I am sitting in my Geography classroom, and we are being taught by a little Chinese man. For some reason, I have a laptop computer on my desk, and I can play Fifa 2000 on it. Life is good.
I am the presenter of Newsnight, Jeremy Vine. For some unknown reason, I must pilot an aeroplane from London Heathrow, to New York. Things do not go well. On the first flight, I have to abort my take off, because I have started too far up the runway. The second flight is similarly fated, although, instead of a 747 Jumbo Jet, I have been given a long line of shopping trolleys to pilot. The third flight is quite disasterous. Moments before I open the throttles, in order to move down the runway, a light aircraft lands on the crossing runway. It appears to be struggling, and there is metal flying everywhere. In a fit of emotion, I decide to take off anyway, and I open the throttles. I then decide that I cannot do it, so I throw on the brakes, and jump out the cockpit window, clutching what looks like a human heart. The aeroplane continues down the runway, finally coming to a stop on a wooden pier, which crashes down into the shallow water below. I vow never to go back into the cockpit again. Weeks later, I am presenting Newsnight with my colleague, Jeremy Paxman, from the ironic location of an airport departure lounge. Kirsty Wark appears, and tells me to go out onto the apron and try again with the plane. I stumble down a long ramp, and am outside in the pitch darkness. I cannot see the plane, but I can hear my co-pilot calling me from my right. I stumble across the tarmac, trying to reach the plane, and eventually discover that it is a 747/shopping-trolley hybrid. I climb into the cockpit, whilst my co-pilot checks that there are the correct number of shopping trolleys in front of us, in order that we can take off. She finds them to be correct, but then tells me that we do not have the correct flight maps and radio frequencies. We take off regardless, and end up in Strasbourg, France, rather than New York.
I am sitting in the school assembly hall, watching this year's school show/talent show. Rather than performing a well-worn Broadway musical, or inviting individual acts, a cast of thousands instead acts out the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me. It is an impressive performance, with excellent costumes and special effects. It is so well acted that it runs on past the end of lunchtime, whereupon the school technician - director, choreographer and producer - comes out and thanks us for coming, and his cast for being so good.
I arrive in the city of Munich, for a short break. We leave our hotel, and go in search of an U-Bahn station. We are having trouble in finding said transport interchange, so I ask a little, old German man to point out a station on the map. He does, we thank him, and he keeps the map in his coat pocket.
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