Before we got near a plane, an airport worker was on a mission to restrict passage. The five-foot entrance to the airport via automatic doors was the first 'limitation' introduced to all those hoping to fly. The next effort to restrict the flow of people was provided by a beskirted sales assistant in the meandering walkway through the shop. The airport authorities had long ago decided we should all be made to run the gauntlet of the overpriced, pointless products emporium.
However, Miss Constrictor (let's call her Boa) was on a personal mission to further funnel people by blocking the 120cm wide walkway by talking to two cunts who had nothing better to do. So it was, that passengers trying to make their way to the various airports of Europe were first required to squeeze through a gap no wider than 70 cunting centimetres! This right of passage [pun intended] was a necessary step in the process of getting on any plane at all. So, Yorkshire's gateway to the world was as wide as two-and-a-half fucking Toblerones.
The painful process of boarding was made so much worse by the lack of air; people sweated, and oxygen was in short supply. If only masks could drop from the ceiling. I found myself wishing we were board at gate number eight, a long walk from the main building, but it would have meant a walk in the open air, plus boarding via the back steps as well. Instead, we were funnelled through a tunnel after a wait in the cramped area of gate number three, and with boarding at the front only, it took ages. Inane thoughts came and went, as I stood vegetating in the queue. The young kid in front of me must have been about 13; his tits were bigger than his mother's. We shuffled forward.
In my seat I became reacquainted with the half-size arm rests provided by Jet2, arm rests that are no good to man nor beast - unless, that is, you have no arms, or at least nothing below the elbow. [How strange that BELOW and ELBOW are anagrams]
The Jet2Shop magazine was full of the usual stuff; who exactly buys it? The editor, Kirsty Calvert, gave her intro and left me all the worse for it. Here is one small extract for your delectation:
Our Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream All-Over Miracle Oil is super popular. It maximises on suitcase space too, as it rejuvenates face, body and hair!
I'm not sure which of the two sentences is the worst; make your own mind up.
I turned to considering more manly things, and in particular, why the various watches were being championed according to their resistance levels. I am sorry, but whether a watch is resistant to water at 30 metres, 50 metres or 100 metres is rather immaterial. Most people will never subject the things to more than a foot of water, if it falls into a bath or six inches, if if falls into a loo!
Who would choose to spend £41 on a plane when the alleged recommended price is £50. Any problems and there is no easy return option.
The struggle to disembark via the front door was,as ever, an unhappy affair. Eventually it was time to show passports to a disinterested, uniformed person and leave the airport. BUT, nothing so slick or efficient was possible. Instead, the mob was before us, a heaving mass of flesh, sweat and bad breath in front of passport control. There were two routes, I came to realise, as we inched forward. A chap was overseeing the splitting process; to the left was the ABC system for eye and fingerprint checks, while to the right was a queue for one of the two chaps in the conventional kiosk.
As we neared the kiosk, and airport worker guided an old chap with short white hair to the front of the queue, and he took up residency at the glass, resting his cane against the counter. We waited. The second passport checker was the target for the HOTWW. Yes, the constant arrival of immobile people on our right meant the queue made only intermittent progress in getting shorter. Helpers Of The Walking Wounded were nipping about and flashing the collected passports of the infirm.
The left hand counter was out of action for ages. I suggested the bloke could be a returning Rudolph Hess and that could explain well over over five minutes at the passport control window. There was no leeway from the officials. It used to be more of a spot check, with some people simply being waved through, but despite the big crowd, everyone was getting attention. With Rudolph at the left window, we had one single person in Malaga actually allowing people into Spain.
The ABC section, which I observed for a while as there was little else to do, was a mess. The rabble was engaged in sorting out fingerprints and people were staring into screens to get eye recognition clearance. It was all a palaver, and hardly efficient. At each of the four machines was a member of staff, and all four of them could have been better employed in checking fucking passports! Such a policy would have alleviated the wait, as the queues would have been tiny with all six of the airport staff checking passports instead of training thick travellers on how to use a shit system that takes twice as long. The dogged adherence to a flawed policy and procedure was a demonstration of stupiduty worse than the cunts in charge at ASDA. Whilst ASDA may well often offer just two manned (or womanned) checkouts, the self service area usually only has one member of staff overseeing the scanners rather than four! Yes, I know that there are other wasters, such as the floor runner researching the price of a kumquat and two gossipers loitering, the one with the most keys being the more senior, but we have all learnt to ignore them as useful members of staff.
Leaving Rudolph behind (Hess, in case you've forgotten) I pocketed our passports and headed for the exit. As ever, the exit from Malaga Airport was restricted to a five-foot wide gap, reduced by whatever coefficient had to be applied each minute based on encroachment and blockages. Blokes holding cards got in the way, as did dithering fuckers who insisted in stopping in or just outside the doorway. Leeds Airport granted us 70cm, and Malaga Airport matched this, just about, but not before some sidestepping and circum-cuntin-navigating. Generally, there was no right of passage.
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