Episode 1: Dreamliner
Salam Alaikum, readers. The inaugural edition of Frank’s Rambles comes to you from a Qantas Airways aircraft, 37000 feet above Saudi airspace on its way to Perth. Already I have so much to share with you all! Already, to some degree, I miss Blighty. Already I’m quite excited about the prospect of this column and its readers, because it has so many potential uses. You can be my semi-interactive forum, like a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You can be my shoulder to cry on, in the lonely hours that surely await me at some stage. You might even learn something, or garner some enjoyment.
Yoni and Mum kindly gave me a lift to Heathrow Terminal 3 at 7am on the 28th January 2023, for my one-way flight to Auckland. There were skirmishes to overcome: potholes, Yoni misplacing his biting point, Mum’s dubious direction-giving and my nervousness about my first ever venture outside Europe, and the commencement of the longest period of time I will have spent away from home. I’m sure you remember the feeling.
I assumed there would be some juicy material I could draw on in the usually reliable shambles that is airports. But alas, all went smoothly. My main insight to share with you all thus far is the extraordinary relationship one develops with one’s immediate neighbours on a long-haul flight.
The occupants of row 54 are quite agreeable flying companions, which is lucky because for 17 hours, there’s a level of intimacy between myself and these complete strangers that has almost no equal outside of, like, actual marriage? I am sitting between two women on this flight. I know neither of their names. But already I know that the woman on my left is going to Sydney, where she has family despite living in the UK (in London), and that she is right handed. She likes Harry Potter, is a vegetarian, and her Dad is called Nick.
The woman to my right came to the UK four years ago and was subsequently trapped there by Covid. She has not been back to Australia since. She is quite pretty, is (I think) left handed, orders her meals in advance and flies with Qantas fairly frequently. We are all sitting so close to each other I can actually identify them both by their smell, and we keep falling asleep on each other’s shoulders. I gleaned all this insight from literally a 2 minute conversation I tried to initiate with both, and 10 hours’ worth of long sideways glances. I will almost certainly never see them again after this flight. It’s a bizarre situation really; practically in a three-way polygamous relationship in a flying box for a day, then… nothing.
I’ve decided I’m going to launch another new feature; Word of the Week. Each article, I’ll give you a new word or concept I’ve acquired. My maiden Word of the Week is “Dreamliner”, which is what Qantas have decided to call their bucket of bolts I am currently entrusting with my life. If you don’t think about it too hard it’s fine. However, this is a 17 hour flight and I’m far too embarrassed to engage in a 10 minute long spar with the locker to retrieve my only book. So I’m thinking about it too hard. Dreams, as in aspirations? Or the vivid hallucinations as you sleep? Whichever it is, why would I want Qantas to line them for me? What kind of liner do they mean? Ocean Liner? Bin Liner? Is it a play on Streamliner, describing the ergonomics of the plane? I don’t know quite what to make of it, but it’s a cool-sounding first title for my Rambles.
The refuel stop occurs in Perth, where the Australian heat hits me like a fist. My arse physically hurts from the length of time I’ve been sitting, so I do a lot of pacing up and down the terminal. Three more hours later, it’s the Melbourne stop, where the barman absolutely gobsmacks me by cheerfully offering a “great deal” of two peronis for 35 dollars. A further 5 hours after that, I land in verdant, tropical New Zealand, with surprisingly mild jetlag, horrendous body odour, and a determined mission to seek adventure to relay to you all. Wish me luck. Ma’a Salama.
