Mr McElvar’s response, however, was worthy of some sort of award—although whether for elan or stupidity readers will have to decide. Rather than pay the extra fee, the singer simply emptied his bag and dressed himself in all the clothes that were in it—12 layers in all. The BBC breaks down the new outfit as consisting of four jumpers, six T-shirts, three pairs of jeans, two pairs of jogging bottoms, two jackets and two hats (almost recreated right). Gulliver’s first response is to marvel at any man who manages to squeeze into three pairs of jeans, particularly the super-skinny kind so beloved by kids nowadays. But the feeling of triumph that Mr McElvar felt at getting one over on the airline was short-lived. Aboard the flight he succumbed to heat exhaustion, was violently sick and collapsed. The paramedics who attended to him said he was lucky to be alive.
Thankfully, our hero made a swift recovery, which is why we are allowed to poke fun at him. Yet, many readers will have played a similar game, albeit a less extreme version. Certainly I have found myself on countless occasions boarding a flight in the height of summer with a thick leather jacket tied around my waist, plus a couple of extra layers, in order to cram a little more into my hand luggage. A companion on a flight in South East Asia found that her suitcase was a few kilos over, so we redistributed some of our clothes across our cases and both ended up sporting hefty jumpers to the gate.
Mostly, such sweaty sacrifices are worthwhile in order to fly with hand luggage only, and not only because of the cost. Nature abhors a vacuum, but it hates unused space in a checked suitcase more. If we are paying £45 to book a bag into the hold we think we may as well get our money’s worth. So we inevitably end up over-packing and then exhaust ourselves dragging an unnecessarily heavy bag to the airport.
