Heathrow to Singapore:
Drive to Heathrow - uneventful, flight at 10pm.
I was excited to learn that we would be flying on an A380 'super-jumbo'. Viewed from the departure lounge the plane looked enormous; common sense kept butting-in and informing me that there was no way this thing is going to be able to fly, but it did!
You might think that with all that extra space you may get a bit more legroom. In truth, in economy class at least, it's simply a bigger flying sardine tin, just as cramped, equally uncomfortable and possibly, due to the extra bodies on board, even more squalid than the usual longhaul aircraft. We much prefer Jumbos - no one is going to pen a line like "I dreamed of 747s over geometic farms" about an A380 - grim, utilitarian and unlovely was our verdict.
At least the in-flight entertainment offered a huge choice. We both watched Blade Runner 2049 which was never going to be able to match the wonders of the original, but was very good nonetheless. Ryan Gosling's performance was powerful, that and the stunning futuristic styling carried the film.
However, this only occupied 163 minutes, leaving a remainder of 617 to fill with pillow gymnastics, seat yoga, the robotic consumption of inedible food, advanced thumb twiddling and catastrophic musings regarding the extent to which we had not properly put our affairs in order in the event that the aircraft, suffering a sudden crisis of self belief, realising that there was no way something this big made of metal should be able to float high above the clouds, promptly plummeted earthwards.
In the event the inevitabilities of aeronautical engineering triumphed over paranoia and we found ouselves deposited into the sultry heat of an early evening in Singapore, exhausted, bewildered, but very excited.
Gill's pocket diary notes:
Friday 2nd
Arrive Singapore 7pmish. MRT Line 2, Outram Park; chane to line 7, Clarke Key. Very tired. Hotel OK. went to bed. Strange airplane day.
