RANT's in London. Well not yet, but I'm on a monster plane and its pretty easy to see it's on the way to another planet and I know it isn't the Middle East because no one is trying to light their tennis shoes on fire.

Not that I'm buying into the false sense of security perpetrated by the airlines taking my nail clippers and my chain saw. What a load of garbage that is huh? Like I can't sharpen a key to be deadly?

I know people that can kill with their breath!

And so much for my idea for an in-flight haircutting business.

I'm of the opinion that this entire thing is the result of intense lobbying by the Nail File Federation of America.

Ever fly Virgin Atlantic airlines? Well, they named it that for a reason. Every waitress, stewardess, whatever they are called today, is absolutely gorgeous. This is like the old days of air travel one sees in movies of the 60's. I think Tony Curtis hand-picked these beauties himself (or would that be Tony Blair?). I'm waiting for Elliott Gould to light up a cigarette and ask one to join the Mile High Club.

I've noticed that England is about 33 years behind the U.S. when it comes to things like this…thank God. In fact, if I wasn't hacking this story out I'd be pinching some girlie's bottom. These are the sacrifices I make for you people I hope you appreciate it. Here I am on a plane full of beautiful birds and me not pinching a one (can you hear my English accent? I'm certain I'll blend right in). Everyone else is just pinching away, and I'm typing. What a nerd.

This, being my first trip out of the U.S., other than a brief alien abduction in '89, is already an adventure. Though the seat on the airplane is small, it's still larger than my apartment in New York. And cheaper by the hour, come to think of it. The only difference, in fact, is that the other passengers are a tad annoying. NO one in New York is annoying. (Heh, sorry, I couldn't resist that).

I knew practically nothing about Eng-Land previously. I had to look on an atlas to know exactly where it was. You can pick up a nice atlas pretty cheap on the streets of New York. It was a few years old and I knew there had been a few changes since 1819 but come on, not in Eng-Land.

In England, They still be-head people for poor parallel parking. I love this place.

The thing I noticed straight-away, I'm sorry, I mean "immediately"…was that England is so small they can't even fit the name of it on it's anatomically correct likeness on the atlas. They had to write the name of the country on the water and connect a line to the island. Again, we're not talking as small as my apartment, but the jumbo jet I'm on has been outfitted with water skis instead of wheels because it can't land on a country this size. The boat to shore is free if you agree to be a rower.

The Brits don't like Americans by the way. They feel we're capitalist scumbags willing to sell out our freedom and the rest of the world's as well, to Corporate America upon first opportunity. The Brits and I have a lot in common politically thus far.

By the way, have you gotten a soda on a plane recently? They don't give you a regular sized can anymore. Apparently now there's a special "plane sized" portion to match the scratch and sniff bag of pretzels. It's like they took this can of soda before it was ready to leave it's mommy. It's tiny, the contents are actually expressed in milliliters (ml) because it's so small. They didn't give me a glass with ice, they gave me a rubber strap and a chilled syringe. Also, now there's a warning on the bag of pretzels "Warning, consumption may alert the world that you're a complete idiot". I'm not sure why that's there.

Smoking Section

Also I have to note, before I publish this "Leg One" of my journey, Phillip Morris had a really fancy private smoking lounge at the airport. That was impressive. Next time you go to an airport you really should check one of these lounges out. If you don't smoke, cough a lot and tell them you're 20 years younger than you actually are…then you'll look like a patron and they'll let you in. "Senior Citizen my ass man, I'm only 36". They had extreme air filters in this lounge, it was really something. People would exhale and the smoke would immediately be turned into flowers. As fresh as the air was in this room you'd think Phillip Morris made Air Cleaners. I had a cigarette from a pack I purchased at the duty-free shop for 28 cents. (The smokers out there will get that joke). I had to rush out of the lounge though when I realized I was late for boarding, I accidentally dropped my cigarette somewhere between the cushions of the sofa I had been sitting on. There is some sort of irony in that but I didn't have time to figure it out.

RANT's in London: Part II. As you know, RANT's back from vacation in the UK and after several weeks I'm still talking funny and trying to get rid of my Euros.

In "Eng Land Leg One" I mention that culturally, the country is about 33 years behind the U.S. Now that I've spent more time there, I have a more accurate estimate of the time frame, I just can't remember exactly when "I Love Lucy" was made.

These people are still using the same major appliances you see on the "Honeymooners". It's freaky. They still have milkmen delivering dairy products in the morning and flirting with the housewives. You have to love that!

Television in England consists of nighttime soap operas apparently produced by the guy that owns the video camera. Then there's BBC News, and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". This is all there is. And I'll tell you right now, an American in the land of Eng doesn't stand a chance with anything other than BBC News.

As an American, you can forget about "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" since the questions all pertain to life outside the U.S. and if you're an American citizen, you already know we don't know a thing about anywhere else.

Even the starter questions worth three and a half dollars were like "Name the official thread count in the original French Flag", or "What is the correct pronunciation of the surname of the thirteenth president of Belgium?" While I was looking up the definition of "surname" my British friend was rattling off the answers and screaming at me, "You don't even know the Belgium answers?"

No, that's right. I'm an American. We don't know what the hell is going on in the rest of the world but at least we're not still cooling our food with dry ice and using a washboard to clean our clothes. Unless, of course, you live in the North East United States.

So you're left with BBC television. This is fun to watch because unlike American newscasts, they actually feature news. Not mainly sports scores, and there's none of the trite filled banter between the news anchors. Refreshing!

You can actually see footage of the rest of the world and hear news and politics and situations happening in foreign countries and continents. Granted the foreign country is America, so it's pretty much like being home again except the monologue is more like you'd overhear aboard a flying saucer studying the U.S. discussing why they're not going to land.

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