Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit

I’ve just returned from a weekend in Germany, which should have proved a rich seam of glasses to tap into. Unfortunately due to the short time I was there and the lack of a local flea markets really put a limit to the glass collecting opportunities and I had to console myself with a single glass I obtained from the family wedding we were over there for. Still it’s quite a curious glass and I wonder if it signals the start of a new drinking fashion. As any keen beer drinker worth his continental pils will know, beer in German is usually served in 0.3l or if you’re very thirsty 0.4l glasses. Yes that’s right, they don’t quaff from lidded stoneware litre pots as a regular occurrence just like that most of them have never had the pants of a pair of leather trousers anywhere near their backsides in their lives. (Apart from David Hasselhoff) 

But what several of the wedding guests were drinking was beer from a mini 0.1l glass, still shaped like it’s bigger cousins the 0.3l or 0.4l. Although this glass might only provide enough liquid for one or two mouthfuls they were proving to be most popular and lots of people were asking for and drinking from them. Whether the idea behind the glass is so that you can be seen to be drinking heartily whilst not exactly imbibing a large amount of alcohol I’m not sure and seeing that most of the mini-glass drinkers were still downing the various schnapps like they were going out of fashion I don’t think so. Perhaps that’s the real idea in fact, with your 0.1l beer in one hand and your small schnapps glass in the other, you don’t feel so out of balance. Well it’s a theory I suppose. 

Of course, in true Millignorance tradition we flew on the day that the British Government decided to implement the most rigid flight restrictions seen since Amy Johnson had a very racy pair of pantaloons confiscated for breaking the cotton ration. To be honest we felt a bit fraudulent as we obviously had friends and relations ringing and asking after us to see if we’d ended up camping in some hastily erected marquee on Heathrow’s second runway. Luckily, for us anyway, we were flying from Stansted and we were flying with Ryanair and not EasyJet, who decided to cancel all their Stansted flights that day. (Other airlines are available) In fact when you consider that we arrived with only a 15-minute delay we probably had a better flight than we would normally have.  

Now take the following into account: we flew at 8 o clock in the evening and the news had been full of the various security measures being put in place for the whole of the day, the airport had staff wandering up and down the checking in queues not only handing out the necessary plastic bags for the only items to be allowed through airport security but also reminding people that the only things being allowed through were wallets and passports. Cue then cast from “Idiots R Us” who must be kept in frozen animation until such an event as this. “But I can take my camera can’t I? You don’t mean cameras do you?” “My wife would like to keep her makeup with her so she can touch herself up on the flight, that’s ok isn’t it?” “But I’m on the last chapter in my book, what am I going to do on the flight?”

But I guess you could excuse this bunch of numskulls on the point that this was a an extraordinary situation, which doesn’t then go for the bunch of compulsive queuers that I encountered on the return journey from Lübeck airport who formed mass scrums at every available opportunity. Hello? The plane won’t leave until we’re all aboard and you standing by the departure gate 45 minutes before the flight is called isn’t going to get you home any quicker. 

Two other stories from my travels to relate, both of which funnily enough concern passport control. Firstly as I reentered the UK and was going through passport control there was a German lady in front of me with a toddler in her arms and the toddler was carrying a cuddly frog. As she presented passports for herself and the child the very well spoken but straight faced customs and excise man said, “Do you have a passport for the frog?” to which the lady replied “Oh, no I haven’t, do I need one?” to which the man said “No, I’ll let you through this time, but don’t tell the Queen.” The way he delivered the line was perfect and would have put Eric Morecambe to shame. 

In Lübeck airport the departure lounge is a temporary affair consisting of what is basically a big tent! Passport control is located in the middle of this the idea being you cross from one side to the other (getting checked in the middle) in order to get access to the planes. What also straddles the centre of the tent is the newsagents but you can only access it from the first area, so once you’ve passed through passport control and you’ve forgotten your copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine then it’s tough luck sonny you’re going to have a boring flight. Imagine then my surprise when the chap who’d sat down next to me after we’d already passed through passport control realised he’d bough the wrong magazine. He leapt up and went and banged on the glass of the newsagents getting the attention of the very startled serving man. He waved the magazine around then said loudly and deliberately (remember he’s talking to someone behind glass) “I’ll bring it round for a swap” and then as cool as you like sauntered back through passport control, entered the newsagent, changed his magazine and then waltzed back through without raising an eyebrow from the two pistol toting gentlemen from the Bundesgrenzschutz. Good job he wasn’t trying to run to catch the tube! 

Just noticed that a female work colleague not only has placed a cuddly toy by her computer but ha actually attached it to her desk fan so the stupid thing rotates back and forth. I sense a kidnapping approaching!