Leaving Singapore

Another day, another plane. I was smart enough to check my seat before I got to the airport today, and picked the middle of row 30, where there's nobody in front of you and you can stretch your legs out a bit. The comfort of this was in marked contrast to the flight out, where I was only four rows further back, but because I'd chosen the D seat, had no room under my seat to stretch my legs, because that's where a lumpen box controlling the audio visual system for the row lives. I didn't know this at the time; it was just a large metal box that was in the way, but diligent study of the internet will reveal these things. I'm now very grateful to the aviation nerds of the world, who have catalogued information like this.

I do wonder what other information has been gleaned about flights over time. Does anyon e have a good survey on which is the most comfortable toilet on a plane to be sick into? Or which overhead storage bins are most likely to shake open during a landing and deposit a fully-packed suitcase upon your head? Surely somebody should be able to tell me these things, if I asked.

I'm feeling quite grotty today; it's a combination of a week of low-quality, low-quantity sleep, kept awake every night by the sounds of incompetent karaoke or possibly an inept bar band (I heard a spectacularly cack-handed rendition of Mr Brightside on acoustic guitar last night), along with a poor diet of danish pastries and muffins, quaffed down too late in the morning, no fruit or vegetables, and having to battle with a spreadsheet that makes my computer wheeze and pump out hot air for five minutes every time I do anything. It's not as if my computer is particularly old and unwell; I think it's just it objects to the insanity of me feeding it The Biggest Spreadsheet In The World and expecting answers to come from the tornado of numbers I've given it. Perhaps next week, when I'm no longer telling a man at the other end of a phone how to do my old job, I'll have more time to think of ways to be more effective.

So that has largely been my week; arriving late at night, leaving exhausted. I've already begun to grow contemptuous of Changi airport. Yes, it's about as efficient as Hong Kong, but it has been decked out in unfortunately awful brown and yellow carpet, like the decorators had a huge roll of the stuff left over from the 1970s and weren't sure what to do with it. And in a wonderful example of moaning about luxury, I have to say that the Cathay Pacific lounge at Singapore isn't that wonderful; comfy chairs and wifi it may have, but it also has some rubbish sandwiches wrapped in cling film and nothing interesting to look at apart from some men assembling metal girders outside.

It's also a bit of a yomp from lounge to gate, or perhaps i'm just tired and sulky. In truth, I wanted a big bag of jujubes of some sort to suck upon while on the plane, and it's hardly Singapore's fault that I waited too long in the lounge before going in search of them, but I want somebody to take the blame, and I don't think it should be me.