1.
There’s one drawback to sitting at the front of a plane: the people. On my many shuttles to and from Palma, you can find me on one of the once low-cost carriers and in seat 36C by the toilets. But, when the ticket prices are not totally unhinged, you can also spot me perched at the front of a nice flag carrier. While at the back, you risk being encircled by a sloshed hen party and the occasional penis-shaped hat (I’ve told the other half to stop wearing this in public); at the front you face the prospect of seeing the British middle class and their glorious mix of entitlement and slow-burn aggression.

When dashing down to Mallorca last weekend with my fancy 2A ticket, I watched a man decline to put away his laptop as we prepared to push back from the gate. He tells the young female steward that he needs “just two more minutes”. She returns two minutes later and tells him politely that he must put it away, and so he slams his laptop shut and snaps, “You could have just let me finish.” She smiles, says “thank you” and gracefully moves on with her day. Meanwhile, the couple behind me are having a squabble – apparently someone sneakily managed to get on the plane before them. The woman is furious, especially at her partner’s attempts to calm the situation. “I am warning you, I don’t feel any need to be polite to people when I am travelling and that includes you.” How aircrew don’t hand out the occasional slap across the face along with the warm nuts is beyond me.

2.
When picking up a hire car at Palma de Mallorca Airport, I discover that my dinky wheels of choice are no longer available and so they are going to upgrade me. How kind. I head out to find my vehicle, which is so big that it barely fits in the parking spot. A few centimetres more and it would be categorised as a bus. Now, my driving skills are not always gold standard – apparently I look at passing buildings, handsome strangers and cannot stay in my lane (I think that refers to my driving) – so this is going to be interesting. En route to the flat, I make sure not to pause too near any bus stops in case people clamber in.

I park the charabanc in our building’s underground car park and leave it well alone all Saturday until that evening when I need to run a few errands. I start gingerly driving up the exit ramp but, oh no, there’s another car coming down, so I find reverse and bang! I hit a concrete pillar (painted bright orange – how could I have seen that?) and with such skill that it creases my bus’s rear end from top to bottom. I phone the other half (he who jabs his foot on an imaginary brake pedal if he ever finds himself trapped as my passenger and who also shouts “car, car, car” quite a lot when he believes that my focus has drifted). He asks whether I could suggest that it’s a scratch that was there before. I send him a picture. “Perhaps not,” he says.

3.
There’s something very liberating about driving a crumpled car. What else can go wrong? The following day, I head out early. It’s a big, sunny, blue-sky day and I pootle about, navigating narrow lanes and nippy motorways with aplomb. Occasionally, old people try to flag me down, thinking that the village bus has arrived. But while I have space for them, and a few sheep, I am now luxuriating in my vast Tuckmobile. Honk! Honk!

4.
On returning the bus, I mentioned to one of the team that I had a small incident. He comes to see the damage, “Wow, you have broken so many things,” he says with what I take as a mark of admiration. Next, he takes me to see the manager, who also resists scolding me and again seems rather impressed by the precision of my hit. “I might have to send you to the gulag,” he says. “This is going to cost a lot of money,” he adds, a little too giddily for my liking.

5.
On the flight home, there’s nobody sitting next to me, nobody for me to regale with the tale of the bus that ended with a bum crack on its rear. Instead, I have to tune in to people complaining about the food and talking too loudly about their yachts. I eventually nod off, dreams of being a Mallorca bus driver slowly taking over. Opportunity arising out of adversity.

To read more of Andrew’s columns, click here.