We flew back via Rome to Bangkok on Thai Airways. As regular readers know I generally hate Thai Airways, but this flight was much better in terms of seating and entertainment. This brings up a pet peeve of mine, which is the enormous variability within airlines. Since I fly all the time I pay close attention to new cabin layouts being introduced by various airlines, but it's kind of a ripoff since most of the time the airlines only put these in on selected routes. They say they're being upgraded gradually but it's not true, as the new cabins are usually put in in the first few months, then years later certain routes are stuck with the same old crap product. It's like if you buy a car and pay for a Mercedes, then when you go to pick it up they give you a Hyundai instead. It seems like airlines should have to tell you which configuration you're getting, especially whether it's a flat bed or not, and charge you accordingly. Some of the worst seats in the air are Qantas' business class from Australia to north Asia. You get tricked into thinking they'll be the usual flat bed seats, then you're stuck on an overnight fourteen hour flight in horrible economy like seats, but the fare's the same. And they don't have first class on these routes so there's no escape. Anyway, total digression, and in this case it worked in reverse, as I was expecting horrible seats and got a decent Thai flight instead. (And to be fair some of the recent flights I've had with them in 2007 have been quite good with flat beds and personal videos, although there are still lots that are among the worst in the air, so good luck!)

The photo's not related to anything except it's me working on my journal in Venice, which I'm now reading as I type this so I like the circularity of it.