Planes, turtles in your pants and buses...

One of the advantages of flying all over China every week is that the airlines love me (or rather, the money I spend with them) and so give me a sort of VIP gold card thing. It's very nice because I don't have to queue up at check in, security etc and at the gate I get on first, which is very important as I can get my stuff in the overhead locker before the locals push, shove & pile on with 4 suitcases each, a back pack, 3 shopping bags and a box each of 'famous' dogmeat and bloody fruit (I kid you not - one day, a Air China flight will simply crash through the end of the runway because it's 75 tons overweight with shite)

If the gate is on the ground level so we have to get a ghastly bus thing to a plane parked in a field 2 miles away (often happens if flying to a place the size of Trumpton) and they put on a sort of VIP mini-bus, which is SUPPOSED to go first....

Anyway, on Monday, the bastard thing DIDN'T - I was sat, all smug-like in my tasteful velour seat (there was only 3 of us on it) when the scum truck behind us set off!!! I was up like a shot & (frankly) swearing & cursing like a washer-woman...the poor driver was totally baffled, although I suspect the other two guys knew what I was trying to say as I was pointing at the motorised skip now turning the corner towards CA1567 or whatever it was...

I jumped off and turned my wrath on the 'customer service specialist' at the gate, and I demanded they radio ahead & tell the scrote-bus to pull over so we could overtake...needless to say, once he'd finished texting his bird, the driver finally set off at - I suspect - a deliberately slower pace, just to wind me up more (not possible).

When we got to the plane, the school bus was already there & the great unwashed from Bash Street were in a rugby scrum to get up the steps, and my hopes of them parting like the Red Sea for Moses were dashed, and in the end, despite all my shouting, instead of being first on, I was next to last. You may laugh, but I've paid a fecking FORTUNE to get that card & the reality is, all animals are equal except....and a class system still exists on planes because all this political correctness bollocks hasn't got there yet...

On the plane, I stabbed away at my laptop searching for 'AIR CHINA COMPLAINTS' and got feck all so sent one to the bloody Pheonix MIles people who run the card - I haven't even had an acknowledgement yet, even though in the subect line I put PISSED OFF PASSENGER. When I complained to BA last year, it took 5 attempts to get a reply (I complaned my complaint hadn't been dealt with and then complained my complaint about my complaint about my complaint (etc)) until in the end I wrote "I therefore conclude you DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PASSENGERS" - then I got a response & a 50 quid voucher off my next flight even though I said I'd never fly with them again...logical...

Anyway, as usual, the stewardess came to me and tried to say "welcome aboard Mr Grumpy" etc (as they do to anyone with a twats card) but she couldn't speak English and her breath smelled : I politely declined the offer of a bloody Chinese-language newspaper, and I think she got the message & scurried off to get me an English version of China Daily (but not a toothbrush, or even a mint) - and from this, I've attached a few funny news stories, made even funnier by the translation...

Enjoy them : my shitty flight is your bloody pleasure, it seems...