Things I've Seen At Geneva Airport

After a final day in Geneva, eating rubbery croissants and then fine pizza (strangely, Geneva seems filled with pizzerias) we took the train back to the airport. I checked in behind a strange looking chap: a grey bird's nest of scruffy hair atop his head, Chanel glasses that advertised themselves with centimetre high lettering in glittery Swarovski crystals. And then a baggy old t-shirt half tucked into some tracksuit bottoms that might have been pulled out of a ditch. I'm just saying it was a bit of an odd look for somebody, and it's not like I don't wander around being malcoordinated.

I got through security without trouble, then went to buy chocolate for the office in Hong Kong. If I was buying them chocolate, I certainly deserved some for myself, so I got a large block of Nestle Brut for myself. I'm not sure why Nestle are selling chocolate named after an aftershave from the 1970s. I'm not sure why I bought it either. Oh well.

I walked down the tunnel from the main part of the Geneva terminal to the gate. The tunnel is full of adverts for watches, the strangest one being for a watch named after Ejyall-whatshername. You know, the Icelandic geological feature that blew up last year and stopped all flights in Europe with its cloud of volcanic ash/remains from burned negotiable bearer bonds. The advert displays a man with a big pair of gauntlets and goggles on, waving a huge rock, and a big watch with the coastline of Iceland on the face, and a plane on the minute hand.

Which is a bit odd.

I mean, volcanoes aren't usually seen as paradigms for efficient and accurate timekeeping. And it's further odd that you'd advertise a watch that commemorates the disruption of air travel, in an airport. That's like an advert for condoms in a maternity ward.

Sorry. It's heading towards Heathrow, clearly, that's making me think about contraception.

Giggling to myself about this (well, it's better than distractedly singing "bom bom bom" as I find myself doing so in airports far too much) I wandered up to my gate, only to discover, horrorstruck, that the cashier had not put my chocolate bar into the bag. No chocolate for me, if I didn't break open the office's supplies.

Enraged, I looked around, only to catch the eye of bird's-nest man, who gave me an evil look. I would have given him a funny look back, but he already had one, so instead I sat, fulminating on the perfidy of the Swiss. The British may be a nation of shopkeepers, but at least they put the damn confectionary into the bag, rather than charging you 5 Swiss francs for a non-existent chocolate bar.