Mark Juddery's Overrated

I’m getting all bitter and cynical in my quest to expose all the OVERRATED things in this world. If you have any ideas, please let me know… and on days when I think that all is fine and just with the world, I’ll include someone else’s choice for The Most Overrated Thing (or one of them at least). Just post your victims (sorry, suggestions) below.

Sure, I’m late with this post (I promise this won’t happen again!), but I’m still traveling. (I know, some people while they’re traveling can still send dozens of tweets per day, write three blogs a week, and do about 103 photos on Pinterest. But when I travel, I tend to… travel. And write. For magazines, mainly.

But while I’m in travel mode, I should add another OVERRATED thing about travel: namely, cheap flights. Some of them are OK, but if you see a “good deal”, assume that you won’t be getting much. Cheap flights usually mean that there’s a catch. Recently, I was in transit for a Frankfurt-Glasgow flight. This was a pain, because I’d booked my flight online to go through London, but the website kept certain information buried. There are five airports in London, and it’s a real nuisance if you arrive in Heathrow and have to find your way to Gatwick for the connection. Admittedly, I didn’t bother checking, because what sort of dumb website would give you a transfer at two separate airports? Yeesh!

It’s been over two months since my last post, as I’ve been flat out with other work. Great news for me, sure… but I should have kept updating. In the past month, many people have assumed that I’ve stopped doing this blog (a fair assumption) and have stopped following. I’ll try to do another blog each week (as well as my other weekly blog). OK, let’s start again…

OVERRATED: Flight upgrades

You can almost lie down in business class. Photo by livepine.

If you read the title (and it was fairly easy to notice), you probably already knew that I would be talking about this topic.

Though you might believe that I am flown around the world in business class (or premium economy, at least) by big business, I actually foot the bill for of most of my global jetsetting. That means that, like most people, I usually fly economy class. It must be one of the most commonly heard travel stories: the true misery of flying economy. Many people complain about this experience, which is possibly made worse by the fact that, on most planes, the regular economy travellers have to walk through the plush elite section of the plane, with the Ottoman footrests and the complimentary Dom Perrignon before they’ve even left the ground. Of course, this torture is very deliberate, to motivate you to pay for an upgrade on your next flight.

As someone who has flown in most classes (and for the record, usually finds economy class to be tolerable, though I’d hate to be there if I were six foot three), I feel that I should list a few reasons why business class (let’s not even discuss that ever-elusive first-class cabin) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, if only so that the great majority who fly economy class can feel a bit better.

1. As Rose Byrne said in Bridesmaids (presumably because it was in the script, rather than because she believed it), there’s more sense of community in economy class. Strangely, it’s kind of true. I’ve met a Hollywood agent in first class, as well as an old lady who was in the chorus of movie musicals back in the fifties. But other than that (and neither of them helped me get a movie deal, so what was the point?), I can’t think of any other passengers I’ve met in first class or business class. We were too busy sleeping to actually chat with each other. I can remember numerous people I’ve met in economy class, however, with whom I chatted with gusto until we suddenly realized that we were missing the in-flight movie. When the seats are close together, rather than spaced out comfortably, life becomes more intimate.

2. In business class, there is only one toilet, two at the most. If there’s a queue, you have to wait not only for the previous person to finish, but for the stewardess (sorry, “cabin crew”) to finish cleaning it, which always seems to take a hell of a long time because they are doing such a thorough job. You’d think that business class people must be messier than everyone else.

3. It’s truly decadent in business class, which is bad, because you gain weight, and as you’re in a plane, you can’t go for a run to burn off the kilos.

4. You think economy class people can be annoying sometimes? The truly obnoxious people are closer to the pointy end of the plane. I’m sure that rock stars, for example, don’t travel in economy. At the height of their fame in the 1990s, Oasis was banned from one airline for making complete prats of themselves, which caused discomfort for fellow passengers. You can safely bet that they weren’t traveling in economy.

5. It’s difficult to go back. Once you’ve been in business or first class, you’ll suddenly think that economy class is a living hell. Flying suddenly becomes a terrible ordeal, in which you feel like a sardine and use words like “cattle class” (really overdoing the animal metaphors). And really, it’s not that bad.

Unless you’re six foot three, of course.

Meryl Streep after the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. She didn't win that year either. Photo by Alan Light.

As I write this, we are only days away from discovering the Oscar winners. Not that it matters, of course. Many times through the night, they will list five nominees with nothing in common, and then determine which of them is the “best”. This year, the most interesting category is for best actress, because the odds don’t really make sense. As usual, five performances have been nominated – all of which, in fairness, are excellent. But what do they have in common? Well, two of them are impersonations of famous people (three if you call Noomi Rapace “famous”). Other than that, nothing. So, as nobody could really be classed as the “best”, they have to come up with other reasons why someone should win over the other four. That’s why I would have thought that Meryl Streep was the favorite. While she’s called “the queen of the Oscars”, she’s lost more times than any other actor, only won twice (something even Hillary Swank has managed to do), and her last win was 29 years ago! (Then again, Katharine Hepburn had to wait 34 years between her first and second Oscars, so maybe Streep just needs to be patient.) But for some reason, according to the bookmakers, the odds are for Viola Davis to take out the award! Why? Not sure. Maybe because only one African-American has ever won in this category. Maybe because the lobbying has been stronger for The Help than for Streep’s film, The Iron Lady. Or maybe… maybe she’s just really good. Hopefully not, because that would put paid to my whole argument. Nuts…