“I ain't got Time to take no fast Train”

Joe Cocker (amongst others) sang a song called “The Letter”, which went a bit like this:
'Give Me A Ticket For An Airoplane
I Ain't Got Time To Take No Fast Train
Oh ,The Lonely Days Are Gone
I'm coming Home
My Baby She Wrote Me A Letter'

I can truly say my vote is with “the fast train” as everything about airports and their concept of bundling people ready for transport irritates the smeg out of me!
It starts way before even getting to that place. Most airports are conveniently placed next to a congested motorway and you have to set off 5 hours before your flight in order to make it on time through the traffic jam.

Then, when you arrive at the airport, which incidentally has the equivalent road system and sign posting of an explosion in a mattress factory and leaves you as confused as a hungry baby in a topless bar, you have to park your car 2 miles from the terminal and drag your suitcases onto a bus and back off at the other end. All of this for the princely daily car parking fee of ‘loads-a-pounds’, increasing the cost of your holiday by 25%.
The bus driver - a very helpful man (NOT!!!) eventually drops you off at the terminal to find your own trolley. By now you are sweating like a bomb disposal expert with hiccups and this is even before you enter the building!!
Airports are busy places and some people do the stupidest things there.
Obstacle 1 is the check-in desk:
Its bad enough having to put up with delayed or worse still cancelled flights, youngsters running amok in the departure lounge and the general incompetence of airport staff but when you on top of that have to deal with the real bozos and air heads, it tends to lead to a completely new level of frustration.

Let’s start with baggage trolleys. These things aren’t difficult to operate, so why do some people insist on dumping them in stupid places and why do they continually nudge you with them when you’re waiting to check in. It doesn’t speed the process up, does it??!!? You’re not going to get to the desk any quicker by shunting me with that thing!! By this time I already want to punch someone!! A crackling voice over the tannoy says something like:
“All sardines wishing to go to Paris, would you please squeeze into your tin now!"

Okay you’ve checked in and you’re flight is on time so you head off for departures and go through airport security. Unfortunately a lot of people have deposited their brains as well as their suitcases! Why do people stand in the queue for the security check for 15 minutes and then remove their coat and empty their pockets only when they get to the security scanner? You have to stand there and watch as person after person does this! When they get to the scanner they look surprised when they are asked to remove their coats even though they have just stood and watched the same happening to every firkin’ person before them.

This just annoys me no end, don’t they want to get to the bar? The sad thing is, you have to go through all this again at the other end when you make your way to the baggage reclaim area only to be faced with lemmings that crush up as close to carousel as possible in the hope that they can snatch their luggage before anyone else.

Now . . this conveyer belt snakes up and down the room for miles, and yet they just must cram themselves right up to the door where the baggage falls onto the belt. Why do they do this? Do they think someone is about to run off with their duty free if their bag has to move more than three feet away from the door? Having shown various people various documents and having been fleeced by customs officers of your foldable comb (this could be used as a lethal weapon!!) you are now free to find Gate 89 which, as everyone knows, is always the furthest gate away and the signs politely advise you to allow half a millennium to get there!
After some heated discussion between some sick dirt-bag of a moron and the cabin crew over him wanting to squeeze a 2-ton bag into the overhead locker the plane takes finally to the skies.
“Welcome to United Morons on your 45 minute flight to Paris!”

Well, not me!!!
By that time I am sitting on the Champs-Elysees sipping a cool beer having taken the train which incidentally stops in the centre of Paris rather than at Charles De Gaulle airport 20 miles (45 minutes) away!