Good afternoon.
Despite having had the physics of flight explained to me several times, I still gaze in disbelief at big jets soaring into the sky. They shouldn't, logically, but they do, consistently. And today, the biggest of them, the Airbus A380, cast a great shadow over London as it swept, majestically, into Heathrow airport ahead of the first scheduled flights. "It was blooming early!" roared Faye, not unlike an RB 211, Rolls Royce ramjet. "They often are", the rest of us observed in a harmony the Red Arrows aerobatic team would have been proud of. "Never when I am on board", she hit back.
This can only prove that the jet-stream has underplayed it's hand recently between here and the Caribbean and here and the Alps. She gets around, our Faye, but seldom arrives early. I think that's because she knows we'd all wait for her, especially when she is wearing open toe sandals on a chilly day like today.
Despite having had the physics of flight explained to me several times, I still gaze in disbelief at big jets soaring into the sky. They shouldn't, logically, but they do, consistently. And today, the biggest of them, the Airbus A380, cast a great shadow over London as it swept, majestically, into Heathrow airport ahead of the first scheduled flights. "It was blooming early!" roared Faye, not unlike an RB 211, Rolls Royce ramjet. "They often are", the rest of us observed in a harmony the Red Arrows aerobatic team would have been proud of. "Never when I am on board", she hit back.
This can only prove that the jet-stream has underplayed it's hand recently between here and the Caribbean and here and the Alps. She gets around, our Faye, but seldom arrives early. I think that's because she knows we'd all wait for her, especially when she is wearing open toe sandals on a chilly day like today.
Aviation of another sort may have saved lives in an otherwise open and closed tragedy. Marcus explains how a Police helicopter may have stopped a policeman from shooting the rest of his family. It is a strange story.
Showing little signs, yet, of lift-off is Ken's campaign to get re-elected. His "Red Baron" seems firmly in the sights of the guns of Boris "Biggles" Johnson. (Captain W.E.Johns wrote the Biggles book so my casting of Boris is better than you might have thought!) Harris cries "Chocks away!"
Pop stars seem to make a habit of dying in plane crashes - Buddy Holly, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and not Elvis Presley, who died on the loo. I am pleased to have been told that Frankie Valli didn't die in a plane crash either, as I feared: In fact, he "so didn't", to quote Faye again, that he is on the Red Carpet tonight with Lucy in Leicester Square as The Jersey Boys premieres.
Also premiering tonight is this year's People Millions when we give you, or some of you, lots of dosh. It doesn't have to be a pet cemetery though that did help two years ago. Ducklings feature tonight so I , for one, will be glued as Glen dons his yellow all-in-one and says "quack quack".
He is, of course, free to say what he wants.
Unlike coroners, if the Government has it's way. They are especially cross with the Oxfordshire coroner who has an irritating habit of pointing out that British soldiers might fare better in Iraq if they had the right equipment. The dad of the late Captain James Phillipson rather wants the good coroner to keep bellowing, and he'll tell you why.
You'll hear a pin drop, I suspect.
But hopefully not an aircraft.
"Premium class passengers board first, please!" Hey, that's you....
See you at six.
Alastair and Katie.
