Time Time: Better late than never…

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First of all, sorry for being away for so long. I’ve been really busy and having lots of advantures which, whilst they were great fun to experience, somehow wouldn’t really make the transition to the printed word. I’m going to think about writing a few of them up - in particular tea and cakes with Litlove - but in the meantime here’s a hubristic rant composed in the wee small hours, fuelled only by coffee, from when I got stuck in an airport for 12 horus earlier this week. It’s good to be back!

What to say? I knew it was inevitable. Napoleon had Waterloo. Harold lost his eye at Hastings. Scooch thought they could make a decent fist of Eurovision. And me? I’ve spent the last twenty five years of my life being daringly late, thumbing my nose at father time and his snivelling minions punctuality, check-in and ‘margin of error’. Oh how I mocked them, how I admired myself as I shimmied through security, costs swishing in my wake, sunglasses on head and ridiculous shoe-stuffed valise in hand.

I knew it couldn’t last forever, that look of secret complicity I shot myself as we ran past sock shop, as my name was called over the tannoy. I thought I’d pushed it too far leaving Munich the time I discovered the joys of on-line check in, only to forget that check-in doesn’t magically shrink the airport, you still have to go through security, and, ultimately if you turn up at the airport when boarding’s started you’re going to have trouble. Luckily, however, it was bank holiday and only six people took the flight — which further fuelled my belief in my own teflon time keeping.

I read somewhere once that lateness is a form of vanity, that it stems from a desire to make a narcissistic entrance. I’d agree that waltzing into the pub an hour late to be greeted by whoops and cheers from your friends is always nice, but I’ve never been applauded by cabin crew, still less the severe young ladies who stand by the Eurostar in grey hats. No, this travel lateness is more an unwillingness to leave, to continue the journey in space and time. That last kiss before parting, the final drink before boarding and the parting glimpse of a moonlit city before the night train creaks out the station; they’re moments to be preserved in memory’s aspic.

It’s all down to a reluctance to leave the present, and fate has decided to repay my arrogance in a particularly cruel fashion by abandoning me to the eternal present, the limbo non-space stateless hell of the airport. I write this full of joyless frozen overpriced pizza looking into the generic grey vacuum of a standard European airport lounge. A few glassy-eyed fellow travellers sip coffee, their stares challenging hope to remain. The sweet but confused Polish girl tells everyone it’s her first day as she screws up their orders. Its everyone’s first day, my dear; we’re in an airport, where every day, every trace of feeling, from the tears of the asylum seeker being interrogated by immigration to the triumphant honeymoon smiles of happy couples, back from the tropics with decades of joy ahead of them, are wiped out with the next morning’s first check-in. You’ll never see me again, any more than I’ll encounter the nice young Dubliner who’d just had to shell out 400 euros for a new passport and ticket to his brother’s wedding in Barcelona. The prospect of the night here fills me not with fears of sleazy men and stolen credit cards: rather, its the prospect of remembering who I am, after 12 hours straight in an airport that fills me with dread.

Perhaps this is it. Cutting it fine, taking it to the wire and all those lastminute taxi rides weren’t so much vanity as a foolish immature rebellion designed to show I was above their rules. And today a scowling woman in an offensively bright green jacket told me I wasn’t, and that even though my plane would not be anywhere near the sky for a full 35 minutes there was no chance of letting common sense prevail and allowing me to run for it. No, rules are rules are rules.

It’s a lesson I needed to learn and I shouldn’t complain really - statistically I was due to miss something sooner or later. But there’s not even an exciting story - I was a little bit late setting off, then the bus got stuck in traffic, then the airport was crowded. Not glamorous, not sexy, not “Oh I was late because I was drinking cocktails at the Ritz til 2 am” — just, you know, lateness, expense, and boredom. I’ll see you soon - and I’ll be on time.

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