Is there a sweeter schadenfreude than observing the baying hordes at Terminal 5 from a safe distance? Frankly, it’s more restorative than a holiday. Since the Easter break began, I have been recharging on tales of flights rescheduled, horror stories about lairy seatmates and photos of baggage reclaim at Stansted. Airlines have been cancelling up to 100 flights a day, passengers are apoplectic and yesterday, a timely poll found that Heathrow is the most stressful airport in Europe. To which I say: plug it into my veins.
Guys, why bother? Sure, you’ll get to Crete by plane — but you’ll spend the whole week there having acid flashbacks to the mosh pit outside the Jamie’s Italian at Gatwick and knowing that to get home, you’ll endure the same indignities — but it’ll be hotter and stickier inside the terminal.
I gave up on all but the most essential short-haul flights a few years ago, after a flight to Berlin was delayed endlessly and then finally cancelled hours after I’d made it through security. Highlights from my seven-hour odyssey of the soul include queuing for an hour for something I assumed must be important only to find I was now first in line at a Comptoir Libanais (abort) and witnessing beleaguered easyJet staff form a testudo of clipboards as the crowd advanced, demanding blood. Ever tried to go backwards through security? I bet it’s easier to swim the Channel.
Anyway, that episode convinced me: just take the train. For a start, you appear saintly and green — even if the real reason you’re doing it is simply to minimise any risk of ending up at Luton, or of flying Ryanair to “Paris” only to find yourself in a tent-slash-arrivals lounge somewhere in the Ardennes. My selfish millennial friends are (all) aboard: we childfree will do anything to avoid spending a flight worrying about a toddler vomiting Haribo onto our tray tables. I know people who’ve done Interrailing honeymoons and taken trains to the south of France and beyond. I recently Eurostar-ed to Amsterdam, and my blood pressure stayed stable throughout.
Not to mention, trains are just chicer, aren’t they? Planes don’t pop up much in literature, probably because it’s hard to write anything poetic about being barricaded in a smelly, airbound tin-can and forced to listen to someone abuse a flight attendant. What else? You can take your own food rather than pay £7 for a bag of cheddar and chive pretzels, there’s no turbulence and you can breeze on 10 minutes before departure. It’s meditative, watching the scenery whip past; the same cannot be said of wondering whether that passing cloud at 30,000 feet is in fact a lightning storm.
Yes: they’re often delayed and usually expensive; train passengers can also be ratbags and train conductors pedants. But no air miles, no security, no baggage reclaim, no queues or check in or stupid little bags of toiletries? Let’s go.
