Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Drunks, miracles and clapping, but not necessarily in that order

I am currently blogging from Greece. We arrived here at 4am (local time) this morning and have since enjoyed a relatively quiet and hot day at the pool.

The journey was virtually wholly uneventful, well, more so for us than for the two pensioners who were frog-marched off our flight by police before take-off at Belfast for having consumed too much alcohol. Tut tut the older generation!

Here is something I am keen to find out. We had a very pleasant, smooth, and otherwise quiet flight but when we landed in Crete last night, the entire shipment of passengers gave an impromtu round of applause for the pilot. You do have to ask yourself why; I mean if a trained pilot can't get that bit right ....

I have to say, this is not unusual for flights from Northern Ireland, in fact I can think of a number of flights were this has been the case. However, I can't think of one example on any flight I have taken from any other airport were people have clapped when the pilot has landed.

Anyway, I am interested to know if anyone else has ever had the inflight 'clapping' experiences.

One other observation from the airport yesterday. At check-in, the line beside us were heading to Lourdes. Obviously, due to the nature of the trip, there were a lot of disabled travellers, and the children were interested so we explained briefly what the nature of their trip was.

Imagine then, the look of absolute surprise on little faces when the lady at the front of the queue got up out of her wheelchair and walked up to give her ticket to the girl at the desk.

8 comments:

EboRâguebi said...

Hello,
I Your Blog!
What is your favorite music?

Luis

Cosmo said...

Hey my folks are in Crete this week too!

Yes,I've been on a couple of bumpy flights where upon landing people have clapped. It breaks that erie silence when strong turbulence causes everyone to stop talking and take stock of their lives.

Enjoy your hols!

Ali said...

Hi Luis, thanks for saying hello :-)

Cosmo, I have been on bumpy flights when that has happened too, but this wasnt a bumpy flight! Must look out for your mum and dad ... they're getting great weather!

Jewel said...

I have only been on one flight where people applauded when we landed. I put it down to the free beer and wine that was served during the flight. I'm with you, smooth landings shouldn't be a delightful surprise.

What I don't get is people applauding at the end of a movie at the cinemas. As if the ushers are going to call up the studio and say hey this crowd really liked the movie. Good. on. you!

Cosmo said...

Jewel,

I love it when people clap after a movie - in fact, I sometimes instigate it!

If a great movie has stired something in you, why not express some public emotion?

What is even better is when people are in such anticipation of film that they clap and cheer when the lights dim at the start. Brilliant! It's a throw-back to the golden age of cinema I guess.

Dana said...

Well, I've been on one flight in my entire life. Two if you count it being round trip...but it seems to count as one in my mind. No one clapped, however no one was escorted off and no one threw up. Which was entirely possible as we had horrible turbulence. (Remember the blueberry muffin?)

As for movies, not that you brought it up, but I'm with Cosmo. We saw The Dark Knight on Friday last week and the entire audience applauded, cheered, ooohed and awwwwed and laughed together. I even shed a tear - I'm sure I was not alone - over the loss of so much talent...

Ali said...

I bet the ones on the Quantas flight were clapping .....

jsi said...

Have a terrific time in Crete.
No applause for flights, but a quick rendition of happy birthday for the pilot once.

I clap at movies when the are good, and I like to see all of the credits at the end. I like to hear the end of the music, see the last name, etc.