Think of your worst departure lounge nightmare now double it

Till yesterday, my worst departure lounge experience, was @ Gatwick an 8 hour delay on a flight to Majorca topped off by resort accommodation with mismatched twin beds resulting in myself and Mrs. Me sleeping at different altitudes, the resort staffed by Mancunians with fixed grins like Jack Nicholson playing the joker, who prefaced every conversation with a robotic and moronic "Hi Ya".

Admittedly I wasn't planning to go anywhere yesterday, but as you can imagine I was curious to hear KIACC comments concerning Manston Airport being given to Thanet District Council's Airport working party at the Airport, particularly after some of the more hysterical reporting on local blogs ECR & SMUG etc.

Any how having read the agenda on TDC's website it was pretty clear from the outset that this meeting would be a fairly quiet affair, and would not be needing any input from excitable members of the public, although a couple did try, that said the chairman of TDC's working group thanked those members of the public who turned up for showing an interest in democracy.

Now I'm not entirely sure just who KIACC is, but the acronym is pronounced like kayak the Eskimo canoe and not surprisingly the members of this committee all seemed to have their own paddle, as they all represented various parts of East Kent.

The evidence being given to TDC's Airport working group, soon had a soporific effect as terms, some of which I understood and some I didn't, wafted over my head like CAA, notams QC 4, naturally my mind wandered, I felt sorry for a couple of journalists, who despite taking acres of notes, I know will struggle to find a story to justify 2 hours of their lives lost forever.

It was surreal, sitting in a Airport departure lounge with the gate blocked by not one but two committees, and something I've never seen before two clerks taking notes on flip charts (like some game show assistants) as if anyone's ever likely to challenge their accounts of the meeting or care, I also began to question whether in better times I'd sat in the same room waiting to fly out from the planet Thanet to somewhere different.

As you can imagine much of the meeting was taken up with obsessions and trivia, the reporting systems not working, some flights divert over the garden shed, some of those giving evidence were clearly experienced complainers and all the time I’m thinking, if you live at the end of a runway, what do you expect. The first hour and half was taken up with gripes although I did myself, learn something and it is this, Acol must be the most democratic place in the world, since despite only having a handfull of houses and a pub, they own a parish council because one of the members of KIACC is I understand a member of parish council.

Anyway the thing that concerns most of us here in Thanet is the local economy and jobs and no surprise after an hour & half, they finally got round to what matters, looking around at the members I had the strong impression that Thanet’s low wage economy was something, most of this crowd were blissfully unaware.

Just prior to the meeting turning its attention to the local economy, I noticed the activity beyond the departure lounge, the Tarmac burst in to life to accommodate the arrival of a cargo jet and I thought those people working outside probably had more to contribute to the discussion than anyone inside.

Its just the way things are but life seems to be run by people who have 9-5 existences, ignorant that there’s a whole world of people, delivering goods, maintaining roads, caring in hospitals, maintaining the law, and building railways etc whilst they sleep.

I’ve been mean to those that populate our local committees and political institutions but its true that someone has to monitor life and legislate but with the way things are for Manston and Infratil and Thanet I wish someone would give them five or ten years without trying to regulate, them so that they can build a business to regulate.

Finally its was no shock that nobody for this KIACC group had any suggestion that would make life easier for Infratil.

PS an earlier version of this posting contained some draft notes and squiggles apologies to my reader if you read anything er worse than usual!