False Positive

A modest proposal to solve the problem of frustrated thespians.

The Croquette Game by Edouard Manet (1873)

By the grace of either our creator, the Universe, or plain old physics, I write this essay from a poolside bar in provincial Bulgaria, and not from a jail cell in H.M.P. Strangeways. With Mediterranean alacrity, I can drop the soap in the shower. No unwelcome visitors may encroach upon my freedom—abstract or rectal.

Last week, I booked a flight from dreary, anti-smoking London to balmy pro-smoking Sofia via balmy pro-smoking Vienna. Vienna Airport provides hip, raffish things with a well-ventilated room in which to chuff away. In Athens, the cradle of civilisation, they go further. The philanthropists at Winston oblige smokers with a swanky lounge complete with plush sofas. From our eyrie, we happy few gawk at the pink lungs as they drag their sad suitcases from terminal to gate.

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Excuse my reverie. I assumed the 35 minutes between landing in Vienna and departing for Sofia to be ample. These logisticians, I thought, run an airline. They know their onions. Obviously, they bus us from one plane to another, where smiley air stewards greet us like diplomats of a central African kleptocracy which has just discovered centuries of black gold ebbing beneath their feet. Assumption is the leading cause of unwanted baby mothers.

Our plane from London smacked the tarmac some fifteen minutes late. 'Boarding now!' screamed the Austrian Airlines app in an eerily Teutonic manner.

"I hope we make our connection," winced an American youth.

I replied: "Calm down, mate. They wouldn't cut it so finely. Our Austrian cousins know what they're doing."

Eight minutes and around one mile later, it was revealed. They didn't know what they were doing. Our departure gate was just north of the Bermuda Triangle.

Shambling through the terminal, we landed at gate F20.

"I'm sorry. You're too late," said the steward.

"I've just ran a mile. In eight minutes. With a fucking pack on my back."

My quite respectable time didn't qualify for a seat on the plane.

Around thirty of us, sweat-filmed and leprous, gawked at our plane sitting on our runway for another twelve minutes. We were three minutes late.

The primitive urge to volley expletives rhyming with 'Jeremy Hunt' washed over me. So did a witty little jibe involving a failed 1920s Viennese painter. I left the malice to the professionals—the Americans—who were utterly enraged at having exercised against their will. Besides, there was something about the hostess, a Nicole Scherzinger double, which dampened my shot.

"I know!" said one dewy American Zoomer, a demented rictus consuming his face. "All we've got to do is… think positively." At that moment, America's rampant murder statistics seemed charitable.

Needless to say, the laws of attraction did not attract. The Universe did not give one pity fuck. Our plane took to the skies above. We took to the holding pen below.

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We each snatched a ticket from the machine and sat like moribund horses awaiting the glue factory.

The young woman tasked with mopping up her bosses' timetable roulette knew her onions. This wasn't the first or last time. When assisting Europeans, she'd gush: "You're spending twenty-four hours in Vienna!"

"We have beautiful architecture. The Vienna State Opera. Our city is the most cultured in Europe. There's the Klimt exhibition this week!"

My ticket number, an ominous 3.16, flashed up on the screen. After glancing at my British passport, the steward changed tact:

"Christopher. You're staying in Vienna until a flight to Athens tomorrow. You'll enjoy it. We have… potatoes. We have beer!" The poverty of low expectations.

I ate nothing remotely related to the potato or to beer in Vienna. With a sympathy note on the airline's dime, I ran up moderately plausible bills in bars and treated a stray dog to a fine pork schnitzel.

The next morning, after arriving four hours early, I flew from Vienna to Athens and on to Sofia.

The American youth, I'd imagine, regaled his friends with cosmic tales. The universe conspired to miss his flight and divine him this humbling experience. No doubt he's posted on LinkedIn: What missing my flight taught me about networking.

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I say I am fortunate to be free of both the penal system and amateur prostate examination. Mercifully, I flew from Heathrow and not Gatwick.

A few days ago, harried travellers desperate to escape dreary Britain met Just Stop Oil. These environmental fanatics, let's say, have an exorbitant relationship with reality. They put the mental in environmental. They slather buildings in orange paint whilst jabbering on about the end of days. They wail. They mewl. They make a general nuisance of their selfless, Skittles-haired selves.

Members of this bedraggled, sexless cult promise climate apocalypse. They warn of hellfire and brimstone lest we, that animal called man, that plague called humanity, cease existing in prosperity, safety, and warmth. These doomsters demand we, the fallen, submit to them, the chosen.

Last week, they locked themselves to suitcases and sat down, blocking the entrance to Gatwick's departure lounge. They babbled grand warnings. The end is nigh! Unless we, the civilised, just stop our addiction to oil, we shall perish.

It's all rather cultish and religious. The fatal flaw? Old-timey religions and new-agey cults at least appeal to man's essential drives. For me, it's a no. I've not even a fleeting interest in submitting to such puritanical creeds. At least, old-school religions and new-school cults allow one to shag the wives and girlfriends of fellow cult members. After one furtive glance at Just Stop Oil, I'd sooner take a vow of celibacy. Indeed, I'd consider donating my sexual apparatus to The Society for Amateur Taxidermy or a cauldron of my previous girlfriends.