Thinking inside the box
Our flight from Budapest to Warsaw, before an onward connection to Gdansk, saw us ferried by one of LOT Polish Airlines’ 10 ambassadorial planes, the craft nicely turned out in special tournament livery. ‘Welcome to Euro 2012’ was the legend emblazoned on the fuselage, accompanied by big image of a football in blue and white.
Once on board, the cover image of ‘Kaleidoscope’, the in-flight magazine, caught our eye, an editorial insisting: “Football is not about results, it’s about fun and I’m sure there will be many enjoyable moments in Poland and Ukraine.”
Indeed, the first of those enjoyable moments — at least for our non-smoking colleagues — came at Warsaw airport during a four-hour wait between arrival from Budapest and departure for the Baltic.
Conceive then of the joy of us tobacco addicts when we saw a sign directing us to a ‘designated smoking area’. And now conceive of the even greater mirth of our healthier brethren when ‘the designated smoking area’ turned out to be, essentially, a glass box about the size of an average elevator. And not only that, but a glass box whose location in the middle of a busy throughway meant that passers-by could derive endless entertainment from stopping briefly to study the toxic habits of the pitiful creatures contained within. Or even, as a couple of our colleagues chose to do, take fun pictures of the deranged inmates with their mobile phones.
And, yes, reader, as a smoker faced with the prospect of spending four hours in a transit lounge sandwiched between two flights, and with at least two thousand words to get done before Gdansk into the bargain, I was only too happy to sign up as one of those pitiful creatures.
And I must say, all credit to the Warsaw airport authorities for bringing a dollop of black humour into play to help make us primates feel better in our own little zoo. “Welcome to the smoking area,” read the sign inside, as the sliding doors closed quickly to seal us in, an alarm sounding any time a new arrival kept them open for more than a couple of seconds.
“Help create a healthy atmosphere,” the instructions cheerfully continued.
And yet, withal, we were happy in our own little way. So beaten down are smokers these days, so full of self-loathing and so pathetically grateful for the smallest display of mercy that if, in an airport, we are shown a hole in the ground which has been dug especially for us to smoke in, we cheerfully jump in.
Warsaw’s international airport is named after Chopin, by the way, which reminds me of that old gag about the sign hanging in the window of a closed musical instrument shop: ‘Gone Chopin, Back In A Minuet’. Hope that makes all the non-smoking readers who had been consuming this column with their granola and yoghurt breakfast feel a bit better.
In the aforementioned mentioned magazine, Lech Walesa writes that Poland is ready to do the Euros proud. Or, rather, almost ready. After a “long and arduous process”, he writes, “we may not have buttoned up quite everything but visitors can certainly expect a warm welcome.”
Unfortunately, the weather is not yet ready to play ball which is quite a contrast to the toasty 27 degrees which the mercury hit in Budapest on Tuesday, as a couple of us sought out the shade of some trees so that we could look on in amazement at the two soldiers on sentry duty outside the Hungarian parliament. In full uniform and with rifles at their side, they stood rigidly to attention beneath the national flag as the sun beat mercilessly down. After about 15 minutes of this, one of them marched at a stately slow pace down the sloping plinth, clicked his heels at the bottom and then proceeded to perform a series of rapid-fire drills culminating in a remarkable rifle-spinning act.
Then his junior colleague followed suit, following the other man’s whispered instructions and imitating him with clockwork precision until, right in the middle of the rifle-spinning bit !he dropped his weapon. Worse, the poor man had to contend with uproarious laughter from a tourist standing right in front of him, not to mention a dark glare from his senior partner.
And while I sincerely hope that young man doesn’t end up doing bread and water for a week in solitary confinement, I can’t help but be aware that there are even worse forms of cruel and unusual punishment.
Hell, if they really wanted to be evil about it, they could even sentence him to five to ten minutes in the designated smoking area at Chopin airport.
