Airport
Lounge Lizard
The decadence of airport lounges! Another indulgence I had remained quite ignorant of until I began travelling around Russia with the incomparable Tusk.
‘If I’m taking regular flights I’m not going to slum it with the plebs’, he said to me one day in July, before signing me into Club Aspire at Heathrow.
It made sense. Plus Tusk, like many others, had a special deal with a credit card company which meant that he could visit these heliport pleasure palaces gratis, bringing a guest along with him.
‘It’s economical too,’ he argued. ‘If you add up how much you’re going to spend on food in airports in a year then it makes sense. Plus you can concentrate on work in them too.’
It resonated with me, it really did. I was hearing his message. I have, you see, a somewhat complex relationship with travel. On the one hand, I hate airports and all of the nonsensical rigamarole you have to go through, especially in this new era of extreme caution against the omnipresent disease. But on the other hand, I love the artificiality, the unreality, of airports - the glass and chrome, controlled electronic lighting, ambient muzak, and stores - luxury stores!
I want to be, I have realised, the kind of man who travels so frequently that he buys all of his clothes in airport branches of Hugo Boss. What a fabulous life that would be! Nothing so organic and earthy as going to one’s local town to shop, but instead, doing all of one’s essential life admin in transit.
Because if you’re always going somewhere else then you’re never ‘here’, and perhaps by never being ‘here’ you might succeed in escaping from yourself.
It’s worth a go, anyway.
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But under the tutelage of the ever-impressive Tusk, I soon became an airport lounge lizard myself, snagging a Priority Pass card as quickly as possible.
Well, I have that addictive nature you see - always jonesing for keeping up with the Joneses.
The Priority Pass card, a digital affair with a nice gold ‘P’ logo, turned out to be the key to so many airfield annexes offering relaxation, free food and drink, and an escape from the massed hordes who throng confusedly outside. We visited many such retreats on our travels, and it was interesting to see how varied they are in quality and opulence.
I recently sat in a fairly unimpressive lounge at Kiev International Airport (Zhuliany) that looked a little like a student common room. And I will always remember a wonderful little exchange that took place at the Comfort Lounge in Sochi International, a low-key kind of place that nevertheless offered the weary traveller caviar and champagne (always a favourite of mine at breakfast).
Tusk and I were sitting at a table opposite an old lady who spoke very little English, but who still tried to engage us in conversation. From what we could glean it appeared she was on her way back to St Petersburg, where she hailed from, and she had once been in the navy.
During a lull in the conversation I drew Tusk’s attention to a particularly attractive female newscaster on the TV screen ahead of us - of note, I felt, since the calibre of her beauty would be unusual on British television. Tusk glanced at her and then turned to our new friend, the old lady.
‘Would you?’ he asked, simply.
The lady, clearly having no idea what he had said, nodded her head enthusiastically.
Well, such harmless little japes became our stock-in-trade while, as idiotic Brits abroad, we charged around having no clue what most people were saying to us (and probably very little idea what we were saying either).
But the creme de la creme of international airport lounges (or at least, those I’ve visited so far) must be Malevich Lounge at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. As soon as you arrive at the reception desk, a long, curved affair where gorgeous and officious-looking women check your credentials before granting you ingress, this place screams luxury, allowing you to fully inhabit the ‘single, bilingual’ anonymous travelling businessman archetype that has always so fascinated me.
Arriving at Malevich at 6am you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve instead shipped up at a buzzing members’ club like Soho House, or that you’re at a particularly upscale WeWork. Once you’re past the stern receptionists you enter a cavernous room that is nonetheless well-lit given its floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the airfield. And on your left, the food buffet counter.
The big draw for me at these places really is the food. I don’t generally eat breakfast, but when I’ve had to get up at 4am I will cut myself a break. And the spread they lay on at Malevich really is marvellous. Boiled eggs, bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, cereal, toast, coffee - as much coffee as you can drink - plus a generous selection of fruit juices. Plates of salami and other cured meats. And croissants, and trays of delicate and delicious-looking miniature cakes (the honey cake is particularly tasty). And porridge and tea and milkshake and biscuits, all piled up and all continuously replenished by discreet staff wearing black before the hungry eyes of the assorted upscale Muscovites.
And as if that wasn’t enough, a bar offering spirits, wine and (once again) champagne. The few times I have visited Malevich it’s always amused me to see how many people there drink alcohol in the morning, but I suppose I’m just being a bore, what with my irresponsible preference for teetotalism these days.
And the crowd? A smart set, for sure. Anonymous and wealthy-looking men, the kind who’s money means that they don’t need to bother dressing in anything other than tracksuits and sneakers. Startup-owner types hammering away at silver Macbooks, while grand-looking older women with imperious silver hair look on. Young, affluent families, and - well, this is Moscow - supremely attractive girls.
I spied one such girl stalking across the restaurant one morning in long black boots and a white jumper dress, her thick mass of brown hair shining down her back. Despite the early hour her skin and eyes were bright, her face full of vitality.
As it happened she was sitting next to me - I was hunched over the laptop, setting up another video to release to the slavering trolls of Youtube.
I often counsel men that you should disregard all notions of ‘leagues’, and that just because you think she’s in a higher league than you it doesn’t mean that this is accurate or that you won’t gain traction with her. But this girl . . . well, she looked like a model, and a model with money at that. The kind of girl you’d see coming out of Gucci or Chanel, or perhaps dining at Cafe Bolshoi. Hard to imagine that I would even register on her radar as a prospect.
Oh well, you have to give these things a go.
‘Hi,’ I said to her. ‘I was just doing some work, but I couldn’t help but notice you are very pretty’.
‘Oh,’ she said, and she coloured. ‘Thank you. I am Anya’.
‘Of course you are,’ I replied. ‘I’m Troy.’
We chatted for a few moments, and - as is often the case - despite the fact that she looked forbiddingly high-class she was sweet and pleasant. She was also on the same flight as me, travelling to London.
‘To meet my boyfriend,’ she explained. ‘It’s my birthday’
‘Many happy returns’ I said.
I had no reason to doubt that she was in a relationship (it would have been more surprising if she wasn’t) and there seemed no need to prolong our discourse seeing as the flight would soon be called, but I did suggest we connect on Instagram. She readily agreed, before heading off to the restroom.
When she was gone I checked her profile - 250,000 followers. Elegant shots in upmarket resorts across the world from Bali to the South of France to Mexico. Bikini pics (of course) plus yoga poses and the usual affirmations. She was an influencer with a huge following - an online celebrity of sorts.
I didn’t bother messaging her, but it was interesting nonetheless to come across one of those Instagram model girls in the flesh and discover that they are human after all behind the fancy filters. Well, such is the life of the newly minted airport lounge lizard.
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