STANSTED AIRPORT

I am off to visit my mum in England today. Since I won't have my computer with me, that may mean no blogging for the next 10 days; though I will try to get online from someone else's.

The best way for me to get to the U.K. is from Billund to Stansted with Ryanair. Ryanair are great; not luxurious, but you gets what you pays for. And they have certainly opened up Scandinavia to air traffic. When I first met my wife in 1985, I remember flying from Southend to Billund in a tiny little plane, and the ticket costing about £500 return. My ticket today, in a much bigger plane, cost precisely Dk471 return, about £55. As a consumer, I can't complain about that trend.

Stansted Airport, on the other hand, is something else. I hate it. Despite its being designed by Norman Foster, the terminal building is ugly. The rail links, when compared with (say) Frankfurt or Amsterdam, are next to useless, the Stansted Express is dirty and expensive (it costs almost as much to go from Stansted to Central London as from Stansted to Denmark). I try to imagine the impressions of a foreigner coming to the U.K. for the first time, and think they would not be good; unlike in other countries in the Schengen arrangement, there are lots of posters about the draconian things that will happen to you if you don't have the right documents. Hardly a welcome mat.

The worst thing for me is when you fly out from the airport. Endless queues for both check-in and security. And have you noticed how the security personnel chat to each other constantly while they are impounding your toothpaste, or making you take your shoes and belt off, or the other ridiculous things they do? How can you catch a terrorist if you're reminiscing with your workmates about your booze-up in Bishop's Stortford the night before?

Still, things could be worse. At least I don't have to fly into Heathrow. A cardinal in the Pope's entourage likened it this week to arriving in a third world country. He spoke the truth. But since the Pope was about to embark on a state visit, the cardinal judiciously decided to stay away. Truth hurts.

Walter Blotscher