euuuuh sorry, I know I'm French, but that is *not* a "huge brick of cheese" i would not even call that a large brick of cheese that is a normal sized brick of cheese

WE VISIT: the new revamp of Heathrow’s best — and the world’s best business class — lounge, Virgin Atlantic’s iconic Clubhouse. From a cheery “hurray!” from Princess Diana to a secret sweetie cupboard, plus Eddie and Pats (sweetie, darling) and #avgeek icons, lounge glitz & glam is BACK.

Windy weather, so many of you are looking forward to the UK tradition of BigJetTV. BUT... What most won't know is Jerry (from BigJet) has had to battle through emergency heart surgery, two strokes and loss of vision in one eye. Today is his first, tentative and limited return. Send him some love!

This, but for commercial airline flights too. IIRC, the certification process for your airline seats, screens and so on is actually *more* stringent than for space flight. Artemis flies once. Your seat flies multiple times a day for years.

"Nashville Hot Mozz" has entered the chat.

"You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don't say the opposite every day of what you said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn't talk every day," Macron said.

what i would not give for this setting to be an option for me too

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

would literally ensure approval of the monarchy so high the angevin empire would spontaneously form itself

slightly worried that this is some sort of Kingsman-style evil catnip to make the heads of pretty much every gay millennial explode Jeopardy ✅ D&D ✅ Rebecca Black ✅ Drag Race ✅

I love Deep Space Nine for so many reasons — but on this Trans Day of Visibility, I'm so grateful that it is and was such an accessible early metaphor for part of the trans experience. Love, strength and defiance to all our beloved old friends, this day and always.

So it just turned 1 April here, and…can we just not do Fool’s Day this year please?

I love Deep Space Nine for so many reasons — but on this Trans Day of Visibility, I'm so grateful that it is and was such an accessible early metaphor for part of the trans experience. Love, strength and defiance to all our beloved old friends, this day and always.

Another week, another STUNNER of a European airline anniversary livery —  this time from SAS.

This is… quite the appointment.

We’re here for you. And your rooftop bar.

Authors personal beliefs (no matter how horrible) can inform how or if you engage with their work, but they’re not that important or interesting. Authors personally funneling their enormous wealth from their work into a hate movement however—you have a duty to care about that.

couldn't come up with better PR for transgenders than "underground transgender mafia successfully heisted 12 tonnes of Kitkats"

ALL ABOARD THE CHEESE TRAIN TOOT TOOT

Signal boosting this handsomr ormj fellow who temporarily needs a home — New York and environs!

It's a good ole fashioned plane-off.

From "Hello, bonjour" to "goodbye, au revoir", the now-ex-CEO of Air Canada gets le boot. Le bilinguisme : fuckez-vous around, findez-vous out.

This time last week I was in Tokyo, looking out over the Shinkansen tracks, exploring this fascinating city. Today I’m fertilising the trees in my little woodland garden glade at home in central France. Somehow this life I’ve created for myself seems just magical when I reflect on it.

From now on this is the only way I will travel

I have not spent my entire journalistic career being told I use too many em-dashes only to worry about using them because Billy fucking Sixfingers the plagiarism slop machine stole proper writing that uses them and is now spaffing them out. You will pry my em-dashes from my cold — and dead — hands.

Wishing everyone in the United States in particular a very Frenchness Intensifies sort of day.

Copies of "I want a president". A handout written by artist Zoe Leonard for poet Eileen Miles' 1992 presidential campaign. "I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown: always a john and never a hooker." (Full text in alt)

My contribution to the US cursive discourse: after six years of US elementary school cursive training, which I absolutely loathed, my penmanship was so terrible that I had to have remedial handwriting classes for a year when I moved to the UK school system at age 11.

I'm no great defender of the SNCF, but I too live in rural France, and… not to misquote Sally Struthers, but… do you want more trains? Sure! We all do! But the population of the two villages this station serves? 362 and 735. There are four *direct* trains to Paris at 0621, 0821, 1821 and 2021.

A little (yet strong!) taster of a fun bit of my trip home: a quick stop-off to check out the new bits of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at Heathrow. More on @theupfront.media soon, but the upgrades are great — very in keeping with what people love about the Clubhouse, with plenty of Virgin glam.

#Boomdoggle logic: airlines can’t demand engine choice if you don’t have an engine

ANA’s 11K; probably my favorite seat on any airplane. I don’t get to do it often, but when I do, I take many, many pictures of that engine.

Massively excited for this massive seat — full disclosure, ANA #presstrip — heading to London today. Another incredible #JohnDoesJapan trip in the books… three weeks of trains, gardens and joy. Mamonaku: fourteen hours of this.

#ToyokoInn room tour! This is a regular, relatively modern single room in Oji, just north of the Yamanote Line — I’d call it “just north of central Tokyo”, really. Charming little spot, not at all touristy, very convenient, with the most INCREDIBLE train views from the railway side… #JohnDoesJapan

After Liam's high-profile case, I realized I hadn't ever seen kids being loaded on these ICE Air charter flights. ... it turns out that Minnesota kids fly Delta Air Lines when they're getting shipped to to ICE detention centers:

Folks, we understand paywalls are annoying and that you, the reader, are being asked to keep journalism alive. That sucks. But we aren’t a major corporation - we’re a group of independent writers and journalists. We paywall a single article/week to keep our other content free w/o third-party ads.

So on my last day I picked up one of the seasonal sakura merch flasks — partly because I am an absolute sucker for Starbucks sakura merch, inject it in my veins, partly because these are the best flasks I have ever used. I’ll think of my lovely trip to Nagano every time I use it. #JohnDoesJapan

Two different Tokyos — Akihabara Electric Town and the Joyful Minori shopping street. Twenty-mumble years ago, before I first visited, my idea of Japan was the one on the left. Today, some of my favourite Japan memories are from places like the one on the right. #JohnDoesJapan

This is as outrageous as it is stupid. Of course there's all sorts of inoffensive books about queer people — Heartstopper, Red White & Royal Blue, and so on. But also, like… The Da Vinci Code? Good Omens? MICHELLE OBAMA'S BIOGRAPHY? These school administrators should be run out of town.

This might be an unwise move on a holiday weekend, but the weather is gorgeous and sakura season is starting, so I’m off to Enoshima to ride the Enoden, the Shonan dangly monorail and the Odakyu Romancecar… but first, the Tokaido Line and its pay-as-you-go double decker Green Car! #JohnDoesJapan

And your Friday listen… The fascinating complexities of the world of surface materials — what you sit on, touch, and look at within the cabin — in episode 2 of our special limited-edition podcast, The Chain, ahead of the Aircraft Interiors Expo.

Spending a wet public holiday in #Tokyo exploring the line of the #TodenArakawa Line, aka the Tokyo Sakura Tram, and it is so cute, and so atmospheric, and trundles through such fascinating neighbourhoods, I cannot even. #JohnDoesJapan

Nobody: Literally nobody: Me: YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A

It’s funny the little habits I get into when I travel. For some reason* when I was in Nagano this week I really enjoyed sitting with a matcha-espresso latte outside the station Starbucks each morning, people watching and transit watching before starting my daily fun. *u kno the reason

Cosigned. Let Firefly be what it was — not least because of Whedon and Baldwin. Go make something new.

Democratic consultants: To replicate Mamdani’s success with the young people we must appeal to their short attention spans with memes and TikTok Mamdani (actual quote): In the fifth century in what we now know as Ireland, a British warlord named Coroticus had laid waste to the countryside

This was SUCH a great day out of wonderful retro trains, incredible art and architecture, a gorgeous temple, and friendly — and English-speaking! — Japanese omotenashi welcome. Highly recommend, including as a Tokyo day trip. #JohnDoesJapan

Newly released video footage shows Delta Air Lines was responsible for transporting 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his dad from Minneapolis to a Texas ICE detention center in January. h/t @gbrockell.bsky.social @ottergoose.net www.huffpost.com/entry/delta-...

Starting off with my traditional matcha-and-two-shots before a #TransitAdventure today in #Nagano! Nagano itself is a fascinating small city and well worth a visit — super easy from #Tokyo — but retro train fans in particular are *exceedingly* well served… #JohnDoesJapan

EXCLUSIVE: we reveal why Lufthansa’s Allegris 787 business cabins were delayed in certification — and the regulatory reasons why three seats are still blocked in the cabin. Share and subscribe to support in-depth, independent aviation media, right at the heart of the passenger experience: