Flights of fancy as COVID restrictions create airport cravings
As Douglas Adams said, there’s little about airports that could be described as pretty.
In his 1998 book The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams gave us one of his most memorable quotes: “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression ‘as pretty as an airport’.”
Twenty-two years on, not a whole lot has changed. Airport design has improved in terms of architecture, interior spaces and colours (farewell, raucous oranges and purples; hello, dove greys and soothing pastels) but there’s still much to make the nerves jangle.
The bigger the terminals get, the greater propensity for you (or me, mostly) to get lost, become bamboozled, miss a flight, risk getting arrested. The earlier we must check in, the more time to shop for duty-free items we didn’t even know existed, let alone needed.
We have hours up our sleeves to fall asleep, get pummelled senseless in massage chairs with faulty controls and have minor breakdowns over how to rate a “hygiene experience” at Singapore Changi. Yes, the toilet was spotless but did it really rate a full-faced smiley emoji? As a restless queue formed and the attendant glowered, I hit the second most-satisfied option on the screen and ran away. In this surrealistic era of going almost nowhere, I don’t miss airports one jot. My departure gate is, in fact, located in my front fence. It has been months since I’ve been patted down or frisked. No one in uniform has checked me for gunpowder residue or emptied my spare underwear, eczema cream and violent crime novels on to a table in full view of strangers.
But when we are finally free to fly away again, I swear I won’t complain about temperature tests, extra security and the surety that the electronic check-in kiosks will break down. I won’t wince at nasal announcements and bad diction, and I will swallow bad airport coffee with good grace. Unpretty or not, you just don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
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