(no subject)
Jun. 8th, 2006 10:10 am"Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing into London Heathrow Airport," announces the stewardess, worryingly. She's a native English speaker, which makes it even more sinister. After we've landed safely, some of us spot a large plume of smoke in the distance, either on a runway or in a nearby field. It isn't clear whether this was also an attempt to land into Heathrow.
I don't speak German, but, based on intonation and body language, here is an exchange I think I witnessed at Oslo airport yesterday:
I know the cliché has it that it's men who refuse all medicine when afflicted: stoic, unflinching, and refusing, frankly, to make a fuss. In my experience, however, the majority of people guilty of this are women, a position reinforced yesterday by a girl on the plane who coughed and choked for nearly fifteen minutes, refusing all offers of help and pats on the back from her worried friend. "I'm fine," she would gasp in Norwegian, before launching into another barrage of ear-splitting coughs that would nearly, but not quite, dislodge whatever it was in her oesophagus that was trying to kill her. "Really, I'm all right," she insisted weakly, in the face of all the evidence. Honestly, just bloody accept the help you're given, people.
I don't speak German, but, based on intonation and body language, here is an exchange I think I witnessed at Oslo airport yesterday:
German person #1: Hey, German person #2, look! Our flight is cancelled!
German person #2: What? Cancelled? Jesus, really? No! What?
German person #1: Ha ha, not really! Look closer at the flight screen. Our flight is not cancelled at all.
German person #2: I see that you have played a joke on me, German person #1. This displeases me.
German person #1: Ha ha ha!
I know the cliché has it that it's men who refuse all medicine when afflicted: stoic, unflinching, and refusing, frankly, to make a fuss. In my experience, however, the majority of people guilty of this are women, a position reinforced yesterday by a girl on the plane who coughed and choked for nearly fifteen minutes, refusing all offers of help and pats on the back from her worried friend. "I'm fine," she would gasp in Norwegian, before launching into another barrage of ear-splitting coughs that would nearly, but not quite, dislodge whatever it was in her oesophagus that was trying to kill her. "Really, I'm all right," she insisted weakly, in the face of all the evidence. Honestly, just bloody accept the help you're given, people.