"Why" I say. "Do I look like a pine tree?"

One of the reasons I rent is so that I can change the view from my study window every six months or so. Given that air travel is grotesquely expensive, I get to travel to new and exotic suburbs without having to be X-rayed, frisked, undressed and interrogated by unsmiling people in scary uniforms.

On the down side, I have to deal with estate agents, many of whom are infinitely more frightening than any Cuban immigration official one might encounter at Miami airport.

Speaking of which, Miami was where my wife, Brenda, set off an alarm indicating that explosives had been detected in her handbag. I was already cleared and putting my clothes back on when I saw her suddenly surrounded by grim-faced guards.

My first instinct was to pretend not to know her and make for the nearest exit, but I stayed to watch out of some sort of inexplicable allegiance to our marital vows.

On the other side of the glass partition, Brenda was waving her arms about and talking furiously while a big-boned woman swabbed the inside of her bag. The results kept coming back positive. The alarm was beginning to rattle me and I was about to go for a beer when they released her.

It turned out that the sensor had detected traces of glycerine in her face cream. I made a joke about blowing her cover which she never fully appreciated until much later.

The experience put Brenda off flying for a while, which it really shouldn’t have. At most, it should have put her off airports. Or even face cream. But certainly not flying.

There is something about defying the laws of gravity that I find far more exhilarating than defying almost any other laws. With one exception.

I had driven from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to Banjul, the capital of Gambia. The trip was full of pleasant surprises, none of which I felt inclined to repeat on the return journey. So I decided to fly back to Senegal. Buying a ticket, I asked for a bulkhead seat to accommodate my long legs.

I was travelling light and never needed to put any luggage into the hold, which was a good thing because there wasn’t one. My fellow passengers were travelling a little less light. Most of them carried their hand luggage in both hands. And on their backs. And their heads. I'd like to see that lot make it into the overhead compartments, I thought.

After courteously standing back to allow a goat to climb the rickety steel ladder attached to the ancient DC-10, I discovered there were no overhead compartments.

And no bulkhead seats. In fact, I didn’t even have a seat. Just a metal frame.

"…Home suddenly felt an awfully long way away…"

Someone in a uniform, possibly the pilot, went to the back of the plane to fetch something for me to sit on.

With both propellers straining, it felt as if we had travelled the length of Gambia before getting airborne. My relief turned to terror as white smoke began pouring through the floor, roof and windows. Within a few minutes, I could barely make out the other passengers. I couldn’t understand why nobody else was panicking. My rudimentary seat shifted and I fell through the frame.

"So this is how it's going to end," I thought. "How terribly undignified." A woman across the aisle got up and helped unwedge me.

Her English wasn’t the greatest, but she managed to convince me that the plane wasn't on fire. Something to do with condensation, apparently.

Overjoyed that my life wasn't about to end in a giant fireball, I reached into my bag and took a deep hit from the trusty old hip flask, then reached over and offered it to the woman who had helped restore my dignity.

A look of outrage crossed her face and she made the international sign for "I am a Muslim and there is no way in hell that I would touch that poison." Other passengers glared at me through the fog. The goat ambled up and began gnawing on my shoes. Home suddenly felt an awfully long way away.

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