Guys, on any other day I might have left any further thoughts about that Singapore / London flight back at the terminal, however whilst consuming a few Froggie reds at Gordon’s Wine Bar last evening the subject came up regarding a couple of the passengers sitting near us on the flight, so we thought we would share our experience.

We were just getting comfortable in our seats when along comes this guy with wife and two young girls in tow.

This chap was a behemoth. He was so tall his head was scraping the cabin roof as he strolled down the aisle to his seat. Flash trainers, some kind of athletes training pants and jacket and a baseball cap (obviously on backwards).

The man then proceeds to take off his trainers and replace them with Jandals, unzip his pants and expose the longest pair of shorts I have ever seen, then take off his jacket to reveal a cut away tee shirt, the sort of garb that would secure first place in the Olympics Worst Dressed Athlete Awards. This tank top/tee shirt was a real piece of work. It was the sort of think you would have seen way back on Yugoslavian basketball players.

I simply stared at this guy and the first thing that came to mind was how is it possible that a human being can have such large big toes? We are talking here at maybe each big toe being two thirds the size of a computer mouse. These were seriously big hunks of flesh and not easily overlooked when exposed in the cabin light. The second thing was the size of this guys watch. I know a thing or two about watches and had always thought that the IWC brand had a stranglehold on oversized watches however this guy’s timepiece blew that theory into the weeds. This sucker must have been 8-10cm in diameter. I initially thought the man must be partially sighted and this miniature grandfather clock strapped to his wrist was some kind of Braille devise, however I was wrong on that score as no sooner had the flight taken off then this guy starts watching videos, having stuck on a monster sized chromed head set. These headphones were so large that they looked like the bug eyes of the flesh eating monster one encounters in most of those fifties
“ Aliens From Space” movies, and this is where this guy gets seriously weird. I was looking in his general direction when he locked onto a film called The Immortals. It was one of those Russell Crowe Gladiator numbers. Two hours of mindless mayhem. Then he became really interesting when, having watched the end of this little number, the guy started watching the entire movie again, and again, and on and on. In fact this chap watched the film end on end for the entire fourteen-hour flight. This was one seriously strange individual.

Oh yes, one more thing, for whatever reason this guy had a huge tattoo on his left bicep that listed his kids names and date of birth, viz, HALLE ROSE 18/11/2002 and LAYLA 19/03/2005.

Now if that guy was entertainment enough for one flight, seated directly in front of us was an English father and son. The father was maybe my age and the son in his late teens.

I didn’t actually notice these guys until shortly after take off when after the seat belt sign went off both these guys leapt into the aisle, opened the overhead locker, dragged out colour matching oversized travel bags and extracted matching day-glow sound cancelling headphones. I then took a closer look and realized that these guys were also wearing matching English football supporter outfits, right down to matching brilliant white trainers. I wouldn’t have thought any more on these dudes if it hadn’t been for the fact that as soon as they were reseated they lifted their adjoining armrest. Now lets face it, family love aside, this was a pretty strange move for a couple of guys. The next thing you know these chaps are whispering to each other with their faces so close that they were almost touching each other. I pointed this all out to Julia who immediately suggested they were probably lovers who had gone to Singapore for a grubby weekend. I responded that I didn’t think it was that simple as there features strongly suggested they were father and son and the only way that wouldn’t have been the case was if both these guys had been at the mercy of a very poor back street plastic surgeon. The father must have worked long and hard to get into his sons headspace as the poor turkey followed his dad’s every move, be it drinks, meal choice, movie or whatever.

At one point in the middle of the flight dad leapt out of his seat and frantically stretching and flexing in the area directly in front of our seats. Not to be outdone the son then also leapt into the action. It was like watching a live version of Richard Symons Air New Zealand pre-flight safety video. It was very creepy stuff, right down to the father continually touching his sons lower back region in encouragement.

I have to say that travelling economy, though a bit of a pain, is in fact a really interesting way to fly.

Cheers