English Annoyance

I was glad to leave all bus problems behind me and as soon as I exited the South African border in Johannesburg, I expected everything to go smooth like an oiled flash. I only had to cope with the English, who always do their best to annoy travellers in any way they can. No exception this time.

I used my last South African Rand-coins to stock up on a few drinks in the airport as I had a long wait at Heathrow. I tried to be clever and do it after the security control where they also check for liquids. About 10 hours later I was about to find out that even if arriving from international flights you have to pass another security check before getting into Heathrow Terminal 5. And no drinks allowed again. I had to sit down and finish all my drinks in the corridor. Lucky I didn’t buy that tax-free Whisky-bottle that was on sale in Jo’burg; that would have been significantly harder to finish.

Next task was to post a couple of books I didn’t fancy carry with me to Americas. One was particularly urgent as it was a library book from Basingstoke; which I had managed to renew online every couple of weeks without anyone filing a reservation (touch wood). I brought with me franked envelopes so it was just to put in the postbox.

When entering terminal 5 I was about to find out the next annoying thing; Royal Mail has fiddled with the postboxes in all London airports. They have mounted something in the hole that only makes it possible to post items that are 3 mm thick or thinner. And have you ever seen a Lonely Planet book thinner than three millimetres? Not even LP Farnborough would fit in there if it existed. To get it posted, I had to ask British Airways to escort me out to England, then take a train to terminal two, which had a post office outside, then take the train back and finally go through the !*&%*$ security again.

Pip, another super-annoying british person.