coming in to land

I'm on the plane and I just had to open up my Mac laptop, after watching so many opening and closings in 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', somewhere 30,000 feet above India on the approach to Singapore. In every scene of the film there's  a silver computer showing us a glowing white apple. Furious actress fingers skitter over its keyboard and on the screen windows open and close as each innovative feature of the magic box is lovingly demonstrated.

The plot of the film may not be as good as the book - sorry, I haven't read it yet - but the screenplay seemed to have been written by the same guys who write the 'how to' instruction videos on the Apple website. You know the ones where windows flash open and zoom shut, revealing secrets, information, photos and emails with incredible technological ease as a guy in casual clothes and a calm voice tells you the only thing you should covet is his lifestyle in general and, in particular, one of his computers.

In the movie, these backlit objects of desire are mercilessly snapped shut after they reveal their secrets. Banged together like clapperboards, only to be yanked open again by another clumsy pair of actor hands, stabbing and jabbing at the 'on' button with a rough index finger.

Since writing '21st Century Troubadour' I seem to have experienced a row number upgrade. Perhaps the airlines' computers have talked with each other, flapping open and shut in an electricity break. Maybe data-searching actress fingers have alerted them to the fact that I should really be moved up the plane from Seat 68F - the position I thought I was brought into this world to occupy - to somewhere a little closer to the wings.

So here I am stretching out in Seat 40K, the new 68F. And I've just had a Hogwarts moment, up at the back of the plane. You'll know what I mean if you've gone looking for Platform 9 and a half at Kings Cross Station in London. Well, the scene which just greeted me at the back of this aeroplane is no less impressive than the extra platform.

I made my way to the furthermost regions of the centre aisle and came upon a staircase bathed in light exactly where the toilets usually are. You know - the place where a crowd of stretching people gathers (unless its an American airline, in which case this kind of congregation is classed as a subversive meeting and all involved can be arrested by an air marshall and dragged off for immediate waterboarding by a man with a moustache, a stumpy cigar, and a set of electrodes).

Today these glowing steps look like a stairway to airline heaven. A brave new world that has about 150 seats in it. Even though there's no smoking upstairs, this is a double decker plane, and it reminds me of the old buses they used to have in Belfast. Many's the afternoon our Granny would take us on 'Joe's Bus' for a trip to Belfast Castle, Stormont, or the airport. Yes, Aldergrove international airport, nestling between Lough Neagh and the Lisburn bypass, to watch the planes taking off and landing. I remember riding the carousel with the bags. Well, it kept us off the streets.

So, as dawn breaks on this Singapore morning I am thinking about the top deck of a Belfast bus while the Girl With A Dragon Tattoo sighs and pulls on a blonde wig while a caring Swedish actor looks on, craggy as a handsome crag in snowstorm. We're coming in to land at Singapore and there are cliffs and crashing waves below. The pilot tells us it's 27 degrees and to switch off our laptops.

I am about to slam mine shut. I'll see you next time, if it survives.