Conor Pope

Well, warning and traps are strong words there, Clare, I have to say.

It is a trap.

In some respect.

The Golden Hour, when I was a kid, the Golden Hour was 60 minutes that Larry Gogan used to play tunes from the 1960s.

But it has become something different in an airport context.

Now, obviously, airports are in the business of transporting people to and from places all over the world.

And in the main, they're excellent at that.

I mean...

You know, people like to complain about air travel, but it's still a remarkable achievement that so many people use airports all over the world all the time and mostly get to their destinations on a timely basis with their baggage alongside them.

But the other key part of an airport's operation is making money from its shopping.

And it does that through a number of different techniques.

Now, you will have noticed in recent times that airports increasingly are

streamlining the processes that are aimed at getting us through check-in.

So you have automated drops and you have bag drops and self-check-in kiosks.

That's partially to save airlines and airports money.

But the other key thing is they want us to get through the cumbersome and costly check-in process as quickly as we can to get to what some airports refer to as

The dwell zone.

Now, the dwell zone sounds kind of sinister, but effectively, it's the shops.

And from the moment we pass through security and we put back our belts and put on our boots and all the rest of it, we're hit with this dizzying array of shops.

It's brightly lit.