Not there yet

How do you work an iPod? It can’t be that difficult. There’s a kid across the aisle – can’t be more than three years old – and she’s had one plugged into her head since we left Heathrow.

I wouldn’t mind getting one, but I would be embarrassed in the shop because I don’t know anything about them. I believe you can store millions of tunes on them. Where do you get them from – the tunes? The Internet? How do you download them? I thought all of that was illegal?

I have a record collection. Now, I understand records. You know where you are with records. I have some very old 78’s. Remember them? The music was embedded in wax. And if you got tired of a record you could warm it gently and mould it into a fruit bowl! How’s that for re-cycling?

I also have 45’s and 10 and 12-inch LP’s. There is some great jazz on my records. On the 78’s some old New Orleans stuff from the likes of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Turk Murphy, Sydney Bechet, Ken Colyer, The Dixieland Jug Blowers, Gerry Mulligan (yes I have eclectic tastes), The Original Dixieland Jass Band (the spell check is telling me I have the wrong spelling – but I haven’t), Humphrey Littleton… need I go on?

No, we’re getting bored!

Okay – philistines!

I hope the lavatorial arrangements are satisfactory at wherever I am supposed to be staying. I can live in most places but I do need unrestricted access to an adjacent bog. Of course, en suite is to be preferred but one cannot always achieve that.

I must confess I am a little nervous at the prospect of meeting Anastasia again. I don’t know how Sydney feels – I may ask him when he wakes up. Come to think of it, perhaps I should wake him now so that he can experience the terrors of landing!

The plane banks, and I can see lights – roads and streets I suppose. Can’t see any water – hope the pilot can!

It’s very quiet now. Nobody talking. The plane tilts again, then levels out.
I hope we are not in one of those ‘stack’ things… where you just go round and round, waiting your turn to land.

Hello – what’s this? A stewardess is walking down the plane, towards the tail – she has a torch in her hand. The must be something wrong. She’s going to inspect something. I elbow Sydney in the ribs, hard. He makes that funny snorting noise, and then opens his eyes. ‘Are we here?’
‘No, I think the tail is about to drop off.’
He is awake in an instant. ‘Father, don’t make jokes like that.’

Then that ‘bing bong’ noise – it’s the captain summoning one of his cabin crew. Oh dear, there really must be something amiss. I wish I’d listened to the safety drill. Where did she say we’d find the life jackets?

Sydney is looking pale. I wonder if I am? I haven’t made a will. Kept meaning to do. Never got round to it.
Who would get my record collection?
(There’s some CD’s as well.)