Anyway, our aircraft finally arrived & off we set, trundling down the runway. In fact we where travelling at a fair old lick when suddenly the pilot throttled back, applied full reverse thrust & with squealing tyres we came to a juddering halt. Of course, this being a Gulf Air flight, very few people had actually bother to stow anything in the overhead lockers & those that had were properly secured so in an instant, the cabin was filled with cases & assorted debris … shoes, bags & small children all piling up at the front of the aircraft. The locals collectively started their “enchalla” routine & even your humble correspondent stopped worrying about his perilous financial position for a few seconds.

Apparently, just before the pilot was about to ‘rotate’ (I assume that this is something that he & the co-pilot do with the trolley tarts) we suffered a cabin de-pressurisation, which is nice. So we taxi back to the terminal & sit there while we wait for repairs to be undertaken.

After about an hour of so, my general level of boredom was relived by the aircraft’s smoke alarms going off & the cabin filling with smoke. This was to the cue for a lot of people to run up & down the aisles with fire extinguishers & a lot more “enchallas”. It transpired that one of the local had gone for a crafty smoko in the Benghazi & having set off the smoke alarms, did the sensible thing & threw the still burning butt into the pan into the waste tissue basket. Doh!

& we went to all that trouble to “liberate” these people? Tomorrow is the last day & then I’m outta here. Right now however, I need to go & catch my next flight