have flown with.

 

 

Over the years I have slowly come to the conclusion: I certainly do not think that British Rail was correct all those years ago, but I am beginning to realise that maybe I am not built for flying. Either that or my wallet is not built for it.

 

 

In the meantime I have to catch as many flights as I can in the hope that one day all these loyalty points will earn me a free upgrade to business class.

 

 

Bon voyage!