Are long haul flights managed by Guantanamo bay?

After the previous post that had been sitting in my mind for some time, slowly percolating away, concerning me about the serious nature of the British public's mind set, I find myself on a more trivial topic today.

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting a beautiful country far, far away. But in order to reach this sun kissed paradise, first I had to get there. This as you may guess involved not walking or sailing, but flying.

There was a time when air travel was considered glamorous but since the 1920s things have changed a little. Budget airlines are functional and practical even if the cabin crew wear suits so shiny I can actually see my face in them and we accept that our experience on them is going to be pretty dull. But I was flying on a major carrier so you'd expect the time spent flying to be a little more enjoyable.

To an extent it was. On the flight out they had recent movies and plenty of entertainment. The staff were very friendly and always helpful. I could watch a film, play my friend at battleships or just read if I wanted. All very nice.... on the flight out.

The flight back was exactly the same except for one difference: it was at night. That meant that I really wanted, nay, needed to get some sleep. Things started well. I had a free seat next to me so I could try to lie down across two seats and the kind woman behind me didn't mind me putting my seat back to recline a little more. All this meant that as 1:00am rolled up I was read to start trying to drift off.

At first it was reasonably successful. I can't quite tell how successful, one never can when you're in that 'inbetween state' of not quite fully asleep but not completely awake either, but I think between 2 and 3 I was in a sort of sleep state.

At this point however the carrier apparently decided to go from luxury airliner to prison cell 'wanna-be', because at 3am the lights came on in glorious style waking me up and making sure there was little chance to go back to sleep. I've heard that in Guantanamo Bay and in other POW camps it is standard practice to leave a light on in the cell 24 hours a day to sleep deprive and disorientate the 'visitor'. I didn't realise that this ideas had now been incorporated into the airliners service agreement. Presumably it was in the small print.

Second are the seats. Now I get that the seat has to conform to a million different requirements and by the time they're adhered to there is little in the way left for comfort, especially when you want to squeeze as many people onto a plane as possible but isn't there someway to make it possible to sleep on them? Lets be honest, take out the luggage bins and I'd be able to sleep in the overhead space, its long and flat which is pretty much all I'd need since they had already provided a pillow.

Third, and this is on the one that really gets me: air conditioning. I say air conditioning although this feels like the wrong word, unless it is used in the same sense as 'North Korean spies are conditioned by the state'. So basically ruined.

Air is a pretty plentiful commodity, admittedly not at 30,000ft but it is generally and so I think we take it for granted. This complacency is easily removed for my by a trip in a Boeing.

First of all the air was cold, which was a welcome break from the oppressive heat of paradise. However after 5 hours of flying its far less welcome. The air was not cool but cold and since when you're trying to sleep your body temperature drops, a cold breeze is the last thing you need to help you sleep and yes I had already turned the vents off, but the pressure was so high it was getting through anyway.

Second, the dryness of the air was, is and always has been, horrid. I don't know what the engineer of the system knows about human beings but apparently they think that we're used to air that seems to have come across the Sahara and as a result has been striped of every last bit of moisture. The result of which is that you're constantly dehydrated and your nasal passages dry up. This is particularly bad as drying out your nasal passages makes you more likely to catch colds and other airborne infections. Which isn't what you want when sharing the same air with 280 other people.

Thanks to the complete lack of moisture even though I had several drinks through an 8-9 hour flight I never used the toilet once, not once. Is this a ploy? Less toilets? More drinks sold? I don't know, all I do know is that the moment they start a service for 1st class air in your cabin, I'll give serious though to an upgrade!

I don't know what to suggest for the airlines really. Obviously the aim is to stop people sleeping and its seems they have it down to a tee. Perhaps maybe they could also employ someone to occasionally kick you in the head just as you're about to drop off to sleep, just to get the fuller experience?

Either way I can happily say for all my ramblings that those points I've mentioned aside, the flight was prompt, the service was great, the destination was simply staggeringly beautiful and the company (that is the people present, not the airline corporation) was incomparable.

Is it David Cameron coming in shining armour?

The Government must solve all our problems.

Is it just me or is that basically the attitude that is adopted today by everyone. And I mean, pretty much everyone. There was a woman on the radio the other day complaining because as an alcoholic she had been given an ASBO. But that didn't make any difference she claimed. She was banned from drinking in pubs but she could still drink at home and then go outside and cause problems.

What sort of attitude is that? It is almost like complaining because she hasn't been locked up and sent to prison. Oh, they haven't totally stopped me doing what I want, so there is no point trying to give me a nudge into the right direction.

This is prevalent in other areas too. If too many people get knifed, then the answer must be in legislation making a the sentences higher for people carrying a knife.

Look people the government making the sentence higher for carrying a knife will have no impact at all. What will, parents sitting their children down and saying to them in a loving tone "I love you very much, but if you ever carry a knife I'll break your fingers", ok not literally that, but you get the picture.

As a result we have to pay high taxes so that each time society fails to do something properly the government can 'look' like it is doing something.

As a lawyer we see this all the time. The mortgage repossession pre-action protocol. What effect did it have? Well, not much. Maybe some extra paper work for the banks, a bit more paper work for the lawyers (so basically higher fees for everyone) and some extra work for the government.

Each time they have to run around, pretend the law has changed, or in some other way spend some money to make everyone feel better, because after all that is what the government does, it solves every problem and controls everyone, except of course, we all know it doesn't.

Sadly criminal behaviour is more controlled better by one sentence of a Mum or Dad than a several sentences from a Criminal Court.

Banning things also rarely solves a problem, after all, an air rifle is less dangerous in the hands of someone responsible than a brick (availble from all local builders merchants) in the hands of someone who isn't.

We're starting to see this in the economy too. Governments must make some program to get people back on their feet and in their next job. Great idea I'll grant you, but do you really think that the government, if it had a way of getting more people into jobs wouldn't have done it already?

Getting people in jobs is a gold mine for a government, it means people love you and your tax revenue goes up. Everyone's a winner! So why do people believe that a government wouldn't do it if there really was a way to make it happen.

Looking around the world we can see that the US has the best growth most of the time. This isn't down to government initiatives, it is down to letting people keep the money they earn and not taxing it all away, ironically to pay for silly initatives that make the public feel like its all going to be ok, now that there is a minister being paid to think up some scheme.

Paying people for what they do and not paying them much for what they don't is the best back to work scheme the world has every known. Sadly well intentioned programmes tend to just be misused by companies to get free labour and then fire the person at the end. Valuable experience? Maybe, but these aren't usually law jobs, or accountancy where experience is useful, they are jobs where being competant and commited is more valuable than experience.

Government does have a purpose, and a very important one, don't get me wrong.

With a good road network, business prospers. So directing investment is part of the job. Likewise the government should act as a moral compass when it comes to new laws. Should murderers be jailed? Should certain drugs be illegal? Should there be a television campaign to tell people about the risks of smoking and promiscuous sex?

It is a bit of a sliding scale, so you can understand how the government can quickly be expected to deal with everything. But as the public, I think we need to start to recognise something. The real influence in life, the real unit of community that will make a difference to the next generation is not the Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom, but rather it is the family.

What Mum and Dad say (or doesn't say) to little Timmy will have more impact on the next generation that what David Cameron says, what Jonathan Ross says, what the Kasier Chiefs say or even what the local Magistrates say.

Until then the idea that the government can sort everything out is sadly misguided. To think that just means more of our money taxed and spent on people feigning activity and action to make us all feel like 'its going to be ok, the government will sort it out with their huge pot of money'.

Such an almost emotional dependance isn't good. But maybe I'm just confused and some would say I too need to look to central government for salvation. But for many reasons least of all looking at what happened in Russia and what still goes on in China I'm going to go with "no".