The trip passed without incident. Except that BA's 747 seemed in a less than perfect state of interior upkeep. My headrest wouldn't stay up, which is very minor but very annoying when you are tall. More ominously, shortly after takeoff, very dark and nasty-looking brown liquid started dripping from the ceiling in the aisle next to me and also over the seats by the windows (we were in the middle section so it just missed us). The guy from the cabin crew said it was 'just condensation' and went off to get something to wipe it up, leading to a mildly comic moment as he reached up to wipe off the ceiling and got doused when the drip changed to a pour. He later came back to offer the more plausible explanation that there was a humidifier up there and it must have been overloaded with water; when we took off the angle of plane caused some of the water to slosh out.
If it's true that how you celebrate the New Year tells you something about how you will spend it, I will be jet-lagged, dazed and confused, and asleep, in 2004.
You think that’s bad, try military planes; “What’s that leak over there?” “Oh, that’s just hydraulic fluid.” “Should that be leaking like that?” “It’s not a problem. But if it stops leaking, be sure to notify the pilot!”