This blog is nothing if not a support for the underdog, an answer back for those who have no voice of their own.

And so I feel the need to report that my journey through Heathrow’s infamous Terminal Five was nowhere near as miserable as advertised.  Security checks were efficiently organised, maintaining the mandated level of intrusiveness while managing to dispense with the shoutiness that I expect from modern air-travel security.  I was able to buy Savalon, (now known amongst my Swedish family as “Patrick’s miracle salve”) a splendid first-aid product not seemingly available anywhere else in the world.  Even the queue to buy a paper didn’t present a significant obstacle.  Of course, it wasn’t all good: I didn’t find the famous glass walkway that enables one to look up passing females’ skirts, but in general, I gave Terminal 5 a thumbs-up.

Then I saw this:

And I had to restrain myself from walking in, verbally abusing people, humiliating those not highly proficient in the preparation of food and generally being a bit of a Gordon Ramsay.  After all, that is the Gordon Ramsay brand, is it not?  That is the hook upon which he hangs his celebrity, the name upon which that restaurant was trading.

Of course, had I gone in and started gratuitously swearing in Mr Ramsay’s tedious manner, I should have expected to be ejected but not without first spoiling one or two meals for other diners.  Now I am not anti-swearing, but I am pro-civility.  Gordon Ramsay, like the French Connection’s no-longer witty “FCUK”, screams obscenities at us that we simply don’t need to hear or read.  There are many places for that kind of language, (many of which I frequent), but the pointless and public hurling of profane abuse for the sake of notoriety, for one’s own celebrity, for one’s market share, cheapens us all.

I don’t care how good you are at cooking.