"In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will lower from above your head." Yes folks, last Thursday I found myself on a Ryanair flight bound for 'That London'.
The purpose of my mission was a visit to the City, to catch up with some of the old gang, to finagle some free lunches and to generally see what has changed now that we are navigating the stormiest waters since the Great Crash and subsequent depression of the 1930s. And naturally I expected a visit to the next Hooverville . My logic is sound. If this is the biggest depression since the 1930s, then there must be a Hooverville. Or should that be a Brownville?
However, first I had to successfully negotiate my journey.
Ryanair - always an excellent lesson in my ever-broadening price/value continuum. I don't even feel dirty when I say this: I Love Ryanair. I shout it loud and I shout it proud.
This was my journey.
I always like to be one of the last to embark the aircraft. The logic is again sound. The seats at the boarding gates are more comfortable than the seats on the plane. So while a multitude of stress cats stand queuing pointlessly and stressing about getting to pick their own awful seat before anyone else, and getting to cram their own hand luggage into the overhead racks before anyone else, I prefer to leave it until the last minute, to relax in an upholstered seat at the boarding gate, drink my coffee and do my Times crossword.
When feeding time at the zoo finally abates, and the glut of stress cats are safely aboard the aircraft, I calmly walk onto the plane. I offer my hand luggage to the air stewardess and the search for overhead luggage space becomes her problem, not mine. I then calmly walk to exactly half way down the cabin to the emergency exit seats. There is ALWAYS one available.
This is the space where a stewardess will always stand to supervise a 'smooth' boarding process. It gives her more room from which to convey her domineering look. I smile at her, she steps away, and gives that knowing smile acknowledging that I have rumbled the Secret of Ryanair and hey presto I have secured myself the closest thing to a business class seat that you will ever get on one of Michael O'Leary's fleet.
You may think that given my occasional derogatory reference to the seats and the nature of the cattle-like stampede, that I may have a problem with Ryanair. Well nothing could be further from the truth. It cost me a mere £5.00. I booked my flights 2 months ago, and I used my Visa Electron card to pay for the flight, which at the time meant no card processing fee (this may have changed now for Ryanair, but it will work on most other online bookings across 'Tinternet').
The passenger seated to my left was a rather elegant lady approaching the latter half of her middle years. She looked like she came straight from the set of a Merchant Ivory film. Dainty gloves, hair perfectly coiffed and elegant attire.
The only issue was that she was a whinge bucket. She gave out about everything. Her first diatribe was targeted at the air stewardesses who were “unhelpful and excessively pushy.” She asked me what I thought:
“My flight cost me £5.00”, I replied.
She then laid into Ryanair because our flight took off a whole twenty minutes after the allotted time. Bark, bark bark.
“My flight cost me £5.00”, I replied.
Then round came the drinks trolley. The lady ordered a glass of Chardonnay. Lady Windermere was asked to pay something akin to the gross national product of Lesotho for the pleasure. I politely decline the offer 'to purchase' a beverage from the bar trolley.
“That is just outrageous isn't it?”, she ventured “I could buy a full bottle of wine in my local supermarket for that price”.
“My flight cost me £5.00”, was my helpful reply.
For the second half of the flight I browsed the newspaper, (my own paper not the one that is sold on board at an inflated price) to pass the time. I read about a premiership footballer who had allegedly spent £100,000 on a fish tank. I read about an international star of the entertainment industry and his 40th birthday bash held on a Caribbean island, replete with synchronised swimmers, fireworks display, private jets, luxury yachts.
I proceeded into 'That London' safe in the knowledge that if people are prepared to blow money with such a brazen disrespect, there will always be hope for the rest of us 'Ryanair-heads' to make some money even in the darkest hour.
The last contribution from Lady Windermere was to loudly criticise the slightly bumpy landing carried out by the pilot.
My parting remarks to her, as the air stewardess retrieved and handed me my hand luggage?
“My flight cost me £5.00”.
As I said at the outset, I Love Ryanair. It does exactly as it says on the tin. And if you use your 'kop on', it is almost Google-like in that it is an almost free service. Think carefully and find me one other area where £5.00 can deliver so much. A mini-cab journey of 300 yards would cost you more.
The next 3 days were spent in and around London visiting various friends and former colleagues.
On the whole my conclusion is that there is no recession in London. Restaurants and bars were jammed everywhere. Shoreditch was overrun with people. Farringdon was choca block too. A new development of apartments at Canada Water is fully sold out. Rents are starting to creep up.
Two friends were describing a crazy night they had in one of those swanky nightclubs in Mayfair. One of them was nothing short of boastful about the fact he 'dropped' £500 on the night out. Think about the St Moritz type brigade in my previous blog and you'll get the picture!
Actually, they are going skiing next week, and plan to “do it large”. I think it's fair to say, that whatever Billy Bragg's desires to the contrary may be, the banks haven't stopped paying bonuses.
Another one of the gang decided he wanted to rent his own place by the river. So in a dramatic and life changing experience (he wanted to get his own place before he turned 30), he moved out of a flat share where he was paying in the order of £800 per month, and moved into a bachelor pad where he now pays just shy of £1500 per month.
That's £18,000 per year. Give or take, that grosses up to £36,000 of salary. Median earnings of full-time male employees were £531 per week in April 2009. That's just shy of £28,000. I'll let you do the maths. And I don't care if his new flat came with free synchronised swimmers.
It's funny, but I have just re-read the last five paragraphs again and have felt in no way envious.
There is only one bad luck story. One of the lads has been out of work for over a year now. He decided he would blaze a Gordon Gekko-like trail by quitting his job and becoming a market day trader. That experiment did not last long and it was game set and match to the market before he was a month into the new life.
He is currently on the lookout for cheaper lodgings and is investigating getting housing benefit. And if all else fails, it might be worth considering taking up synchronised swimming, or fishtank maintenance.
Thanks for reading, and all comments are warmly welcomed folks.
