Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.04.2015, Side 4

Most Awesome
Letter of the Issue!
TO READERS OF GRAPEVINE
DEAR CONCORDE LOVERS,
HERE IS THE CONCORDE THAT
ME AND MY WIFE SANDRA AND
MY TWO CHILDREN CHARLOTTE
AND EMMA CAME TO ICELAND
IN ON THE 22ND AUGUST 1987.
WE FLEW LOW OVER ICELAND
AT THE REQUEST OF THE CON-
TROL TOWER WHO SAID THAT
THE PEOPLE OF ICELAND HAD
HEARDCONCORDE BUT NOT SEEN
IT.THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN BY EG-
GERT NORDDAL BUT HE DOES NOT
WANT THE PHOTO TO APPEAR
IN THE BOOK I AM WRITING FOR
THE FIRST TIME CALLED "A DAY
TRIP IN CONCORDE " SO IT MEANS
THAT I WILL HAVE TO PUBLISH
A PHOTO OF THE SAME CON-
CORDE THAT LANDED IN VIENNA.
THIS PARTICULAR CONCORDE I
FLEW IN TO ICELAND ACTUALLY
HOLDS THE WORLD RECORD FOR
THE FASTEST CROSSING OF THE
ATLANTIC FROM JFK NEW YORK
TO HEATHROW LONDON IN 2HRS
52MINS AND 59SECS ON THE 7TH
FEBRUARY 1996.IT WAS FLOWN
BY CAPTAIN LESLEY SCOTT WHO
ACTUALLY FLEW THE SAME
CONCORDE THAT MY FAMILY AND
I CAME TO ICELAND IN ON THE
22ND AUGUST 1987.
YOURS SINCERELY
NIGEL FERRIS
Dear Nigel,
This is fascinating!
Thank you for your lovely letter,
The Grapevine
Say your piece, voice your
opinion, send your letters to:
letters@grapevine.is
WOW, that sucked!
Prepare to be WOW’ed and very, very
thirsty.
With all the planes falling out of the
sky nowadays and disappearing out of thin
air or crashing into mountains, one may
reconsider entering an aircraft altogether.
But another, more foreseeable danger
awaits when boarding a WOW air flight.
There are many advantages to not losing
your wallet in an airport, but being with-
out cash or credit card, as I was this April
second, will most certainly lead to severe
dehydration, at least if you leave it up to the
WOW air crew.
It is no secret that passengers should
drink plenty of water when up in the air.
The reason behind this common knowledge
is that the cabin humidity is so unnaturally
low (5 to 10%) - lower than in the Sahara
desert actually - it will cause dehydration
with all its usual symptoms; dry chapped
skin, dry eyes, thirst, tiredness, dry mouth,
headache, constipation, dizziness or
lightheadedness. Research showed that
adequate water intake can prevent heart
attacks and that severe dehydration may
result in low blood pressure, rapid heart-
beat, extreme thirst, dry skin, loss of skin
elasticity, little or no urination, confusion,
and fever. Go without water too long and
you become delusional - which made me
think that maybe WOW deprived its own
crew of sufficient hydration...
Since airport security and its anti-
liquid policies make it impossible for you
to provide your own water supply, air-
lines have made use of the opportunity to
gain wonderful profit margins on one of
our most basic needs. And who can blame
them? Money after all is what makes the
world go round, and in this case it makes
you go round the world. Of course it would
be pretty WOW if they started charging us
for oxygen masks. The problem at hand is
not per se in charging people for bottled
water though, the crime is rather in refus-
ing drinking water to your customers, es-
pecially at that altitude. But as my friendly
stewardess informed me (and I quote) “It
isn’t illegal to refuse drinking water to the
customers” at which point I wondered if it
was illegal to punch her in the face.
WOW of course isn’t the only airline to
have that policy, but in my experience, it is
the only airline that’s actually lived down
to that horrible standard and in effect re-
fused to give drink to the thirsty. Even Ry-
anair flight attendants have been running
off to the back to fetch me a paper cup of
water without any fuss. But even if WOW
wasn’t the only one to have no common
sense, does that make it okay?
If ethics and basic human decency are
currently defined by majority rule then
maybe I’d rather have my next plane crash.
I have one request though: Can we please
crash in fresh water? That way I won’t
have to die while stripped of my basic hu-
man rights. Or is access to potable drinking
water no longer on the list?
(Based on the experience of the April sec-
ond WW903 flight from CPH Kastrup to
Keflavik)
Dear Mayli,
Wow, that’s quite the story. Keep that in mind,
y’all. Now, on a related note, unless you’re on
a plane where tap water is unavailable, dear
visitors to Iceland, don’t even think about buy-
ing bottled water! Our tap water is not only
okay to drink, but also really great to taste.
Those supermarkets with walls of expensive
bottled water, you see? Yeah, they aren’t mak-
ing a króna off of Icelanders.
Don’t be fooled!
Grapevine
SOUR GRAPES AND STUFF

There's prize for all your MOST
AWESOME LETTERS. And it’s a
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No, really! It's a goddamn scorcher
is what it is! Whoever sends us THE
MOST AWESOME LETTER this issue will
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Wow! DON’T PANIC if your letter wasn’t
picked AWESOME LETTER. There's
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write us some sort of letter.
Give us your worst: letters@grapevine.
is
MOST AWESOME LETTER
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