Totally agree with you about flying. It isn't something that scares me, but on the impact on the environment, with you 100%. I fly occasionally to see my parents, but that is it now. The use of private jets - and the people who think nothing of flying long haul for a weekend - makes me rage. I honestly believe we should have an unoffsetable ration of air miles which cannot be negotiated out of. Billionaires included.
My ex husband was obsessed with flying. He got his PPL and had a little Cessna. And the wastefulness of that - basically his hobby - used to make me rage too. The number of flights he took, just to see the inside of an airport before flying back. "Let's go to Deauville for lunch!" he'd say. After the first time, when we had an admittedly good lunch in the airport, but still, it was at the airport!, I let him go on his own. I found it utterly tedious, mind numbingly boring. I did quite like flying and landing the thing - for my own piece of mind I had to do the co-pilot's course, just in case something happened to him mid air, so had to be able to do the basics, including landing safely - and that was quite exhilarating. But generally, the hanging about, the constant checks, the noise of it, the dehydration. Not worth the bother.
Ha, I’m really not! I doubt I could remember much, it was at least 18 years ago. But I could probably do slightly better than the average person in an emergency….
Great read, reminding me of my flying phobia era. As a teenager I was petrified of flying, so my poor mother had to take her two daughters on holiday by train, so we endured long train journeys to Austria, negotiating the transfer onto the ferry and then across Paris - I don't think they have ever forgiven me!
You reminded me of how much I used to be terrified of flying, imagining myself getting off the plane to see if the clouds would hold me, but I now figure the pilot and crew want to get to the destination as much as I do. Then it is a bit like when I am on a ship and looking over the side, having this great urge to jump, hence I don’t stand there anymore. Thank you for the great recipe and I hope you had a great trip…. By train! 🤗
Love this Mark, and great you've shoehorned the flying issue into your excellent storytelling. We all need to take more responsibility for our actions (as well as put pressure on corporations and governments to make rapid systems change). I agree with Catherine Phipps' comment that we should all have a carbon budget / air miles ration per year. Not easy to impose though, and most politicians are too terrified to do anything that loses votes. Sigh.
Thank you Antonia - slightly depressing that we are incapable of managing our actions (in whatever way we see fit) in the wider interest of the planet, and that we have few politicians capable of getting to grips with it either!
Hi Mark, I really loved reading this. Loved your story and Mr Big Buttocks. I hate flying too - it’s a more recent thing after terrible turbulence where I came to peace with dying on that plane, regretting sitting in the seat in front of my children, not beside them (husbands turn after a 13 hour flight). I see flying now as only necessary if I have to go back to see family in NZ. Flying becomes a necessity unfortunately if you want to reconnect and you choose to live in the other side of the world. We are heading to Italy in Summer for a couple of weeks and have made the firm decision to not fly and see the trip as an adventure. Fortunately the only ‘tripping’ my kids are used to is lengthy. We either stay in the South West for holidays or go large by going very far away!
The strange thing about this is that my Dad was obsessed with planes (like yours couldn’t be a pilot because of colour blindness) and now my teenage son is also equally obsessed. He is also colourblind, but he doesn’t seem to be letting that deter him. He makes model planes, goes to the airport to watch planes and talks about the mechanics of flying non-stop 🙄
There’s really no alternative when you have to go all that way is there…no way you can’t go either! What a great thing for your son to see the magic in - I hope he’s about to make something of flying in whatever way gives him pleasure despite the colour blindness
Hello Janet, my original recipe was with basil and i changed it for a less summery soft herb but forgot to alter it in the ingredients before i sent the email but it’s changed here
A fascinating read, I had no idea! I’ve always loved flying though we try and avoid it now. Train travel is such a joy and airports so stressful. Shame about the cost though as it’s darn expensive
I suppose a concern of finances over the environment has been the chief reason for curtailing our flying as a family over recent years, but I won't be sorry if we don't fly again any time soon. I do so love the idea that you could be on a fear-of-flying course that has a plane with a fault! Charlotte hates flying: she used to hand the kids over to my complete care as soon as we boarded and would embed herself into an entirely separate row, away from window, with headphones, iPad, a pack of Glacier mints, and poised three-quarters into a preparatory brace position. Agree with Catherine, below: incrementally tax those who fly more than two or three times a year. I have no idea why this is even remotely controversial. But then I have no idea of why not wanting to destroy people, the planet and maintain a stable societal model for all ever became such an evil left-wing-y thing to aspire to either... Still, Minestrone could probably sort all such ills, especially one as handsome as you share here. I hope you'll forgive me checking out your buttocks when next our Trotskyist paths should cross.
I’m not sure I agree about taxing people who fly more - that maintains the current ‘rich polluting the poor’ inequality - but what is the solution? Everyone gets one return flight a year? Give people the facts and leave it to their conscience? Hilarious that one prominent ‘campaigner’ recently posted about the ‘scandal’ of plastic straws on their flight! What can you do. I hope you enjoy the minestrone
I fear many don’t want the facts, or they have them green-washed so thoroughly that they lose all their potency. You could well be right: a frequency tax doing little more than maintaining the status quo, but it would yield money which could be directed towards those suffering most from pollution’s effects. I didn’t see the straw story, 😂, but know that inconvenience is always lurking round the corner to make hypocrites of the best of us.
Totally agree with you about flying. It isn't something that scares me, but on the impact on the environment, with you 100%. I fly occasionally to see my parents, but that is it now. The use of private jets - and the people who think nothing of flying long haul for a weekend - makes me rage. I honestly believe we should have an unoffsetable ration of air miles which cannot be negotiated out of. Billionaires included.
My ex husband was obsessed with flying. He got his PPL and had a little Cessna. And the wastefulness of that - basically his hobby - used to make me rage too. The number of flights he took, just to see the inside of an airport before flying back. "Let's go to Deauville for lunch!" he'd say. After the first time, when we had an admittedly good lunch in the airport, but still, it was at the airport!, I let him go on his own. I found it utterly tedious, mind numbingly boring. I did quite like flying and landing the thing - for my own piece of mind I had to do the co-pilot's course, just in case something happened to him mid air, so had to be able to do the basics, including landing safely - and that was quite exhilarating. But generally, the hanging about, the constant checks, the noise of it, the dehydration. Not worth the bother.
You’re a pilot! You can fly a plane…how did I not know this?!
Ha, I’m really not! I doubt I could remember much, it was at least 18 years ago. But I could probably do slightly better than the average person in an emergency….
‘Is anyone in board a food writer with a specialism in pressure cookers?’
Ten minutes ago I was scared of flying. Now I’m scared of buttocks. Are transferable phobias a thing?
I think we have just proven the case
I wasn’t scared of flying, but after reading this……
So easily influenced VB…
😳
Great read, reminding me of my flying phobia era. As a teenager I was petrified of flying, so my poor mother had to take her two daughters on holiday by train, so we endured long train journeys to Austria, negotiating the transfer onto the ferry and then across Paris - I don't think they have ever forgiven me!
Ha ha - it sounds like my idea of heaven! But maybe less so if dragging two children...
I keep reading your title as gravy buttocks which doesn't really bear thinking about.
BTW the parsley pistou ingredients seem to be missing something...Parsley?
Honestly, I can’t be trusted - thank you, I’ve edited. And yes, no gravy buttocks please
Yes, I read it as 'gravy buttocks' too. And now I can't stop thinking about gravy buttocks.
Oh dear...
Whilst waiting for a delayed flight from Edinburgh to Bristol, an elderly lady leant towards me and said,
‘If you have time to spare, go by air’
I take the train nowadays.
How great is that
Another masterclass in storytelling, Mark. And who knew the answer to anxiety and fear was ‘behind us’ all along!
Thank you Mark, and yes, we were sat on it all along!
What a fantastic bit of writing. You took me right inside your head even though I'm fine with flying. Quite extraordinarily moving.
Thank you Suzie, that’s very lovely of you
Great story, Mark. The 'Your mum still shagging Mr Buttocks?’ line really set me off.
Thank you Michael, I’m very sorry/not sorry
You reminded me of how much I used to be terrified of flying, imagining myself getting off the plane to see if the clouds would hold me, but I now figure the pilot and crew want to get to the destination as much as I do. Then it is a bit like when I am on a ship and looking over the side, having this great urge to jump, hence I don’t stand there anymore. Thank you for the great recipe and I hope you had a great trip…. By train! 🤗
I love that about standing on the clouds! The impossibility of flying (like the radio) never ceases to amaze me
Love this Mark, and great you've shoehorned the flying issue into your excellent storytelling. We all need to take more responsibility for our actions (as well as put pressure on corporations and governments to make rapid systems change). I agree with Catherine Phipps' comment that we should all have a carbon budget / air miles ration per year. Not easy to impose though, and most politicians are too terrified to do anything that loses votes. Sigh.
Thank you Antonia - slightly depressing that we are incapable of managing our actions (in whatever way we see fit) in the wider interest of the planet, and that we have few politicians capable of getting to grips with it either!
Love this! Being an expat in Hong Kong when the airport was at Kai Tak is, if you will pardon the pun, a crash course in flying calmly.
BTW, Muhammad Ali bought his own parachute before he would get on a plane to fly to the 1960 Olympics. You're just so Ali!
I’ve heard about landing at that airport - not for the nervous! The first time I flew I couldn’t believe people didn’t have a parachute each
Hi Mark, I really loved reading this. Loved your story and Mr Big Buttocks. I hate flying too - it’s a more recent thing after terrible turbulence where I came to peace with dying on that plane, regretting sitting in the seat in front of my children, not beside them (husbands turn after a 13 hour flight). I see flying now as only necessary if I have to go back to see family in NZ. Flying becomes a necessity unfortunately if you want to reconnect and you choose to live in the other side of the world. We are heading to Italy in Summer for a couple of weeks and have made the firm decision to not fly and see the trip as an adventure. Fortunately the only ‘tripping’ my kids are used to is lengthy. We either stay in the South West for holidays or go large by going very far away!
The strange thing about this is that my Dad was obsessed with planes (like yours couldn’t be a pilot because of colour blindness) and now my teenage son is also equally obsessed. He is also colourblind, but he doesn’t seem to be letting that deter him. He makes model planes, goes to the airport to watch planes and talks about the mechanics of flying non-stop 🙄
There’s really no alternative when you have to go all that way is there…no way you can’t go either! What a great thing for your son to see the magic in - I hope he’s about to make something of flying in whatever way gives him pleasure despite the colour blindness
Why is the parsley pistou made with basil?
Hello Janet, my original recipe was with basil and i changed it for a less summery soft herb but forgot to alter it in the ingredients before i sent the email but it’s changed here
A fascinating read, I had no idea! I’ve always loved flying though we try and avoid it now. Train travel is such a joy and airports so stressful. Shame about the cost though as it’s darn expensive
That you Karen. Funny how so many other European countries can make train travel affordable and efficient while we seem incapable!
I suppose a concern of finances over the environment has been the chief reason for curtailing our flying as a family over recent years, but I won't be sorry if we don't fly again any time soon. I do so love the idea that you could be on a fear-of-flying course that has a plane with a fault! Charlotte hates flying: she used to hand the kids over to my complete care as soon as we boarded and would embed herself into an entirely separate row, away from window, with headphones, iPad, a pack of Glacier mints, and poised three-quarters into a preparatory brace position. Agree with Catherine, below: incrementally tax those who fly more than two or three times a year. I have no idea why this is even remotely controversial. But then I have no idea of why not wanting to destroy people, the planet and maintain a stable societal model for all ever became such an evil left-wing-y thing to aspire to either... Still, Minestrone could probably sort all such ills, especially one as handsome as you share here. I hope you'll forgive me checking out your buttocks when next our Trotskyist paths should cross.
I’m not sure I agree about taxing people who fly more - that maintains the current ‘rich polluting the poor’ inequality - but what is the solution? Everyone gets one return flight a year? Give people the facts and leave it to their conscience? Hilarious that one prominent ‘campaigner’ recently posted about the ‘scandal’ of plastic straws on their flight! What can you do. I hope you enjoy the minestrone
I fear many don’t want the facts, or they have them green-washed so thoroughly that they lose all their potency. You could well be right: a frequency tax doing little more than maintaining the status quo, but it would yield money which could be directed towards those suffering most from pollution’s effects. I didn’t see the straw story, 😂, but know that inconvenience is always lurking round the corner to make hypocrites of the best of us.