2009 and all that

I may love Air New Zealand but Lufthansa is going down, down, down in my estimation. Maybe its the recession. The 747 from Frankfurt to Singapore must have been the original rolled out in late 1968. I know these things last forever if they're serviced correctly but they are usually sold off to Air Zimbabwe or similar after 20 years or so. If this one was sold off it was probably to Lufthansa and from Richard Pearce.

The 'entertainment system' was archaic. Remember those tiny little (superfluous diminuation I know) T'V's perched up in the ceiling which play a film of Herr Lufthansa's choice then go blank for an hour or so then play something else also of Herr Lufthansa's choice? Now, honestly, when was the last time you remember those on a long-haul flight? No airline has them any more. Well, maybe Air Zimbabwe has but at $7,559,934,292ZWD for the ticket (at the time of writing but you may have to add a few zero's by the time you read it) no one could afford to experience the nostalgia.

We got Mamma Mia! which was fine even though I'd watched it from Vancouver to Frankfurt. It's that kind of jolly singalong, ABBA's (how do you get HTML to reverse a 'B'?) compositions and arrangements never cease to amaze and I could watch shots of Skopelos and Skiathos forever. But, and here you have to imagine you've suspended disbelief with the best of them and you're engrossed in a delightfully jolly fantasy so its a BIG BUT, what is worse than the usual intervention of the pilot during a good film merely to tell you that you're about to be thrown out of your seat by an atmospheric disturbance so best to buckle up? I'll tell you what's worse; right at the climactic resolution of Act III the film stops and is replaced by Flyrobic, that's what's worse. Even though cute little Tony is a marvel of animation I don't want to know how to do exercises in my aircraft seat! I want to see three geezers who can't sing sing their way to accepting one third each of one of their daughter's. (Not, you will note, 'one of their daughters'). The daughter of one of them, whatever.

Eventually the complaints won the day and Flyrobics was temporarily sent to the trash can (we got it later). Did they have a 2009 style solution to the restart and were able to go directly to where they'd left off? Nein! Nein! A thousand times Nein! They 'fast-forwarded' at x2 speed from the very beginning. And remember we were at the resolution of Act III - where the wedding is about to take place and Donna has told the congregation that Sophie's dads are present. It took forever but we got there eventually, a marriage took place and we got to see the best bit of the whole film, the take-outs of the cast singing in 1960's ABBA costumes.

And, ... (dot, dot, dot) the drinks were very small, the food was bad, the air hostess was miserable and my seating companion was an Irishman from Liverpool!

By the way we were over The Ukraine when we transitioned New Year.