The Prologue

It's usually the case that a Welcome on Board prologue sets the scene. Indeed, in come circumstances, it may even serve to justify the premise for the trip that is about to be described.

Not in this case though, for most of sound mind would likely question the lucidity of anyone who would take a two-day trip to Europe for the sole purpose of spending just over an hour coming (part of the way) back on board a double-decker Dumbo look-alike.

Luckily, it's most unlikely that anyone of sound mind will be reading this and so, thankfully, any explanation of why this may have been a considered, well-judged, critically-assessed trip is almost certainly quite superfluous.

Instead, Top Gear-style logic prevails and, an hour after Air France issue their press release that the A380 will be undertaking Summer weekend flights between Paris and London, the bookings are confirmed through Orbitz (one bit of logic there - ticketing in the USA was cheaper than in the UK or France) and FatherContinentalclub is issued with instructions that he will be accompanying your narrator to Roissy for no apparent reason other than, in longhaul, widebody, upper-decked, business class comfort, to come back again.

I could hear his eyes rolling on the 'phone.