Unfortunately, someone forgot to realise that a Jumbo is not as large as an A380 so we arrived at the airport to discover that the plane was overbooked. We were given the choice of a jump seat somewhere in the luggage compartment or a transfer to a Tahiti Nui Airlines flight. Never one to shun adventure, Julian immediately plumped for a few Tahitian beauties with flowers in their hair and off to the South Seas we went.
Zut alors, quelle surprise! They speak French in Tahiti which presumably explains why they were so nice to the dastardly mutineers of the Bounty, and the English of the air stewardesses was a mixture of the deliciously mispronounced and the French equivalent of the English tourist abroad - don't translate at all merely say it in the original language loudly and slowly.
Thus Julian had the opportunity to practice his halting French which drew the immense gratitude of the stewardesses, and the envy and ire of the other passengers, and meant he was rewarded with extra cups of coffee and wonderfully attentive service. His ability to explain to the other passengers that "pwa-aunnes" were prawns and then to simultaneously translate it back for the staff as "langoustines" shows the basically menu-driven nature of his French.
All of this was merely the plus-side of what was a fairly irritating journey. As you will all know, the pleasure or otherwise of a long flight is almost completely based upon who you are sitting next to. On this journey we had one of the great fidgetters of all time in the seat next to us. Having boarded the plane a full forty minutes before take-off, he was still getting yet one more thing out of his bag, repacking the rest, restowing it in the overhead locker, talking to his ex-wife on his Blackberry about whether their son should take a job offer, texting the son his views, finding that he didn't have the little wallet to hold his Blackberry and getting one of his bags down yet again to look for it, ignoring the pleas of Wa'a'auni to turn his phone off, sit down and do his belt up, when the plane began taxiing.
Life continued pretty much like that following take-off. The number of times he raided his two bags and sorted out things of no relevance to being three thousand miles from anywhere and 50,000 feet up, were probably about the same as would be required to complete an entire stocktake for Amazon. By now, Julian was beginning to feel the need to use the facilities. This was to be denied him. Having exhausted himself doing 2,461 stand-ups and sit downs, the neighbour placed his briefcase in front of him, raised his TV screen from the armrest but didn't turn it on, put the seat in full recline and promptly started snoring - not particularly loudly but just enough to bore into one's very being like a miniature Black and Decker.
We were now effectively trapped. The person in front also had the seat reclined so it was barely possible to stand up, the TV screen meant one could not wriggle at an angle, and the briefcase took the space where one would have to put one's feet even if one could squeeze past. We suffered. It was probably worse for Julian because he has not had to spend nights on bare mountains where the temperature was just too low to dare to relieve oneself, but I was starting to think longingly of babbling brooks well before Mr Fidget finally woke up and started watching US sitcoms to which he laughed out loud on numerous occasions.
Thus it was that the ministrations of Wa'a'auni and Mui-mui kept sanity and airline murder rates low on board as we winged our way for fifteen interminable hours to Sydney. I had to pretend to be a stuffed toy in order to get through Australia's stringent quarantine vetting, but I was willing to play along with this pathetic travesty of ovine rights just to get to the hotel, follow Julian in having a good shower just in time to get to the venue for the Sydney event ... about which more anon.
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