Yum, yum

A slightly misleading title perhaps as I don't intend to discuss the merits of various in-flight foods. In fact the picture's prettty duff too. Oh never mind...

Basically the search is on to find a match to the in-flight entertainment system provided by Virgin on their UK-Australia flights, this being - from what I can tell - the pinnacle of the artform. Choice of 8 movies plus TV and radio and - their key distinguishing feature - a radiant selection of the Super NES' finest, including F-Zero, Super Tennis and, if memory serves correctly, Super Mario World.

By contrast the beigely communist Cubana and the Quebecois airline that took me to Vancouver last year (and whose name has irritatingly dropped out of my head) vie for bottom place, with the dirty Canucks coming in last on account of charging for alcoholic drinks from the bar (and not allowing me to crack open my litre of duty free rum).

Virgin Atlantic came close to matching the efforts of their antipodean cousins on the Barbados route. Indeed I enjoyed considerably more leg-room on account of a largely empty flight, while the movies were a decent enough selection, hindered only by the stagnant pool of contemporary releases from which they drew - if there are no good movies out, you can't blame the airlines for having a dodgy selection. Refreshingly a large spread of these movies were 18 or 15 releases and, from what I could tell, had not been edited for content. Though I failed to capitalise on the opportunity to watch the remake of The Hills Have Eyes on my return flight, the option was there for me to take. This all said, no Super NES games. Black mark there I'm afraid.

There also seems a growing trend - on trains as well as planes - to allow for in-travel charging of laptops. Presents the intriguing possibility of mid-air wi-fi, in which case the PSP might come into its own again.