it is always the same; it hits me as I turn into the gate lounge at the airport. A sudden and dramatic change. Half the people are badly dressed and badly behaved white British, the other half immigrants, usually better dressed, if only because of formulaic dressing, but better behaved because of some sense of discipline or proprietary. You cannot be mistaken; this is the flight to the UK. Turkish Airlines takes checking Visa’s very seriously. You have your passport checked four times, not counting the actual check-in.
One couple, unmistakably British, are eating some smelly wraps they must have bought from a café somewhere. I resign myself to it. This time the flight was grimmer than usual. The usual behaviour which I just don’t understand, (and in truth this is not just the British); when the announcement goes out, in two languages, to put your seat in the upright position for take-off or landing, which part do people not hear? Am I an unusually developed human being that I understand that this is an important instruction given by the people responsible for the aircraft and should just be obeyed?
Two seats away from me, a man in his forties was sitting. He had a sweet, broken, smile which he gave to the air hostesses a couple of times. He was quite large, with tattoos on his arms and knuckles, but, I could tell, with a weak core. He seemed very fretful when he was told his man-bag would have to be stowed in the overhead locker for take-off. I noticed that as the plane took off he was still chatting in an app on his phone. It happens, though as incomprehensible to me as any other inability to follow the simplest of instructions relating to safety. As the plane approached Manchester airport his phone went off, loudly. He tried to smother the ring-tone, which seemed to take some time. Then he took the call. I debated letting it go. I never say anything to the myriad people chatting long after the “please turn off your electronic devices” announcement on take-off. But this was so flagrant. I leant over to him and said, “you know by using your mobile phone when the plane is landing you are endangering everyone around you”. He responded with “calm down”, a trick I am familiar with when dealing with this kind of trash. The the idea of the “calm down” is to dismiss your challenge as your emotional problem and simultaneously wind you up, so that you make a mistake. It duly worked! I Instinctively I undid my seatbelt, to be ready to fight. As I did it up again he noticed and leapt at it; “you too”. I had to point out that I wasn’t endangering the aircraft. Before this he had spilt a cup of water over me when he was trying to pass it to the air hostesses. After this altercation, when he was trying to help the girl next to him by passing her her luggage from the locker he, accidentally it seemed, knocked another bag to the floor, my camera bag. In neither case did he apologise. Clearly, he was all over the place. I tried to place him by his accent. I think he was probably a long-term British resident originally from an Eastern European country. He went through the UK passports section. I estimated him as the kind of person who is too cowardly to be a real criminal but who is always looking for chances to break a rule if he thinks he can get some personal advantage. When I pointed out that he could be arrested for using his phone in the aircraft he seemed to sober up, and went through the motions of turning it off. My guess is that he was running drugs from Istanbul for someone. There was no visible police or customs presence at Manchester airport.
And so, welcome to Britain.