Round The World and other travels

I was one of the first to board the aircraft, immediately followed by fellow-FlyerTalker westtexas (a.k.a. Bill), whom I'd met in the gate area. Cabin Manager Lawrie showed us both to 1K and 2K and helped to get us settled in. I drank a glass of apple juice, nibbled on some Macadamia nuts, read The Times and admired the new-style 'BAg' amenity kit while I waited for the boarding process to be completed. The cabin crew member brought me a glass of Champagne as well, in case that was what I really wanted but didn't like to ask. (Little did she know what goes on at 7 in the morning when attending an FT away do ) Time passed quickly and the cabin was soon being prepared for departure. We pushed back just a few minutes down at 1009, but lost much more time with a lengthy wait at the runway holding point. After an impressively powerful take-off run, the giant GE90 engines lifted us into the air at 1034.

Hot towels were distributed soon after departure. The First Officer explained that we would be taking an unusually northerly route to Dallas, taking us over Cumbria, close to Glasgow, south of Iceland, across the tip of Greenland and down through Hudson Bay. I had a couple of glasses of Champagne and some amuse bouche while I ordered lunch. A very choppy patch west of the Hebrides delayed my lunch. It was really bad - the cabin crew had to secure the galleys and return to their seats   The lunch menu was as follows :-

I had the onion soup and opted for the newly-introduced Catch of the Day, which today was to be Lemon Sole. I chose the caper butter sauce. The main course was, without doubt, the best I've ever been served on a BA flight and equalled anything I've eaten on Cathay Pacific's wonderful First Class services. The fish itself was absolutely delicious, while the accompanying vegetables were, to my mind, cooked to perfection - slightly al dente and preserving lots of fresh flavour. I continued to drink the Champagne with my soup, but then switched to the Meursault, which turned out to be a wonderful discovery - unmistakeably oaky, but in a delightfully subtle way, not overwhelming the other flavours of the wine. I finished off with the cheese selection and a cappuccino. In a nice touch that I don't recall seeing before on BA, the flight attendant disposed of the crumbs on my tablecloth prior to serving the cheese course.

I borrowed The Da Vinci Code and An Inconvenient Truth from the on-board DVD library and watched them on my laptop. Both were re-runs for me, but none the less enjoyable for that. I suppose some readers will be wondering whether Al Gore's Climate Change documentary made me feel guilty. No, it didn't - or at least, not any more so than the average inhabitant of the developed world. Far from picking on aviation as an easy target, the film actually featured shots of Mr Gore passing through an airport, boarding a plane and making his way to the big seats