Skip to content

People, guns and headache pills…

I’m sitting at Birmingham airport about to embark on my trip to OOW 2009. I’m always a bit nervous before OOW. It’s so big and so daunting. I know I’m going to enjoy it, but the prospect seems a little overwhelming…

Airports are unusual places, mostly because of the people that populate them. Looking around I see several distinct types:

  • Business People: Moving straight from the plane to a meeting, so they have to look neat. As a result they look overdressed for several hours in a glorified cattle truck.
  • Holiday Formal: These holiday types are still of the attitude that air travel is a special occasion, so they are going to get dressed in their Sunday best and make a big thing of it. Listen darling, those heals are not suited to 11 hours in a plane!
  • Holiday Slob: People well versed in the hell that is international travel. Comfort is king and they don’t care what they look like. I lump myself in this category.
  • Unhappily Married: Couples sitting together because they have to. Not speaking because there is nothing to say. One look tells you this is the beginning of the holiday from hell.
  • The Normals: Regular folk who don’t fit snugly into any of the categories mentioned above.

The police in the UK don’t carry guns, so it still makes a big impression when I see the armed police at UK airports. I just stood in a queue at Boots with an armed police officer. He was buying headache pills…

Am I the only one concerned that someone is walking round with oozy and a headache? Needless to say I didn’t make a joke about it. I didn’t really fancy a strip search from a guy with a gun and a headache, although I guess some people would pay good money for that… :)

This post will come to the net a little late as the internet terminal I’m using doesn’t have a functioning space bar, so this post will need some editing before going live.

Cheers

Tim…