A 'Mishmash' of a week – Chickens, Concorde & more weddings…
It seems that I’m at that stage of my life where I can’t seems to negotiate a weekend without there being some sort of wedding. Fortunately it’s been a summer of several weddings and they are all good friends of mine, furthermore these ’several’ weddings have only actually involved two couples who don’t seem to appreciate that marriages in this country are binding in the USA and have had celebrations both sides of the Atlantic. This resulted in a hectic, alcoholic, celebratory and really fun few months.
This weekend was the UK bash for Dunc & Mel’s wedding (the Florida one) and just like all American weddings, it was held in Woodford. It was the usual affair of drinking & dancing followed by the premiere of the Florida DVD made by Dunc, which can be seen on my Facebook profile.
I have one more wedding this year and then a couple of weeks later the warm up for future weddings kicks off with Jonny & Tash’s engagement party.
The day after the wedding, The Don & I were booked to take a tour around the Concorde that’s based at Manchester airport. I’ve passed it on the runway enough times this year and on the way back from Florida Ian & I agreed to pop in next time we were around. Kev was at a loose end and came along, we thought there would be no problem in him tagging along on the tour.
Kev followed in his car and The Don and I led the way in his new minibus, bought for his new business in Nendaz, Switzerland. Upon arrival it was clear that the Manchester weather was against us, it was bitterly cold, and we made our way inside to check in and get Kev on the booking. The lady who was assuming charge made it clear that the 12.00pm tour was full and Kev couldn’t join us. We tried a few usual tricks such as flirting, complimenting and sulking but then we resorted to dirty tricks when Kev said, “I’ve come all the way from Maidenhead.”
This was having little or no effect on the lady so I scraped the bottom of the barrel with, “He’s dying.” This seemed to do the trick as we were then ushered into a room to meet John the Tour Guide and show us a little video of the history of Concorde. This was a ‘Shamu Moment’ as all three of us, and I suspect many others in the room, were in awe of the machine that looks as futuristic now as it did in the 60s when it was designed. It definitely captured the imagination, I remember seeing one as a kid fly overhead and being dumbstruck by it.
It’s 50 years today since BOAC (now BA) made the first transatlantic flight to New York and plans were then under way to make commercial air travel supersonic (a very 60s word – we had ambition back then). Once Concorde was designed it was anticipated that eventually the concept of taking seven hours to cross the Atlantic would be behind us but sadly that’s not the case. The fact is that 27 years after Concorde’s first commercial flight it was retired and now the concept of travelling from London to New York in 2 hours 52 minutes is behind us (the record set in 1996).
The Concorde at Manchester airport is the G-BOAC, this was the flagship of the BA fleet and was given the flight number BA 001. It’s the one they used to fly Prime Ministers, Presidents and The Queen. We were told that The Queen sat in seat 1A and it was very tempting to snudge her seat. ‘Snudge’ is defined in Roger’s Profanisaurus:
Snudge v.
To sniff a ladies bicycle seat after she leaves it chained to park railings. Also known as quumfing. See also snufty.
At the risk that that was an act of treason Kev deciphered that Her Maj must have sat on another seat on the plane and decided to give it a go:
A great experience.
I’ll leave you with this… I was in Sainsbury’s this week doing the shop and as per my wish to buy more expensive chicken on the back of Jamie Oliver’s guilt trip I look for the RSPCA stuff first but if they don’t have any of that I may stretch to organic. I picked up a packet containing two skinned and boned organic chicken breasts and it was over £11. With chicken at this price I went back to the cheap stuff with my principles shattered hoping that the only light the fucker ever sees is the light inside my oven. £11 for two chicken breasts is unbelievable.
Andy
xxx
