altariel | The state we're in

Tuesday. I was livid about the passengers on the flight from Malaga to Manchester who forced two young men off the plane on apparently no more grounds than that they looked a bit funny. I caught an interview with a couple who were on the flight, who said that when the two young men got on board the whole atmosphere changed. (Why an interview with these people? Why not an interview with the injured parties?) The husband of this couple – the preposterous have-a-go wannabe – said you could tell something was strange about them because everyone else was wearing shorts and flip-flops and they weren’t. It’s enough to make you take up wearing a hoodie. What a shame the airline didn’t tell anyone who had a problem with these young men that they were free to get off and catch a later flight. I hope someone sues.

Some of you may remember that at the start of the month I received a mailshot letter from the local police inviting me to inform upon people speeding down my rat-run road (they were asking residents to note down names or index numbers of speeding drivers). In an unusual burst of activism, no doubt triggered by having no internet to keep me soporific, I rang them up on Monday to find out exactly what they intended to do with these bits of unsubstantiated gossip. They explained they want people to note down patterns of behaviour so that they can then come out and set up their speed cameras or whatever in order to prove or disprove allegations.

Speaking to the policewoman tasked with this, it transpired that I am the very first person to call them about this letter (this tickled me to high heaven, I’m sure you can imagine), and that they were all wondering why nobody had got in touch with them, given that speeding on the road had been such an issue at local community meetings. She sounded young and earnest and a bit bewildered to have this lunatic barking about civil liberties down the phone at her. (No, I was perfectly well-behaved and polite but, God, I did feel old.) I didn’t offer to participate, but I did suggest that perhaps one of the problems might be with the letter, which reads very badly: “Citizens! Do your moral duty! Shop your neighbours!” only in unreadable Arial and semi-punctuated.

The whole thing reinforces one of my general rules-of-thumb about, you know, life – that most seemingly dubious actions are basically down to ineptitude. Not the case with the people on that flight, though. They’re just bastards.