[usa25] toronto - manchester

The flight from Toronto back to Manchester is a puzzling experience. It takes twelve hours overnight, but only lasts for seven. Dinner is served at 11pm and then three hours later is breakfast at 7am. Unsurprisingly most people aren't hungry. Despite the cabin crews attempts to convince everyone its night-time by shutting the blinds, there's no hiding the surreal artificial time onboard this flight. The woman in front of me thrusts her chair back as far as it will go so she can sleep, confused as to why it won't go back as far as the chair of the man next to her, she has several more goes at thrusting it back, failing to realise throughout that the reason it won't go back as far is because it keeps coming into contact with my knees. In the early or late hours I go to the toilet and when I return I discover that due to the joint factors of an immovable arm rest and the fully reclined seat of the woman in front I cannot actually get back into my seat. It takes a good ten minutes of testing some of my joints to the absolute limit to squeeze my ample frame back into my seat. Long haul just aint for the tall.

In baggage claim at Manchester the next carosel contains the bags of a flight from one of the Greek islands. Its surrounded by groups of orange and brown teenagers and twenty-somethings in identical t-shirts, football shirts, white skirts and linen trousers. Its now, with an air of self affirmation I realise that, families aside, I was comfortably the youngest aboard my flight. "Dallas via Toronto that's a bit of a long way round isn't it mate" exclaims the custom officer when I comply to tell him where I've come from. I tell him it was the cheapest way; "Fair enough, have a good un!" and having survived this Manchester inquisition I head out down the white tunnel and out to the train station.