That Was The Week That Was 14-18 November 2022
Everyone is Looking for Someone
Ogden Nash, that brilliant satirical and whimsical poet, once sought from anonymity’s cloister not he that ate the first raw oyster, but someone that worked out that we can eat artichokes. U2 still haven’t found what they are looking for. The Eurythmics noted that everybody’s looking for something. Look about you. There are lots of examples of those that are on the quest for something. Seekers. Pilgrims. And this week, I count myself amongst them.
Having flown a large number of sectors this week, across 11 time zones, I now know whom I seek. In fact, to be fair, it might even be three people.
The first is the nasty-spirited person that decreed that even on daylight flights window screens must now be down at all times, at pain of a plane full of opprobrium. What is that about? Who was that miserable person? Once you had to travel with an atlas. Now, we have wonderful route maps available so that you can look out and plot out cities and rivers, oceans and mountain ranges, to know your place in the world, to wonder at the majesty of it all, but NO. Apparently, we have sit in the dark, glued to screens. No majesty for you, no understanding of your place in the universe, no realising just how big and glorious the planet is for you!
Even the peace-loving act of reading a book with the aid of natural light will get you into trouble. Was this ridiculous do-as-you-are-told rule introduced by a cartel of optometrists?
And please, do not tell me that there is a personal light that you can use.
This brings me to the lodestone of my seeking, the core of my quest. I figure there must be two people – the job is clearly too big for one man (and yes, it will be a man). Boeing must have one of these people; Airbus the other. Perhaps they are related.
Have you ever, in your life, sat on a plane, turned on the overhead light and had it land directly on the page you are trying to read? Ever? No. Nobody has. There must be two men, one in Toulouse, one in Seattle, who have the task of installing these lights, so that they never land the light where you need it. At one level it must be a fun job. You front up to work and take the view that today, every light will miss to the right. The next day, too far forward. Every day an adventure of misalignment. Or maybe he breaks it up by seat row, or by seat. What fun, what larks!
At another level, we should applaud Airbus and Boeing for being equal opportunity employers – and I hasten to add that I speak as someone optically challenged.
But this is much more important than that. This is something about which Something Must be Done. Either we can let the light in or at the very least we fix the overhead lights. We cannot go meekly into the dying of the light; the banning of the light. We must fight the good fight! Let the sunshine in.