The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.
11:07am on Friday, 14th July, 2023:
Anecdote
I'm back in the UK now.
When I checked in for my flight home, I used the BA.com app. I happened to crank it up with a minute and 35 seconds to go before check-in opened, so I watched the convenient countdown then checked in. As a result, I was the second person on the entire flight to check in. I was given seat 18E, which is in the middle of the three seats on the left of the plane next to the emergency exit over the wing.
I don't like middle seats because I have strangers sitting either side of me and can't move my elbows, so when the app offered me the opportunity to change seats I said yes please. I chose another one and BA wanted €52 from me to effect the change. There were only two seats allocated for the entire flight at that point yet BA still wanted me to pay to move anywhere else. Honestly, this microtransaction economy is getting out of hand.
Naturally, I didn't pay. I figured that I got a little extra legroom where I was, so if I wanted to go to the toilet or something I could probably clamber past the person to my left without waking them up. Upon boarding the flight, though, I discovered that the extra legroom was negligible. I therefore determined to get myself moved so I was next to only one stranger, and hatched a plan.
I asked a nearby member of the cabin crew if the flight was full. She checked and said no, there were four spare seats. I requested a move on the grounds that (I was inspired here) there are no coat hooks on the seats in the emergency exit row and I wanted to hang up my jacket. She said she'd put it in an overhead bin for me, but I told her that I wanted it hanging up because there were things in the pockets I needed (which was true: a pen and a phone).
The cabin-crew member went off looking for one of the seats that her device was telling her was free. Meanwhile, the person who had checked-in ahead of me and got seat F11 arrived. It was a fellow academic from the conference. I would have quite liked to have sat next to her for 3 hours 45 minutes (plus the 30 minutes we waited before taking off because the pilot missed our slot), but unfortunately I was committed to my ruse by then. Moments later, the cabin crew member returned and took me off to an aisle seat three or four rows back. I was seated next to a couple in their 20s, both of whom had coughs. They coughed for the whole journey back to Gatwick. If I come down with a cough or COVID-19 in the next few days, that's where I picked it up.
I nevertheless managed to get some sleep on the flight back, which was good because I knew I had an 87-mile drive back home.
The good thing about driving along British roads after midnight is that they're not busy. You can go at the speed limit the whole way. The bad thing is that because they're not busy, that's when all the roadworks are done. Signs told me that the M25 was closed between junctions 1A and 2. Junction 1 is the Thames river crossing at Dartford, which is where I was headed.
The M25 is the London ring road. From the junction with the M23 (which leads from Gatwick) to the junction with the A12 (which leads to Colchester) is about a quarter of the length of the A12, anticlockwise. To avoid the closure, I could have gone clockwise round the other three-quarters of the road, but then I'd have encountered another closure between junctions 15 and 16.
I pulled in at a service station and checked my phone's satnav (which is rather more up to date than the one in my car). It indicated that there was a diversion. OK, so all I needed to do was keep on the M25 until I was diverted off it. I couldn't set up my phone to follow its directions, because I don't have a holder for it. Besides, all I had to do was obey the diversion signs.
I proceeded along the M25 and at junction 2 was directed off it to a roundabout.
There were no diversion signs on the roundabout. There was nothing to say where to go next.
I followed three vans up ahead, that seemed to know where they were going. They did, too: Dover. I found myself heading for the M2, next stop Calais.
I took the first turn-off I could and headed off towards London. My car's satnav was telling me there was a junction with the M25 coming up, which there was indeed. It was junction 1B, which was closed.
I kept on going, and eventually my satnav found a new route that went through Dartford. I have no idea where it took me. I was driving through ordinary streets carrying no other traffic, with houses and shops either side of the road, parked cars — nothing resembling an M25 diversion. My satnav delivered the goods, though: it connected me with the M25 at junction 1, sending me directly under the Thames and to freedom.
Northbound, the crossing uses the Dartford tunnel. Southbound uses the QE2 bridge. The QE2 bridge was full of stationary traffic. It continued for several miles. Most of it was trucks and other large vehicles. Gawd knows where they were being diverted, but if they were being left to fend for themselves like I was then no wonder they were cautious about moving. No articulated lorry could have followed the route I took, as it went under a low bridge that was only wide enough for single-file traffic.
More roadworks on the A12, of the "drive at 40mph, we're not saying why, just do it" variety slowed me down further, then some actual roadworks appeared (that I was expecting) for a mile or so before I could make good my escape.
I finally got to bed at 2:45am.
At 3:00am, a dozen or so teenagers emerged from somewhere they'd been having a party and woke me up again. Why they'd been having a party on a Thursday night is anyone's giess, maybe it was to celebrate exam results or something.
ZZZzzz...
The alarm pigeon that sits on the fence outside our house went off at 7:30am, and life returned to normal.
Latest entries.
Archived entries.
About this blog.
Copyright © 2023 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).