Devoted though one is to Michael O'Leary, and anxious as one always is to add some foothills of loolah to the Himalaya of money he has accumulated at his Mullingar halting-site, I do not always fly Ryanair when my destination is London.
Some feel that the Ryanair London-Hull airport is slightly misnamed, since the airport is actually on the wrong side of the Scottish Highlands. And many say the whereabouts of London-Brussels airport is not accurately conveyed by its title, since it is in Lapland.
This would not matter if one had time: but this June, time is what we will not have. We have just three days in Berkshire - and Berkshire is just about at the end of the runway at Heathrow. So Heathrow it will have to be.
Which means Aer Lingus.
Now, I have to confess, I actually flew Aer Lingus to London last year, because it was actually cheaper than Ryanair. As relevant as cheapness was that it was actually possible. Previously, all attempts to book Aer Lingus flights on the internet had been perfectly bootless (as we, rather curiously, say). Each time I attempted to book a ticket, the mystifying sign "operation timed out" appeared before the transaction had been completed. Why, I even wrote a column about it, and sure enough, the great Willie Walsh promptly changed the Aer Lingus website protocols, (if that is the correct terminology) to enable one to buy a ticket without having to be Bill Gates.
So, having done it once, I'd do it again! Easy. On to the internet, then tap out, very laboriously, tongue between the teeth, www.aerlingus.ie, and up comes the site. Then tap in destination and date of flight.
What do I discover? Flights available for just seven euro. Yes, SEVEN euro! What about return? Tap for return flight. Nothing happens. Keep on trying, and still nothing happens. No return flights schedule, no prices, not even a chance to buy the outward flight. After about 10 minutes of this a little notice appears: yes, with Willie Walsh gone, my old friend "Operation timed out" is back on the screen. I am no longer in touch with Aer Lingus.
So back on to www.aerlingus.ie and there it is, the seven euro flight, still on offer. But what about returns? Click for the homeward leg, and nothing.
Try this repeatedly, and still nothing repeatedly, until that old familiar, "Operation timed out" makes its homely reappearance.
Now, there is absolutely no point whatsoever in losing your temper in such circumstances. Whenever confronted by such adversity, I calmly and methodically set fire to a local convent or two, shooting all survivors as they leap burning from the bell-tower. This very Zen Buddhist manner of coping with stress has seen me through many a crisis, and so it proved on this occasion. Nothing quite so calming as getting a brace of Poor Clares with a left and a right. The next day, I logged on again. And again the seven euro fares were available.
But yet again the operation "timed out" before I could make a purchase - time after time after time. What could I do? A horizon rich in smoke-pyres showed that I had run out of convents to burn.
It then occurred to me: why not make an old-fashioned telephone booking? I look up the Aer Lingus number in the book and dial it.
Almost slapping her thigh with joy at having caught me out, the woman who made the recorded-reply tells that me the number has been changed, and then rattles if off just the once, too quickly for a caller to note it down. So I ring again to get it, and scribble down the number.
However, the new number begins, "0818", which, I fear, is the telephonic equivalent of having your name at Lloyd's the year that California slides into the Pacific with all hands. I ring it anyway. It thanks me for ringing and offers me a two-part menu. If I want to travel to the US, press one.
Anywhere else, press two. I press two. The same female voice intones more thanks and introduces me to a two-part menu. If I want to travel to the US, press one, anywhere else, press two. I press two. The same female voice intones more thanks and introduces me to a two-part menu. If I want to travel to the US, press one, anywhere else, press two.
And so on. Until I shrewdly cease to choose an option, and I finally am put through to an operator, a graduate of the Rosa Kreb school of airline etiquette. Still, I tell her my requirements, and she comes back with the news that the return flights will cost €148 each. WHAT, I roar - soothingly felling the last surviving Holy Faith postulant with a well-aimed assegai - but the internet price was only seven euro one-way!
I would have booked it, I tell her, but I was always being timed out! "Times out? Really?" sneers Rosa. "So would you like to speak to our internet support-group?"
Here I am, on the point of making a purchase, yet cretinously I choose instead to talk to an Aer Lingus internet support-group. Or not, as it actually happens. For after the internet support-group phone-extension goes unanswered for a full half hour, probably costing me the price of Texas, I finally ring off.
Which is why I will be flying British Midlands Airways to Heathrow this June, and why I will very definitely not be investing in a privatised Aer Lingus.