What is it about travel and food?

What is it about travel? I eat continually as if walking epic journeys in need of nutrition to sustain me. The fact that I am bused, flown, carried from pillar to post is incidental. My system may be assisted by all this technology but runs on a much more primitive animalistic operating system. In such close quarters with unknown numbers of my fellow species does their presence trigger a grazing hunger. Eat quickly what is available before others tuck in and leave me bereft?

Or is the hunger stress-related? Far from my home, sofa, fridge and familiar surroundings do I overeat to distract me from all this strangeness.  The comfort of a full belly brings a satisfied sleepiness that almost neutralizes the foreignness. Like a baby, I swig the bottle and stuff down biscuits to shut out the otherness that threatens!

I see the stress on others too. Even queueing is an irritant. Why did he push in? Surely, we should be moving now, where is my boarding ticket and do have I still have my passport!

We hug our familiar belongings, sure that everyone wants what we own. Pulling bags closer still, wrapping handbag straps around shoulders and checking locks on suitcases. The fear-inducing statement, “Have you packed your own case?” is asked. Followed by,"Do you carry inflammable explosive objects?" Of course, you don’t! But the idiots in front and behind you may have not have packed their own cases! They probably don’t even realize the danger of Lithium-ion batteries occasionally bursting into flames on planes.

Suddenly, one feels travelling should only be for those intelligent enough to obey the rules. There should be special scanners to pick out those too stupid to be allowed to fly. The airline staff seem unduly inexperienced and uniformly distracted. One wonders if the pilots and crew on planes are busy on their iPhones checking Facebook instead of watching dials. Answering emails and text messages instead of monitoring storm warnings.

In addition to all this everyone who works in the cockpit or as stewards are all of reproductive age and so are by nature perpetually distracted. Either recovering from devastating breakups or enduring stormy/heated relationships or perennially on the hunt for new potential partners.  All these emotions leave little room for professional performances.  You feel a strong desire to scream “focus, focus please!”

The vista of cotton wool clouds stretching outside my window seat reminds me of some celestial last vision. The intercom announces all the goodies for sale from aftershave to portable speakers, perfume etc and reminds one of the materialistic nature of this whole enterprise. The speaker’s inability to converse coherently in basic English has me doubting his organizational skills and technical know-how. These people have to do cross-checks and safety things after all. I see how slowly they struggle to serve drinks and food as they meander down the cabin. “Come on people get a move on!” You’ve only done this thousands of times. How can you be so crap at it? Running the full length of the cabin to retrieve more lids, Pringles, water, ice. The fact that you are so cack-handed at these simple tasks makes me doubt your ability to deplane this aircraft. Yes, that’s what they call it. Is that phrase itself an evidence of stupidity?

Bring me more food! I am noticing too much. How annoying is my neighbour with his stinky socks. Why can’t he keep his shoes on! The red-haired air steward keeps picking his nose between serving drinks. I know it’s Ryanair, and their uniforms and training scream budget airlines, but surely, they could’ve been given a special training session on the inappropriateness of nose picking when serving drinks and food.

The two women in front have talked incessantly for the entire four-hour flight about their families, their partners, their homes, their holidays, their jobs in those elevated excited tones that strangers use. As if whispering and talking in your normal voice would indicate an intimacy that is not justified by this casual encounter. Instead, the proper volume is high, animated by loud forced laughter. Couples desperately ask others to switch seats so they can sit with their partners. Having achieved the sought-after goal they say not one word to their partner the rest of the flight. The longing is not to be with their loved one at all but to be free of the bloody stranger! That way they can comfortably sulk and moan as normal. It makes this flying tube a little more like home to have that familiar face frowning over Suduko beside them.

Mind you, I shouldn’t complain, we landed safely and we all survived.  However, since I am in complaining mode I’d like to mention the seats on Ryanair.  They are so uncomfortable. I am not claustrophobic but the distance between the seat in front and my face is worryingly small.  Mind you, the prices keep me coming back for more.  Worrying to hear of their plans to have us all standing in the future (surely its a joke?). 

-->

But perhaps this group's song captures the whole cheap airline experience best.

-->

The business that kills 5.4 million people a year and earns governments $200 billion a year

I had a friend who smoked.  She had two small children and was married to a nice chap called Timothy.  Nothing surprising about that you may be thinking.  Her young son David suffered from asthma and his inhalers were a part of his life.  

It was hard to see someone young struggle for breath and when asthma sufferers do not keep a control of their condition, things turn life threatening.  Hard enough to be disciplined when you are an adult but for young children it becomes trickier still.  Then, David had an accident and fell off his bicycle and ended up in hospital for many weeks as it was a compound fracture.  Julie, his mother travelled to every visiting time and took sweets, changes of pyjamas, toys and of course his asthma medication.  On the second week the nurse in David’s ward told her not to bring the asthma medication in, as he did not need it.  Perplexed Julie explained, “But he takes it every morning and evening!”  The nurse assured her that David had not used an inhaler since he arrived in hospital two weeks earlier and had been fine with not one single asthma attack.    Julie was stunned and the nurse asked a surprising question. “Do you smoke?”  Julie replied that she did, to which the nurse responded, “that is probably what is triggering his asthma, it is very common.”  Julie was stunned it had never occurred to her that she could be the cause of her son’s fight for breath.  When Daniel came home there was a sudden change, she no longer smoked in the house only in the garden.  After a few weeks it became only the kitchen.  In a month she was back to smoking in the house as before and David returned to his inhalers.  It amazes me how addictions can mean we sacrifice even our nearest and dearest to them. 

The smoking ban which came into force in public places in July 2007 has resulted already in 1,900 fewer emergency hospital admissions for asthma patients every year.  In other countries, where to the ban has been brought in both working and public environments the drop has been 40%. 

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, added: "This is important new research that further demonstrates how the smoking ban has dramatically improved people's lives and made smokers more aware of the harm smoking does to their health.

"Nearly a third of a million GP appointments each year are caused by children who are the victims of passive smoking. These horrendous figures show the scale of the problem we are still facing.”

Emily Humphreys from the health charity, Asthma UK, has also welcomed the findings: "This is something we campaigned for, so it is particularly encouraging that there has been a fall in children's hospital admissions for asthma since its introduction.

"We have long known that smoking and second hand smoke are harmful - they not only trigger asthma attacks which put children in hospital but can even cause them to develop the condition."

I remember David with all his inhalers and breathlessness and think of all those tiny children fighting for breath due to passive smoking in homes throughout the world. 

But then, one has also to remember all those who die from the effects of smoking.  The World Health Organisation has brought out a report (The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic) very critical of the lack of action by many countries in confronting smoking.   “The tobacco epidemic already kills 5.4 million people a year from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. “Unchecked, that number will increase to more than 8 million a year by 2030.”

The report also gives one clear explanation for the lack of action.  Nations worldwide collect more than $200 billion in tobacco taxes annually.  Killing people is obviously a profitable business and the very best business is built on addiction.