Been travelling a bit recently. First off was Sydney where it seemed to be common practice for men to wear dangly crucifix earrings. As I don’t get out much this was a first for me so I had to google it. Apparently, it is either a sign of being a Christian or showing support for the LGBT movement. I could not possibly comment as to why these men wore the earrings, but I know that Charles 1st and Sir Walter Raleigh both wore dangly earrings, and it did not end well for either of them.
***
Next off Bali. On boarding the plane, I noticed an unbelievable number of tattoos. In fact it soon became apparent it was compulsory to have a tattoo in order to fly. One 72-old man was ejected from the plane for not having one. My wife and I escaped eviction as we both had a doctor’s note excluding us from having tattoos on the basis of good taste. In my day people with tattoos were either naval ratings or Pacific islanders. As none of the passengers were either, I regarded them all as imposters and chose not to speak to them.
But that was not the end of it. Apart from the screaming baby across the aisle I had three young women behind me engaging in a four-and-a-half-hour female bonding session, which involved much screaming and cackling with a never-ending stream of drivel. I was not sure who was loudest: the women or the baby. Early in the flight I was already referring to the women as the Three Witches.
The return flight was not much better. I had a two-year old in front of me, who caused merry mayhem with his endless singing, shouting and generally throwing anything to hand. He managed to poop himself three times in four and a half hours and had to be changed three times (yes, it had to be a boy). Thankfully the parents had the decency to change him in the toilet not in his seat. Though taking a close look at the parents it was a close call.
By the end of the flight, the errant toddler had managed to climb onto his headrest and dangle his legs close to me. I noticed he had tattoos on his shins. Shellshocked for a couple of minutes it finally dawned on me that these were fake as I had seen some small girls on the flight with their hair plaited and coloured bright pink, blue or orange. Not unlike their mothers. The small boy clearly wanted to have tattoos like his parents, the number of which qualified them as a circus act. This conditioning at such an early age had me musing on whether people should have a license to be parents. As we seem to have a rule for everything nowadays why not?
***
Next trip was to Melbourne and the passengers seemed relatively civilised. At least all the tattoos were covered up. All was going well until I went through security at Melbourne Airport. I have false knees and in Adelaide we have a special machine for people like me. All you do is stand in a giant scanner and all is revealed. Not so in backward Melbourne. I was taken aside and subjected to the Ol’ Frisk n’ Grope by a security man as used to happen in Adelaide. When he asked if I would like to do this in a private room, I became misty-eyed at the prospect.