I am fascinated by aeroplanes. When one flies overhead, I always look up. What make is it? What airline? And where is it possibly flying too.

I think there’s something quite magical still about being on a plane.

Yes, airports are not the friendliest places in the world, everyone is stressed out, trying to get checked in, through passport control, past the security screening process. Isn’t it amazing how a stray coin managed to lodge in some deep-down corner of a pocket causing you to go into gymnastic convulsions trying to dig it out lest the scanner buzz and you be subjected to that pat down?

More often than not, I simply assume the position, in socks, arms and legs spread akimbo while being patted down by someone in uniform who has left his sense of humour on the other side of security. And there’s always the question of whether to leave the shoes on or off. As a general rule, they come off, but not always. I can’t figure out the rationale, nor the thinking behind having to put laptops or tablets into a separate bin. Surely the X-ray machine scanner thing it’s passing through can see through it if its alongside my shoes and jacket?

But aeroplanes themselves and the process of flying fascinate me.

I have a routine when I fly. I always ask for a window seat. Why? Well, apart from the view, it just means that I have only to wrestle one person for the armrest. There is nothing worse than having to arm-wrestle on both sides. I think I know now how Kaiser Wilheim and Adolf Hitler faced enemies on east and west fronts.

Life stories

And don’t talk to me either. I’m not interested in who you are, what you do, where you’ve been or where you’re going to. And we all have life stories, so I don’t want to be bored making small chat at 40,000 feet for four hours.

I also think that there should be child-free flights. We’ve all been there, having to listen to screaming children who are determined to make more noise than the Rolls-Royce power plants keeping the plane aloft.

A toddler on full throttle is as bad as it gets, particularly in the confined cabin where there’s no escaping until touchdown. Airlines seem to go out of their way now to have cabin crew dedicated to looking after the little terrors. Me? I’d ban them — at least from flights that leave an airport after 10pm. I mean it’s way past their bedtime and they should be at home in bed anyway. What are the parents thinking, disrupting the little tot’s night-time routine and then expecting the rug rats to be quiet and behave themselves? I’d even pay more to travel on a child-free flight. And the cabin crew could pay more attention to nice, quiet adult passengers.

I still get excited by the powering up of the engines as the plane builds up speed and begins to trundle down the runway, faster and faster until there’s that first lift, and we’re up and away.

But I don’t need 10 separate messages telling me what nationalities the crew members are and that there’s no smoking on board and all of the lavatories are fitted with smoke detectors, and to leave my seat belt on. By that stage, I’m usually 30 minutes into the newest releases from Hollywood and there’s a good shoot-out or a key bit of the movie happening when the inane announcements start.

I still love to see clouds, flying through them, or over them. And I get excited when I see another plane’s contours, or indeed another aircraft flying above, alongside or underneath the plane I’m on.

But when we land, it’s always going to take time to get off the plane. There’s no point in standing up all at once and crowding the isle. That’s when I think the whole plane is full of kids.