It’s not flying I object to — it’s the people I have to fly with that I find objectionable. Although modern air travel is cramped and uncomfortable there are easy ways to take your mind off it. All that is required is to sit quietly, stick your head in a book, and focus on it and it alone. Indeed, as there is nothing else to do, a plane is an excellent place to read. This simple truth, however, appears to be lost on many members of the general public, who are determined to find other solutions to the problem of what to do on a long-haul flight. There are the pacers, the talkers, the tappers and the screen stabbers.
To bring order and sanity to the anarchy of plane behaviour, I have therefore decided to set down a list of 6 commandments for air travel, as Moses appears to have little concrete advice on the matter of in-flight comportment. While his original commandments still hold true for air travel, in that homicide, adultery, worshipping false Gods etc. are also to be avoided at 20,000 feet, 6 additional commandments are clearly necessary.
The new commandments are as follows:
1: Thou shalt not speak
Flights are for reading, not for yapping. I am constantly distracted from my perusal of fine prose by the inane chatter of others. This is not acceptable.
2: Thou shalt not bring children on planes
Smoking has been banned on flights on the grounds that it disturbs others. However, I have yet to find even the most smoke-filled environment that can come close to being as annoying as a screaming baby, and they always seem to be screaming.
Leave your progeny at home, or in the airport lounge or car park. This will also develop their sense of independence and self-sufficiency because they will have to forage for themselves while you are away, and they will come to thank you in later life for helping them to become more fully rounded individuals.
3: Thou shalt sit quietly
While a very occasional trip to the lavatory may be necessary on the longest of flights, there really is no other reason to leave your chair — it disturbs other readers.
4: Thou shalt stay within thy airspace
As planes must keep within their allotted airspace to avoid crashing into other planes, so passengers must also stay within the bounds of their ‘seatspace’. This includes not only the confines of your seat, per se, but also the space above and below your seat. In other words, your elbow must not encroach upon the space of your neighbour, and you must under no circumstances sit with your knees outstretched. Keep your knees firmly closed at all times.
For safety reasons, you must also keep your arm away from the misnamed armrest, which is, in fact, a buffer zone between your space and that of your neighbour.
5 Thou shalt not recline thy seat
Pushing one’s seat back reduces by half the amount of reading space available to the passenger behind you, and reducing this space can force other passengers to hold a book too close to their eyes for comfort, thereby exacerbating the already claustrophobic nature of cattle class air travel.
6 Thou shalt stay awake
For some reason, many people consider public sleeping to be acceptable on aeroplanes, but it is grossly inappropriate. This rule holds especially true for those people who snore or drool while sleeping, or horror of horrors, rest their head on complete strangers unfortunate enough to be sitting next to them.
All those who do not repent and break these commandments shall suffer the punishment of in-flight flogging.
Repeated infringement shall result in offenders being summarily ejected from the plane mid-flight.
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Seven videos I made in India can be seen on my You Tube channel.
Riding the Dragon
(From China – Me and the Dragon)