WE had a weird and wobbly journey back and forth to London last weekend to visit family. I’m a nervous flyer at the best of times but this one really took the biscuit.
The flight over felt like being strapped to a tractor trailer on the backroads up the back of Leap circa 1976, while the return journey featured the kind of turbulence that makes you bargain with whatever deity might be listening.
I was principally interested in the god who is across aeronautical engineering and has some influence in the realm of metal fatigue. To top it off, there were some very upset tummies and our very stoic kids reminded us of the modern miracle that is plastic zip-lock bags. Bleurgh.
It was the kind of flight where passengers try to pretend they are relaxed but are gripping their armrests in fear, and I coincidentally happened to be sitting next to a relatively famous Irish comedian throughout. If this goes down, I thought, I won’t even get a mention in the papers.
I’ll never understand how cabin crew maintain their composure, gliding down the aisle with a trolley of overpriced deodorant while the plane performs jigs and reels in the sky.
Not to mention the guy buying duty free cigarettes by the wadload which was the most statistically dangerous act on the whole flight.
Stats aside, and having regard for the fact that you’d be more likely to die falling out of bed than on a modern aircraft, there’s something peculiarly vulnerable about being 35,000ft up in a tin can, completely surrendering control to unseen forces. You’re strapped in, committed to the journey, and utterly powerless to influence the outcome beyond perhaps a silent prayer and some white knuckles.
Europe gets wobbly
THAT, if you think about it, is a massively overwrought and clunky metaphor for how most of Europe feels right now watching international political events unfold.
Friedrich Merz’s conservatives have limped over the German electoral finish line, replacing the existing Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz and marking a significant lurch to the right for the country. Meanwhile, the far-right AfD claimed second place with 20.8%, sending seismic tremors through European capitals. I don’t know about you, but there’s something extra scary about Nazis when they’ve got German accents. Still, despite Elon Musk’s intercontinental trolling operation, it doesn’t look like they will be offered a seat at the table. Yet.
Merz, at 69, is a late bloomer in political terms, having never held a ministerial position, and he’s now eyeing the chancellorship with the confidence of a man who’s watched several YouTube tutorials on brain surgery and reckons he might give it a lash. Although he is a capitalist and an Americophile, he has pledged for European ‘independence from the US’. With Trump back in the White House calling Ukraine’s Zelensky a ‘dictator’ and sending his goons to meddle in European elections, not to mention their antics at the UN this week, the tectonic plates have rarely felt so wobbly.
If the CDU and SPD manage to form a government, they’ll have a wafer-thin majority of just 12 seats – the political equivalent of trying to cross the Atlantic on a surfboard. Technically possible, but you wouldn’t bet your house on reaching the other side.
And where does this leave little old neutral Ireland? Merz advocates a closer union and ‘an army for Europe’.
None of us wants to be sending our kids to the front any time soon, but there is something faintly embarrassing about having to rely on the kindness of neighbours for our security.
The writing may be on the wall for Ireland to start properly considering and investing in its own defence. Which is a pretty depressing thought in 2025.
Bezos goes Bonding
SPEAKING of bold moves, Amazon has spent $1bn for ‘creative control’ of the James Bond franchise like it was just another item chucked into Jeff Bezos’ shopping cart.
If this isn’t the most flagrant example of reverse colonialism I’ve ever seen .... 007, the quintessentially British spy, will now report to a bloke from Seattle who made his fortune selling me HDMI cables. Picture Bond’s next gadget briefing: ‘Pay attention, 007.
This Echo Dot will self-destruct after reading you today’s weather forecast and reminding you to reorder kitchen towels in bulk’.
Will the next film see Bond pursuing villains with Amazon delivery drones? Will M be replaced by Alexa?
The name’s Bond. Jeff Bond.
