Tuesday 17^th December, 2019 2300

You know, flying was bad enough four decades ago but at least then, although you never had in-flight entertainment beyond piped music and a film shown on a screen if you were on a 747 (you always took a book), you could smoke. Terrorism hadn't buggered up airport security so that everyone now has to be almost strip-searched before boarding and waiting for hours for the privilege and air rage was unheard of.

There is talk of the UK limiting people to a couple of tipples in the airport bar due to drunken British louts delaying flights and of course we have the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair charging you 3/6d for your ticket and then bumping it up to £150 with boarding card printing, baggage, an M&S sandwich with a Coke and the latest, assigned seats.

But that's just the no-frills airlines, right?

Think again. I was doing some searching (I plan way ahead) and although I expected, having kept abreast of the news, I saw that BA also is turning into a no-frills carrier.

Once proudly trumpeting themselves as “The World's Favourite Airline” (which indeed they were but that accolade is long gone), I now find myself excluding them from my long haul flight searches along with Aeroflop, Asiana (their pilots commit suicide and kill all the passengers, ditto Germanwings), Turkish (filthy planes) and Air France after a stewardess was horrible to me last time.

But why exclude BA from my long haul options?

It would seem a couple will probably not be given contiguous seats unless they have paid extra or have navigated an application and reserved their seats online within 48 hours of boarding if the website has not sold out or crashed. Well, one, my phone doesn't do that stuff and two, when I have tried to on my computer it tells me you can't do it in China anyway! Tried it with Air China to Moscow.

What the hell happened to turning up at the airport together and being seated next to one another??

It seems now only the tech-savvy with the latest gadgets can get what they want, unless you can afford to fly up front where it doesn't matter.

Cathay Pacific are in the frame along with Malaysia (they surely have to be the safest after losing two planes in quick succession!), KLM and Lufthansa. Anyone flown long-haul with the Germans? I quite like bratwurst.....

Two days of exams done and 3/14 down. Nobody failed thus far but methinks that will come when the second wave turn up (or don't) next week. There have been a few I should have but I don't want to emulate the UK general election with a night of the long blue knives. They really have to be awful to fail! Some will though before it's over.

I do believe I am not the only one who is not content here. Jody is having serious thoughts about leaving and possibly changing career. She confided in me the other day and said she envied me because I only have 2½ years until I can stop. She is very late twenties/early thirties, ergo a “leftover woman” in China as she is as yet unwed.

Whilst I indeed envy her youth, I'm sure she doesn't actually covet my age, merely the position I am in. Being Chinese, albeit a headstrong woman, she still has the formidable enemy of an alliance of two Chinese parents to fight. I gather she may have won half the battle, either that or her parents may be giving up.

My advice (which was asked for before anyone says anything) was not to waste her life in jobs she was unhappy. I did that in various occupations for twenty plus years and only one of those gave me a decent income, although no time to enjoy it.

I'm not in clover right now and at my age here I need to be very aware the end of my official working life is nigh. I can do the job, I have proved it for a decade, I just wish I had a subject I could teach to students who know how to student!

The odd thing is, I think I might actually be a popular teacher here.