“What a dramatic airport!” Mel Brooks: High Anxiety
Dr. Richard ‘Harpo’ Thorndyke pronounced San Francisco’s ‘a dramatic airport.’ I’ll give him that.
But having passed through Heathrow I’d call it a, um, reflective airport.
Which is to say that miles or glass and steel and aluminum cannot help but reflect complex dimensions of light and shadow and shades and hues.
Especially if you have just arrived after an 8-hour transatlantic flight somewhat bleary eyed and sleep deprived.
To be confronted by this massive, gleaming, flying whale-shaped object that turns out to be a representation of a slip stream.
Being a trained observer it occurs to me that Heathrow suffers from an institutional inferiority complex because it’s only the second busiest airport in Europe.
They say Terminal 5 is the size of 5 football fields.
But they don’t say whether it’s 5 American football fields or 5 futball fields.
Apparently there was once a hamlet named “Heath Row.” Which was completely destroyed to make way for the airfield.
But, really, there’s little point today crying over spilt Heath Row.
Lore has it that Heathrow Passengers consume 800,000 flutes of champagne annually. I helped.
Plus, they are said to consume 1.5 tons of caviar and 974 tons of chips per year.
I had the latter but not the former, so don’t take my word for it.
That’s all I got on Heathrow.
Later.
FreeGNV 