Torments of flying

This morning I boarded a Finnair flight, again. Luckily I avoided the strike of the company´s pilots in November and the famous chaos with the luggage at the Helsinki airport during the first days of December. I certainly hope Finnair survives the difficult times. After extended stay abroad it´s always nice to board a Finnish aircraft, it´s a kind of extension of the fatherland: friendly but reserved service, familiar but not very good food, Finnish newspapers with nothing new in them...

But there is a frequent torment which drives me crazy: the music during boarding, taxing and takeoff. What makes the airline companies to think that the customers want to hear distorted jazz or appalling Pan Flute arrangements of something which sounds only vaguely familiar. Stop that, please! The situation is most painful in the morning when the passengers would like to relax and maybe even get some sleep. The Finnish Musician`s Union have (at least used to have) a special prize for public environments which are free of muzak. Maybe they should have a special antiprize for this kind of cacotopical terrorism as well.

And then there´s another annoying thing: useless announcements during the flight. "We are at the moment flying over the Isle of Gotland" ," our altitude is 11 000 metres", "the city of Mumbai on the left hand side", "we´ll start by heading south towards Berlin, then turn west and fly along the French border, over Geneva...". And all this in three languages! Who cares!?!? Just take me where I´m going and let me sleep.

It might look as if I were in a bad mood. Not at all. I just returned from Bremen. Die Glocke is a fenomenal hall and the audience there is always so warm and attentive. And Sharon Kam... what can I say...she´s the Maria Callas of the Clarinet.