Mannerisms

For a start the passengers were miles more friendly. My first next door neighbour was a lady who’d got married the day before. Trouble was she was in row 29 and her husband was in row 49.

After a lot of good-natured negotiation a charming American lady teacher came and sat beside me. We argued for a while about Ian McEwan novels, and then she found a soul-mate in the lady on the other side and they chatted happily for hours.

There was an atmosphere in scum-class, absent in the seen-it-done-it-pretty-bored-by-it atmosphere of first-class, that the flight was something to be enjoyed.

The steward added to the general gaiety by pretending he didn’t know how to shut the door for take off which got a laugh all-round.

The Carlsberg was chilled unlike the warmish, flattish champagne of first-class, and the juicy Syrah of scum-class was definitely a more enjoyable tipple than the four year-old, rather chardonnay-flavoured Sancerre in first class.

And instead of grub concocted by a panel of celebrity chefs, which spoilt the first-class experience, there was a very acceptable cottage pie followed by a Kit-Kat. Excellent

BA have a new touch-screen display on which you can call up about 20 films at any time. There’s no waiting for the loop to finish.

After watching a couple of movies, I see a short video about the world’s two richest men, Bill Gates and warren Buffet, being asked questions at a US university.

On the whole the students got shortchanged by the waffly answers of the two men, who clearly have no idea why they’ve been so successful. Introspection is apparently not a quality found in very successful businessmen.

But, at the end, Buffet came up with an interesting answer - interesting when you think it comes from the word’s second richest man - to the question of what constitutes success.

Stating that it is not something which many members of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans possess, Buffet replied that success is being loved by those around you.