Secret Life of Planes
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What foods are being served during the pre‑flight meal at Heathrow Terminal 3?
Heathrow Terminal 3 sauce.
It's all ours, Jonty. We're taking it. We've just had our pre-flight meal. How was your, what did you have? You had a Thai curry.
No, it was a Cambodian
vegetarian curry. Yeah, how was it?
It was pretty good, except it did feel like airplane
food. It wouldn't be out of place on an airplane.
No, it's probably about to be served to me again in two hours' time once we're up in the air.
Yeah.
How was your chicken shawarma?
Yeah, it was flight adjacent, for sure. It had that sort of softness and the particular form of warmth that plain food gets. But now here we are in the thronging heart of Terminal 3, surrounded by watches of Switzerland, the Yo Sushi, obviously, WH Smith, the Cafe Nero. Where can't we go, Jonti?
Well, the board says 850 QF2, and it's going to be gate one. Gate one, Tillsbury.
Wow,
that's important. But we've got a bit of time, so yeah, we can hit any of the shops.
Yeah. Well, should we walk around and see what takes us? I know you love an electronic, and I see there's an electronics shop.
I do. I might actually switch off recording when I go in there because that's a very intimate
moment for me. It's intimate. Yeah, it's intimate.
But I am very happy to look at the Boots Travel Essentials with you and also WH Smith.
Well, I think WH Smith is on brand, so why don't we pop down there?
Again, we want listeners to know that nobody is actually sponsoring us. Sophie and I are proudly independent. So much so that we just decide whose
brands we're going to
promote. And this is very much in keeping with what's been another revelation of the last week, which is our ability to partner. With
friends. Without them knowing.
Without them knowing.
Yeah.
We have a partnership with the River Thames, with Northwest Trains.
The Globe Theatre.
The Globe Theatre. It's
going really well.
And all of it on our own terms.
Yeah.
So that's been a revelation.
We've had an entrepreneurial milestone.
Now, we're at the bookshop by WH Smith. Shall we look at their classics
section and what they've got? Let's do that. Let's see what they've got. What a great idea.
There was a moment 10 years ago where a big survey was done, and it turned out that WH Smith was the most despised brand in Britain, and they've really tried to up their game.
So I'm expecting a pretty solid offering on the classics.
Yeah.
But we're having trouble finding them. Maybe they're integrated. Oh, wow. Oh, my
God. There's a whole stack of classics.
This is incredible.
Yeah. Okay. I've got to say, this is an impressive turnaround for a brand that had, 10 years ago, pretty much abandoned books. I mean, here, we've got Italo Calvino.
Yeah, Victor Hugo.
We've got Radcliffe Hall, D.H. Lawrence.
John McCarray. We've got a very solid offering from Shakespeare.
Yes.
So let's just test actually how classics literate we are. In alphabetical order, have you read Elizabeth von Amunds' The Enchanted April? I
have not. Have
you? No, which is embarrassing because she was Australian, although she moved to Europe when she was very young.
Have you read Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim? No.
You know, Soph, I love that book.
So do I.
And it'll be very interesting to see if it still packs a punch. Mental note,
let's do that soon.
Which shops do the hosts explore in Terminal 3 before boarding QF2?
Yeah, let's do that. Have you read Hotel Dulac?
No, have
you?
No.
That's Anita Brooke now. We're not doing very well for two people who pride ourselves.
Something that I'm going to say about this classic selection is that I feel like it's almost directly speaking to classics that I don't read. It's sort of the unifying theme of these classics. John, have you read 1984?
We're really desperately trying to claw back our reputation by just pointing to books which we've obviously read. I have Sophie. I've even talked about it on a podcast. Sophie, this is an interesting one. Have you read John le Carré? Any of
these? Yes, I have.
OK, you've read Tinker Taylor.
I've read Tinker Taylor. And I've read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Have you?
yeah
yeah i love the curry i do i love the
curry
we should do the curry
okay so let's get up out of here and head to our gate sophie we're in the air and we seem to have spent a lot of this trip standing by public laboratories recording
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What foods are being served during the pre‑flight meal at Heathrow Terminal 3?
0:03–3:08
2
Which shops do the hosts explore in Terminal 3 before boarding QF2?
3:08–7:05
3
What classic books do the hosts highlight at the WH Smith bookshop?
7:05–14:19
4
How does Sophie describe her lifelong fear of flying and what book helped her?
14:19–21:07
5
What is the significance of Antoine de Saint‑Exupéry’s *Night Flight* for the secret life of planes?
21:07–27:15
6
How does the James Bond excerpt from *Diamonds Are Forever* illustrate aviation in fiction?
27:15–32:11
7
What mystery does Agatha Christie’s *Death in the Clouds* present on an early‑airline flight?
32:11–34:27