African Cup of Nations 2010 - blog

Checking in for CAN

by Paul Myers

Article published on the 2010-01-07 Latest update 2010-01-09 14:05 TU

Paul Myers sets out for Angola in the first of his exclusive blogs for RFI from the 2010 African Cup of Nations.

A few summers back I went from Stansted Airport in England to Stockholm. It was the first time I'd used the airport since its multimillion-pound revamp. What a shopping extravaganza to behold: cafés – boutiques – newsagents – boutiques. I just wanted to spend. And I did – purchasing a leather wallet for a hysterically high price.

But that’s the kind of altered state flying inflicts upon me. No cool customer me. I feel death’s spindly fingers are twirling round my mortal coil ready to reel me into its icy embrace.

The Grim Reaper would have been well at home outside the Boeing 767-300 flying us towards Angola for the latest bonanza of football at the Africa Cup of Nations.

The screens on board the aircraft informed us that just 20 minutes into our seven-hour flight, it was minus 59F outside.

I’d love to know who finds that kind of information interesting. I particularly welcome the details about how much longer before we touch down, but the outside temperature? Especially when the films the airline says are going to be shown don’t seem to be anywhere near the viewing menu.

The Gatherer, it seemed to me, had already taken a stroll along the concourse in the post-security check zone at Charles de Gaulle airport.

The boutiques – though they oozed class – were virtually empty. The cashiers, despite their colour-coordinated cladding, looked a forlorn troop.

Perhaps action there is a daytime phenomenon and the travellers preparing for a 10pm flight to Addis Abeba have had their fill of retail.

But how can this be with international bad men chomping at their explosive bits to dispatch us into oblivion? Thanks to their antics, you can’t take useful things like water through the check ins.

And once past that security gate, the prices rise into the stratosphere. To wit: 25cl bottle of white wine, 4.50. The half litre of mineral water to offset the wine - 2.50 euros.

How can this be? Are the terrorists being bankrolled by international big business? Are we just saps for tolerating this? Where’s the honest man’s backlash? Where do I belong in all this?

Preferably not on a plane is my immediate response, but perhaps the proximity to such rank injustice and a sense of foreboding was transporting me to a lugubrious place.

To break that journey, I opted out of the queue for the flight to go to the newsagents to buy a copy of the magazine So Foot.

Looking back on the moment, it was only papering over the cracks.

What really saved me from the slough of despond? Cue Albert Camus.

In that sparse shop, a portrait of the author called out to me. Brow furrowed, fingers pressed against his left cheek while intently reading a copy of the newspaper En Avant !

The supplement celebrating his life and work 50 years after his death was picked up and purchased in an instant as quick as a bullet slicing through the searing Algerian sun.

This was impulse buying at my most existential. This was acquisition at its most apposite.

Camus played football.