French connection

I COULDN`T help but smile last week as I read of the squeals of `unfair`coming from Glasgow Airport when the Scottish government cancelled the plans for a rail link from the city centre to the airport. Now they know what it feels like. Twenty or so years ago they were happily conspiring to see the closure of Prestwick Airport and turned deaf ears to our cries of unfair practice.

Of course the success of Prestwick is a subject close to my heart (the book is The Dream that Wouldn`t Die on is still on sale from the website of the same name!) and I was interested to see how busy or otherwise it was last week as I tragelled to Beauvais, one of the routes Ryanair have left untouched (for the moment at least).

And I couldn`t help but ponder on how while making cheap travel to Europe accessible to us all Mr O`Leary is gradually taking the joy out of the journey. This was the first time I was dealing with the new luggage restrictions - carrying on my case with a weight restriction of 10kilogrammes.

The conversation in the transit lounge, I kid you not, was all about the weight of our cases, whether our cases were too big to pass inspection, and the acceptance of the sad fact we could bring few if any souvenirs home. It turned out we were lucky as two flights were leaving around the same time and the luggage police were concentrating on the hapless Frankfurt-bound passengers. I watched astonished as a woman, picked at random, had to open her case, put on a cardigan, a shawl and her husband took on another item of clothing. They were then allowed to board the plane -with the same weight of clothing though some of it now on the body instead of in the case. Madness.

Next thing Ryanair will be introducing body searches not for contraband or explosive devices but to see hoew many layers of clothes you are wearing!

On the way back I fell foul of the not enough make-up items in the plastic bag regime and watched in horror as the attendant considered whether to discard a bottle of Chanel No 5. It could have led to violence - but I was lucky and it went back into my case though a tube of moisturiser went into the bucket.

My weekend was to St Germain-en-Laye the Ayr Twin Town (a private visit I may add - no council cash involved) and a lot of the discussion there was around the future of twinning in the 21st century. This trip was more like a pensioners` outing than a vibrant exhange! In St Germain some young families have joined their association and this is what we need to attempt here or the movement will just fade away, which would be sad after 25 years. Twinning has as lot to offer. You learn so much more about your Continental neighbours living in their homes than you ever will sitting round a swimming pool, competing for deck chairs or talking in cafes.

While there we talked of youth exchanges through schools - sports tournaments, golf and rugby matches and music was also a suggested means of increasing the interest of children and through them their parents in twinning. Time will tell.