Cabin pressure
IT seems the story of United Airlines and David Dao, the unfortunate passenger who was dragged off one of its planes, is already being used - albeit in a light-hearted manner - by pilots elsewhere.
Dave Biggart tells the Diary about his flight home from Malta. The airport had made a mess of seat allocations for families, and hundreds of people were left standing at exit passport control. On board the plane, the Jet2 captain found himself in the aisle, trying to sort out the mess.
Says Dave: “When, finally, everyone was seated, he announced from the front of the cabin that any inappropriate behaviour would result in him diverting to the most remote airfield he could find, whereby the perpetrator would be removed by police, and abandoned.”
Lest his message still wasn’t clear, the captain added that the cabin crew had been specially trained by United Airlines to deal with any problems. “His good humour”, adds Dave, “certainly lightened the mood after the experience at the airport.”
Up in the air
AND while we’re on the subject, John Neil swears he heard a bloke on the radio say that the last boss of United Airlines had left his job “under a cloud”.
Watch strap
MORE of your tawse stories. Norman Brown recalls: “As a recently qualified teacher in the late 1970s, I had occasion to belt an unruly pupil.
“Not having used the belt before, it was with some trepidation that I delivered the punishment.
“Unfortunately, the boy was wearing his watch the other way around and, due to my inexperience, I caught him on the wrist and the watch simply disintegrated ... much to the amusement of the rest of the class”.
Mental image
AND Russell Smith recalls: “With hindsight, our manic locum secondary 2 maths teacher, brow-beating us with quickfire questions, was probably bipolar when shouting that he would have us doing ‘mental’ before the lesson ended. But there was nothing wrong with his hearing when, too loudly, I whispered that he would have us mental before the lesson ended.
“And, boy, could he belt”.
Shop talk
JOHN Dunlop, spotting the song-related play on Lidl’s name in Friday’s Diary - “Here I am, stuck in the Lidl with you” - offers some of his own. Namely:
* Aldi, and all of the night
* This Land is Poundland
* and I’m Gonna Make You A Star(bucks).
Can other Diary readers think of more examples?
Cracking up
“POACHED eggs for breakfast this morning!” tweets Richard (Countdown) Osman. “I’ve realised that saying ‘poached’ is so much classier than saying ‘shoplifted’”.
Last supper
TRUST John Lydon (Johnny Rotten, as was) to come up with the perfect dinner should he ever find himself on Death Row. “553,000 courses, it would go on forever”, he tells Q magazine. “They’d get bored and forget to execute me”.
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