I think I sat next to someone off the telly on the plane

She was rather fun and friendly and we chatted for a bit, but it would’ve been embarrassing to ask “so… who are you? Am I supposed to know you?” But I wanna have a “oh I met someone famous” story to tell too so you have to help me identify her.

So she’s black, of medium build, she had long straightened but wavy and slightly layered hair, dyed um… I’d call it a dark red, auburny? And she has a fairly large tattoo on her upper right arm. The reason I think she must be someone off the telly is cuz the stewardess, I mean cabin crew person, asked her how she was and then said sth like… “I’ve been missing you on the telly… it’s this new girl doing it now isn’t it?” so I assume she used to present sth or other and now no longer does. *ahem* Any suggestions as to who she could be? She can’t be TOO famous or rich since she travelled economy – and wtf was she doing in Lux, was she feeling suicidal? *lol* Oh and she was reading the weirdest book, The History of Danish Dreams, but I doubt that will help anyone identify her. 😛

Anyway. I am on the coach back home and decided to start an entry cuz I kinda wanna go to bed soon after getting home. And I had a few things to say. One of them was about yet more post-terror-threat measures. It seems weird that I am so often feeling the immediate aftermath of terror attacks (real or failed). I was in NYC for 9/11, I was doing helpdesk on 7/7 so spoke to lots of London-based Amex people that day (as I did every day) and they updated me on “what it was like over there”; I was in Norway after the failed liquid explosives attack and flew quite a bit around that time, so experienced the consequences in an interesting way; and I was now again flying shortly after the latest attack attempts.

When I flew out on Thursday the main changes I noticed at Gatwick were
1. there was a police checkpoint to drive through at every terminal
2. there was a barrier before the immediate (coach) terminal that only authorised vehicles could pass
3. there are now those heavy cement bollards (dunno correct term) lining the terminal entrance
On Thursday all those things made me very sad and angry. Yet again they have won – even if we’re not afraid (and some of us are, but some of us aren’t), we are yet again more inconvenienced, more annoyed, spending more money, wasting more manpower on those bloody idiots who think they are going to get to heaven and have 72 virgins at their disposal, those fucking morons.

And what most frustrates cynical atheist old me about the whole thing is not even the (potential) lives lost from these terror attacks, but the fact that those fuckers die really believing this shit, and convinced of their cause and that their non-existing God will be pleased by what they do and will reward them for it and they WILL NEVER BE PROVEN WRONG!!! It’s in moments like that I wish that there WERE in fact a God – and they would have to appear before Him and He would say to them “YOU FUCKING VIOLENT BRAINLESS IDIOTS HOW COULD YOU THINK THIS WOULD PLEASE ME!? YOU SUCK, YOU DID WRONG, I DESPISE YOU!” But instead they die in a moment of senseless blinded triumph, and that’s the end. No one calls them to justice for what they did – not in this world, to which they are dead, and not in the next world either, for there is none. It really pisses me off. No one should get away with such stupidity.

Ah but enough of that. I had sth positive to say about this too, in that the big cement blocks that now sit about outside the Gatwick South Terminal coach station provide nice seating opportunities. Before one would have to resort to sitting on uncomfortable luggage trolleys while waiting for one’s coach. This is far preferable. So thank you, brainless terrorists! [/sarcasm]

And now I have run out of things to say, plus I feel a bit travelsick so I shall stop. More shall perhaps be said tomorrow, but then it seems I keep saying that and never really follow up on it… 😐

…. right hello again, it is now lunchtime the next day. I didn’t go online last night, was way too knackered, so you shall have this update now. I don’t have much to add except I am glad to be back. Back in Brighton, and back at work. 🙂