Flying long haul is a curious and unsettling affair, especially if you're travelling in 'economy'. For almost 13 hours I have had to surrender to life as a battery chicken, crammed into an unnaturally cramped space, collapsing and refolding my skeleton to try and find a position in which sleep is possible. A periodic intervals, food and water are deposited on a miniature tray, and at more regular intervals the chicken/s in front of you decide to recline the back of their perch, thus ramming your book/coffee/miniature beef stew into your beak. Assorted baby chicks squawk loud and long and their mummies and daddies appear to think we should all take the same delight in their wriggling, wailing offspring as they do.
To add insult to 'steerage' injury, we are all forced to walk through the expensive perches enroute to the cheap seats, as if Air New Zealand want to rub our beaks in it - look, if you weren't such a cheap-skate, you could have had one of these luxury perches! Air New Zealand has also recently introduced their new 'Sky Couches', whereby for a premium of five hundred quid, you can have a row of three seats to yourself, which can then flip up/down/sideways into a sort of bed. Unfortunately, these are located in economy on either side of the cabin, so us penny-pinching fowl are left to gawp enviously to left and right. Generally, flying represents one of the few times I'd rather not be so tall... having a 36 inch inside leg measurement should automatically qualify this old bird for an emergency exit row, if you ask me.
Arrived at Auckland International Airport to discover my connecting flight to Sydney was cancelled, meaning a five hour delay. Armed with a meal voucher, I therefore stock up on coffee, sandwiches etc and hunker down. I can see some rather dramatic coastline from the terminal window, and it's bright and sunny, but given that I have lost February 26th entirely and that my body is 'buffering' in a vain attempt to identify its own internal time, I could be hallucinating. The terminal is pretty swanky though (LAX hang your head in shame!) and there's a smoking terrace, so that's okay. The tv is showing 'Good Morning', which but for the accents might as well be being piped in from anywhere. Currently a rather long-in-the-tooth American woman called Gi Gi is justifying her 'profession' (and fee) as a 'motivational astrologist'. Ah, I think I must be hallucinating still...
At least a later arrival to Sydney and the hotel will mean less time to sit dazed and drooling before bedtime.
Cluck! Or, as they say in these 'ere parts, 'buh-KIRK!'
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