OUR aircraft was already beginning to taxi for take-off when the flight attendants informed us ‘the electrics’ weren’t working. This meant that there would be no in-flight entertainment on this seven-hour, transatlantic journey and that we could forget about reclining the seats. These are not insubstantial concerns on a long journey in a pressurised, intercontinental missile. But yours had more to do with what was happening inside the driver’s bit.

On an aircraft, for obvious reasons, you don’t really have the option of fight or flight when someone tells you ‘the electrics’ are malfunctioning. And so you ask, with only the slightest trace of panic, if ‘the electrics’ are working okay in the cockpit. After all, you’re basically seated only a few yards back from the driver’s seat, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that ‘the electrics’ governing your seat might also be connected to those at the captain’s seat.

You’ve only glimpsed what an aircraft cockpit looks like from disaster movies like ‘Airplane’ but they always look as though they’re absolutely hoaching with ‘electrics’.

“I suppose a personal audience with the captain is out of the question,” you inquire of the polite and helpful attendant. “For what purpose, sir,” she responds with only the slightest trace of perfectly understandable irritability.

“I’d like to ask if maybe we could pull over; stick on the hazard lights and see if we could maybe have a further chat about ‘the electrics’ situation.” You begin to experience flashes of Ted Striker, the sweating pilot on Airplane: but not in a funny way.

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