The festive season is fast approaching and soon my daughter will be flying home from Sydney with her pal Spike. I had a few concerns regarding the flight and therefore wrote to Qantas thusly:

Dear Qantas

Where’s the ‘u’ gone? I know that Australia is a long way from the headquarters of the Oxford English Dictionary, but that’s still no excuse.

Anyway, to business. My daughter will be using your airline in a couple of week’s time. She is flying from Sydney to England, along with her female flatmate and very close chum Spike. I’ve had to endure some fairly base comments down the bridge club regarding their relationship. Some people cannot see two single women sharing a one-bedroom flat without drawing unpleasant conclusions. One particular fellow wouldn’t leave it alone and it was only my pointing out that at least my daughter hasn’t died of bulimia (as his did) that caused him to desist. I feel he overreacted to that comment, personally. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t dish it out. Although in the case of his daughter there was no point in dishing anything out as she’d only vomit it back up into a shopping bag shortly afterwards.

My daughter and Spike are coming to see us for the Christmas period and also apparently have some news they wish to tell us in person. The only clue they would give is that it involves some sort of civil ceremony. I’m delighted, as a good steady job in civil service is just the sort of thing I’d hope for my daughter.

My concern is for the pair of them on the long flight home. My daughter has always been a picky eater (not as bad as my bridge club compatriot’s daughter, admittedly) and I was pondering what she would like to eat on the flight. The suggestion my nephew made caused him to be grounded for a week. I don’t know where he gets it from, I really don’t. I wondered whether you could do a vegetarian meal for her? I think it’s a fad, personally, and I’m sure that come Christmas lunch she won’t be able to resist the traditional meat and two veg (Sadly, I also said this in earshot of my nephew. He’s not getting his Playstation back until he apologises).

On the subject of food, I wondered whether there is an excess charge for larger passengers? Spike is not a small girl and what with her numerous tattoos she resembles a blob of blu-tac rolled across a newspaper. I could ask my daughter whether Spike could possibly lay off the barbecues for the next couple of weeks if this is going to cause a problem.

Also, what with the heightened security on flights since those chaps parked their jets into the side of those buildings, I’m a little concerned about Spike & my daughter’s various piercings. Some of them look absolutely lethal and I’m worried that a jetlagged cabin crew member could mistake Spike for some sort of human limpet mine and go berserk. I’ve asked my daughter whether she could remove them for the flight but she said something about her piercings enhancing her enjoyment with Spike. So I expect they’ll spend the whole flight comparing jewellery. Girls will be girls, I suppose.

Anyway, if you could let me know about the above queries I would be eternally grateful. Good day, gobber, as you chaps would say.

Yours etc.

They don’t hang about, these airline types, and I was gratified to receive a reply quicker than you could say “Strewth. What’s that dingo got in his mouth?”

Dear Mr ________,

We refer to your below e-mail and due to your daughter's requirements we
suggest you contact our local office with your enquiries :

http://www.qantas.com.au/needhelp/dyn/contacts/teleSalesContacts

Please also note QANTAS is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory
Aerial Services.

In anticipation we thankyou for your feedback.

Kind regards
Qantas Network Operations

The above address led me to one of those awful call centres where one ends up listening to Mantovani played by a pocket calculator for half an hour. I much prefer the written word and so replied thusly:

Dear Qantas,

I hope you do not mind if I reply via email. I have tried using call centres in the past and have not much cared for the experience. If I wanted to listen to awful music for hours on end before conversing with an unmotivated teenager I would go and sit in my nephew’s bedroom. I’d have to brush all the socks off his bed first, though. How he gets his socks in such a state I cannot begin to imagine.

I wasn’t aware that QANTAS was an acronym. After my experience of flying with BA, which culminated in me being bundled off the plane in Belgium after accidentally brushing against the bottom of a stewardess several times, I can only assume their company name is an acronym for Bloody Awful. Excuse my language.

My daughter and Spike have informed me that they have sorted out their dietary requirements for the flight, so no need to panic. They don’t actually plan to eat on the plane, and I hope when the cabin staff are handing around the barbecued chicken and whatnot and Spike refuses, they won’t be offended. Frankly, given her stature, I think they’re more likely to be amazed.

I apologise for the biological nature of this, but apparently, the girls will be swallowing something before their flight that they don’t wish to pass until they’re in England. An unusual thing to be patriotic about, I know, but there you are.

I spoke to some like-minded friends who told me that overweight people do not incur extra freight charges, so that has eased my mind. A missed business opportunity for the US airlines, though, wouldn’t you say? And the majority of their piercings will have to be removed in order to get through the metal detector, so we can stand easy on that, too. The girls walk around with more metal in them than an Iraqi civilian running away from a US troop.

Do you have any idea what film will be showing on the flight? The girls said they’d love it if you could dig out the following: “Bound”, “Gia”, “Boys Don’t Cry” or “The Killing Of Sister George”. An odd mix, I thought, but see what you can do.

Incidentally, your cricket chaps. Not funny. Not funny in the slightest. We invented the damned game after all.

Yours etc.