Nato summit means the flight from hell

STRASBOURG, FRANCE – I just had the plane journey from hell. First it took off almost three hours later than planned, because European airspace had to be cleared for Barack Obama and 27 other heads of government heading to the Nato summit in Strasbourg.

Then our plane developed a mechanical problem and decided to land in Antwerp, instead of Strasbourg (the fuel gauge had broken); and then when I finally got to Strasbourg airport, they’d closed all the roads, because Barack Obama’s helicopter was taking off and the Canadian prime minister was being driven away from the terminal in a limo with the usual police motorbike outriders in tow.

And because of the chaos, there were no taxis at the airport, apart from one who said that her cab wasn’t the kind of taxi which is allowed to pick up people from the airport, although it was allowed to drop passengers off there; and another driver who told me she had to be somewhere else at 4pm and couldn’t help.

Then the motorcycle outrider disappeared and a taxi driver whose ancestors had clearly fought at Agincourt hove into view.

He refused to lift any of our bags, refused to let any of them go on his front passenger seat – television crews carry a lot of bags – and he almost refused to take us to the aptly named Rue des Bitches, where the world’s press have been herded like French geese in what looks like a disused aircraft hangar, about to be stuffed with what 28 Nato heads of government want to tell us.

Enough bitching. I just saw an Italian colonel with a white feather in his green hat who looked as if he should have been yodelling in the Alps. I’d rather be here than in the office any day…

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