Monday 1st Feb

I’m on the plane to DC. What I really want to know right now is why no-one in this country understands me (on a linguistic rather than emotional level), particularly when I try to buy soft drinks. Not one single American has understood the first time when I’ve asked for a “bottle of water”. “You want a what!? Oh, a bollawolla?”. I just asked for a cranberry juice on the plane and the steward had no clue what I was talking about. Finally he established that I wanted a “cran-berry” juice. I mean for christ’s sake, I am speaking English. I am carefully enunciating every consonant and syllable, as the language is written. What on earth could be the difficulty?

The cranberry juice in question wasn’t worth the effort, as the 2nd ingredient after water is high fructose corn syrup. This single can contains 220 calories. No wonder obesity rates are so high.

More moaning – United is so crap! You don’t even get a free meal on the plane, although given my last United meal experience maybe this is a good thing. The air stewards are all sitting by the toilet banging their heads on the wall with boredom. There is one video screen per 3 rows of seats. The aisle is so narrow that it’s almost impossible to walk down even if no-one else is coming in the opposite direction. The entirety of economy class has only 2 toilets. Every time the fasten seatbelt sign comes back on, which has been frequent during this turbulent flight, the demented air hostess drops everything and runs shrieking down the aisle making sure that no-one disobeys. Thankfully we should land in about 40 minutes. But urgh, I’ve just remembered I’m flying United back to London too.