Over the Christmas break, I went to England for my daughter’s wedding. Since I hate flying overseas for long, cramped hours, I bought myself a business class ticket on British Airways (BA).

On the aircraft, I was asked what I wanted to eat and I said nothing. I was asked what I wanted to drink and I said, like any seasoned South African traveller: “A couple of whiskeys.” The lady gave me two and said that she would give me another after dinner service.

Now you have to understand that I am my father’s son. He was from the time when, during World War II, an essential item of battle preparedness was a good shot of liquor, usually of rum. This was a 70 mℓ tot. When he was back in South Africa, this reduced to a 50 mℓ tot, which was sold in South African bars as a ‘single’.

When South Africa adopted the metric system, the country neatly changed the tot from 50 mℓ to 30 mℓ. At the time, a standard bottle was 26.6666 fluid ounces, or 757.6 mℓ. The rip-off artists who run the liquor industry in South Africa said that this was terribly inconvenient for bars, since 30 mℓ did not go into 757.6 exactly, so, why not, hey, because of the metric system, make a bottle 750 mℓ and a single tot 25 mℓ and not reduce the price of a tot or a bottle, huh? Made them a fortune. So I was brought up to believe that a tot was 50 mℓ, and stuff the metric system.

Thus, on the BA flight, I was deprived, to say the least. I was given one more whiskey. Then, thank heaven, I detected that one of the stewardesses had a Scottish accent. So I called her over and pointed out that I was of Scots heritage and a few more whiskeys would go down just fine. Ah, they did. They helped, since it soon became evident that, even in business class, it was going to be a mission to go to the toilet. Apart from a man from economy who would stride through and use the business class facility, as we got to within a few hours of landing, a queue formed, mostly of people clutching toilet bags and all, with the clear intention of shaving, plucking eyebrows, doing makeup, squeezing zits . . . over an extended period. Why BA cannot have one cubicle for a toilet and one with a basin and a mirror I do not know. Lufthansa has the entire (unisex) facility down the steps in the cargo hold space, with cubicles lining one wall and hand-wash basins the other. (Oh, it is quite possible that the British ‘ealth an’ safety person has determined that the steps may be dangerous!)

Then we landed at Heathrow. Gate 42. The Heathrow information chart tells you that this is 20 minutes from the arrivals gate. So we have some basic arithmetic: If a man walks at 5 km/h, how far does he walk in 20 minutes? Answer: 5/3 km, which is 1 666 m.

“Attention, all passengers: You are going to have to cover a distance equal to the length of 16 rugby fields to get out of this building. Yes, there are travelators but . . . not all of them work. If you need assistance, our staff are standing by with wheelchairs, which, if you use one, will make you look like a weak-willed down and out failure . . .”

Then I got to immigration. The last time I was at Heathrow immigration, most of the counter staff were whites, while the floors were being cleaned by a mixture of Pakistanis, Afghans, Jamaicans and Indians. This time, the floor sweepers were from African countries like Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. All the immigration staff were Pakistanis, Afghans, Jamaicans and Indians. I approached a very charming official, who was wearing a sari and had a stud in her nostril. She smiled, stamped my passport and gave it back. I smiled back. “Where are you from?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “‘oundslow, near London.” And originally, I asked? Oh, she said, Manchester.

The wedding was great.