My flight to Brisbane may not have been the most thrilling of journeys but it was certainly the most boring! And it was dark (although this extra snippet of information has nothing to do with the subject of my blog post and serves only to set the picture in your imagination). Not long before the day of my departure a friend asked if I would be flirting on the flight – well I wonder where she got that notion? – fancy that! Sadly, I didn’t fancy that at all. The thing is that you don’t plan these things, they just happen.

Truth to tell, as I had slept but little on the two preceding nights I was far more interested in sleeping than flirting, which was a pity for me because I didn’t manage to do much of that either; besides, “chance would be a fine thing”, as they say, for neither Brad Pitt, nor Rocky, were in evidence on either of the flights.

On the first leg – Heathrow to Dubai – I was in the aisle seat of one of the central rows and I relished the sight of the empty seat next to me; my pleasure would have been further enhanced had the dour man in the third seat along to my left moved into the the vacant aisle seat on his side. The man, who was around forty, didn’t budge. He just sat there, motionless with eyes shut tight, without speaking. He acknowledged me only once during the entire seven hours – a wave of disdain because I asked him if he would like the drink that the stewardess offered. The stewardess and I looked at each other and smiled; it was her first walk through the aisles after takeoff. Nobody bothered him again. I talked to David – the man from Sydney, who was married with four children, who had been to university, who was one of those specialists who are sent to investigate the causes of building site disasters, who writes reports, who is a thoroughly good egg and pleasant chap – until my neck hurt and I had to change position (how I would have loved to stretch out… if the miserable one had moved along!).

The long leg to Brisbane was fully booked; the seats were even narrower (a different plane) and my aisle seat was at first occupied by a large young man who resembled Genghis Khan (except for the baseball cap).

“I believe you’re in my seat,” I said.

His big blank face looked at me dumbly and he didn’t move.

“I paid extra to have that aisle seat,” I explained.

Still no word or movement, not a glimmer of recognition.

“He’s in my seat,” I told the stewardess.

“Sir, your seat is the other one,” the stewardess pointed to the next seat.

Young Genghis took the hint and, without speaking, soon filled the correct seat. In fairness, he chose to let me use the skinny armrest between us and he crossed his big arms over his stomach, resting them there for most of the fourteen hour haul. But that was the limit of his good manners….

“Would you like a drink?” asked a hostess.

“Cook,” came his reply.

“Cook?” repeated the astonished Aussie.

“I think he means Coke,” I translated and he nodded.

“Thank you!” I said pointedly to the stewardess.

Genghis was impervious to the pointer.

After several hours of eating, sleeping (a little in my case) and watching movies in such close quarters, I felt I ought to initiate some kind of conversation.

“Are you Russian?” I asked with a cheery smile.

Blankness.

“Not Russian then”, I thought.

“What country do you come from?” I asked slowly.

Nothing.

“What language you speak?”

“Dutch,” he said abruptly and that was it.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself, “the Dutch are usually so gifted at languages.”

Later on the Aussie stewardess came around with more beverages.

“Tea, or coffee? Or perhaps a cold drink?” she asked looking at Genghis.

“Wasser,” he said.

The Aussie looked blank.

“I think he wants water,” I looked at him.

He nodded.

I had a little laugh to myself – he must have said Deutsch, not Dutch. He was a German. I know, I was inordinately amused but when one is terribly uncomfortable, tired and bored one must make the most of the slightest of ironies. Yes, fancy that!