Sex in the city

I saw the Red Arrows today. My God, they're good. I swear there wasn't a woman in the crowd who wasn't thinking, consciously or otherwise, 'Get me a pilot for a right old rogering, now!'. Well, that's what I was thinking anyway.

There is something terrifically sexy about the control, tension and speed; those perfect formations - and the tinge of fear where they shoot close and noisily overhead. The atmosphere was subtly heightened by the general 'Ooohing and ahhhing' that was going on and I joined in with gusto, noticing from the corner of my eye that Other Half glanced at me suspiciously more than once. I must visit their website later.

I guess failing a pilot, someone dressed up as a pilot would do. Strong and silent and, I don’t know, powerful. (And wearing a helmet, or goggles and hat or thick scarf at least – this would have to be an anonymous encounter of course.) Other Half is strong (and particularly silent of late – more on that later). He’d be a liability to the red arrows, though, as is in no way a team player. He’d be the joker who gets expelled from the troupe for letting off orange smoke in the middle of their red, white and blue, and impersonating a solo flight of the bumble bee while they execute a perfectly-formed cupid’s heart. He’d hang back as they zoom forwards, then start to speed up as they slow down. I can see it now – an aerial version of the way we progress down the street.

I am generally several steps ahead of him (literally and metaphorically, and it’s not out of choice, you understand), and I just can’t bear to dawdle. He, on the other hand, walks at a snail’s pace unless I want to take in the scenery, in which case he will declare himself hungry or in need of a toilet and force us to move on quickly. I realise, writing this, that there was in fact a time when, despite our differences in tempo, we would walk around hand in hand. The closest we get to that these days is swinging Babe between us in an attempt to get him to speed up. Blinking heck, too much of life is spent hanging around waiting, or trying to catch up, but to escape it - how? Live in south-east Asia?

Hum. Back to the pilots. Much more fun and I’m not in the mood for nostalgia – I’m in a bad mood on purpose, original reason now forgotten, but cannot back down first as am on strike from being the first one to say sorry. Yes, that’s how grown up things are chez moi at the moment. And now, darn it, I just can’t get back into the swing of my earlier sense of frissance, as I’ve noticed my initial assumption that all pilots are male, and am also starting to feel worried by my use of the word ‘powerful’. I think I had better take some feminist theory to bed with me tonight.

So, any readers out there wondering whether I might be prepared to take it all the way with a red arrow can be reassured that no, of course I wouldn’t. Because it’s rare for me to go with flow and stop analysing what I’m doing and why. Plus it would, of course, be highly immoral.
You lot go to bed, and I’ll surf awhile…