Kangaroolity

Birmingham International Airport has the most boring departure lounge in the world. Luckily, though, I've come equipped with "At Swim-Two-Birds" by Flann O'Brien, as well as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I'll save for the journey home on Sunday. I'm hugely grateful to Charlie Garavan for alerting me last year to the existence of Flann O'Brien, and it's a shame really that I took so long to get round to buying this fine example of his work.

Everyone should check it out, if only for the discussion between the Good Fairy and the Pooka Fergus MacPhellimey, in which they hold anything up to five conversations at once, one of them starting with the Pooka's strange belief that kangaroos qualify as humans, which develops into a debate as to the possible kangaroolity of the Pooka's own wife, the question of how many tails a good or bad person should have, and a lot more that the three minutes left to me on this expensive airport internet access allow me to detail.

This really is a stupendously boring departure lounge. I wouldn't recommend living here if you have the choice between this and any of the decent London airports. There is a Burger King and no McDonald's, though, which is always a good thing. Bacon double cheeseburgers being the ultimate in fast food and everything. Anyway, the plane's boarding. Assuming it doesn't get lost, I'll be in Frankfurt in a couple of hours, bit of sightseeing then a train to Darmstadt. Bye!