I DOUBT whether the powers that be at Flybe any longer read the many and varied references to them made in this newspaper and elsewhere, because they must be fed up with defending, not to mention often seeking to justify, some of their business practices.

By way of a change, I am about to pass on someone’s thanks and praise, although before the firm’s hierarchy break open a bottle of shandy (I can’t imagine them shelling out on champagne) by way of celebration, let me stress that someone else’s praise – albeit genuine and happily passed on – should not be taken as this bolshie little crapaud’s seal of approval for this airline’s money-making activities.

The praise came from my mate in Guernsey by way of a phone call the other week asking how Christmas had gone at Chez Clement. He and his wife had spent a splendid Christmas and New Year in France’s capital – mad, mad Paris, where only the river is Seine. Well, I’m in that sort of mood.

For some reason never explained to me (although it has to be said that my mate sounded as if he’d downed a pint or five of Pony when he rang), their return home involved an early-morning departure from Paris to London and then on to Guernsey.

Bearing in mind that this was the second week in January and half of Europe was up to its armpits in snow, not surprisingly their early-morning flight from Paris was delayed, so they arrived at the Flybe check-in desk long after the time they should have been there. Given what they had read about this particular outfit, they feared the worst in terms of how much it was going to cost them to get home.

However, as my mate put it, the Flybe staff at Gatwick could not have been more helpful. They explained that Gatwick was going to be closed until late afternoon so they were trying to get one flight to Guernsey and one to Jersey, and they moved up and down the queues sorting out who wanted refunds, who wanted to return the next day, and so on.

‘Okay, so we had eight or nine hours at Gatwick, which wasn’t ideal, but Flybe got us home to Guernsey by ten that night, so full marks to them,’ said my mate.

Why can’t they be like that all the time?

TO an extent, Rosemary Geller was always on a hiding to nothing when she followed the lead given by the World Health Organisation and put the fear of death (almost literally) up everyone and his brother by forecasting that unless we trundled along to the quack for a swift swine flu jab, we were going to be dropping like flies.

As I said some time ago, I asked my doctor what he would do in my shoes, and so I duly rolled up the sleeve, which I suppose at my age, with all the buttons, zips and other appurtenances involved, is a mite easier than dropping the trousers.

We now know that the powers that be appear to have got their forecasts mightily wrong, and according to Dr Geller, we’ll probably only see a few cases a week of the dreaded lurgy until the flu season (she makes it sound like the Premier League, doesn’t she?) ends sometime next month.

I don’t have a huge problem with how it has all panned out since our Medical Officer of Health’s original forecasts of months ago because, as I said, she was simply following the lead given by others.

However, listening to what people are saying – not least the old lads down in the Last of The Summer Wine corner of the pub – now that we’ve had a non-event with chicken flu, another non-event with swine flu, how many people are going to listen to Dr Geller and her medical colleagues (no matter how eminent they are) when pigeon flu or even lizard flu kills off half a dozen people in some obscure corner of the globe and the medics declare another panic – sorry, pandemic?

I have to say that I might well be tempted to forego their advice – which involves to an extent lining the pockets of the drug companies, among others – and opt instead to plug in to the intravenous drip in The Shed, the one that’s connected to an upturned 70cl bottle of 40% proof 20-year-old calvados.
After all, why waste time with optics and glasses when you can get it straight into the bloodstream?

The warm internal glow – the one you get when the distilled apple juice connects with the stomach – is sacrificed, admittedly, but the feeling of this stuff coursing through the veins really is something else.

Herself has just looked over my should and suggested that, just in case the jobsworths in some government department financed by our beloved nanny States read this, and believing that I am serious about having a home-made intravenous drip in The Shed and advocating shoving neat calvados straight into veins, placing Elf and Safety on red alert, I should make it clear that on occasions I have a vivid imagination.

As she put it, that imagination tends to get a little
carried away after I’ve had a slug or three calvadii (I’m sure that’s the plural), and that admittedly is the case as I write.

AND finally … I have no wish to comment on the boy Le Main or his holidays, but one of his

critics suggested he should be like Daniel Wimberley, who was seen running to get to work on time, thus demonstrating ‘commitment, respect and gratitude for his job’.

Actually, if the Deputy had planned things properly, he wouldn’t have had to
run. And he’s got previous in respect of unpunctuality. Not the best example, methinks.