“Start as you mean to go on”

A little dusty from ringing in the new year, and from two weeks of festive gluttony in Blighty, I begin my transatlantic journey home. But stuffing my laptop back in my backpack and refilling my pockets after security, I feel a slight unease - a storm cloud on the horizon rather than the foggy, rainy haze of the last few days.

At first I put it down to my usual travel anxiety: I have a perennial fear of being late for each of the successive steps of pointless airport admin, made significantly worse by my partner's penchant for arriving at the gate as late as possible - preferably after the plane has departed. Having long since resigned herself to getting to the airport a couple of hours before the flight to avoid a full blown panic from yours truly, she instead will drag her feet at every stage in small acts of protest - slowly packing her liquids at security, dawdling on the way to the gates. Perhaps she so resents the arbitrary timings of everything flight related that she instinctively tries to resist it by throwing a wrench in the machine, like a French resistance factory worker draining the oil from her Nazi overlord's truck, as though the airline industry's onslaught on civilised travel will one day grind to a halt on the frozen steppes of JFK. Maybe she just does it to wind me up. No matter - today I feel something else is gnawing at me in addition to my partner's civil disobedience against the banality of airport evil. Then I figure it out.

I have not had a Full English. Panic starts to set in - I've been in the UK for over two weeks and nary a sausage has been consumed. My citizenship, and my honour, are at risk.

Fortunately, I remember a trusty favourite: an establishment seemingly designed to rescue travellers in a predicament such as rescue travellers in a predicament such as mine - a twenty-first century lighthouse of sorts, offering salvation in the shape of a £22 English breakfast. Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food.

As luck would have it, the sweary TV chef does not tell us to "f*ck of out of my kitchen". Perhaps he has the day off. We are whisked into the dining room and I barely glance at the menu as we order. My partner is unusually decisive, but decides to eke out a few more minutes anyway to torment me as our looming departure time approaches. She, an American, orders an Eggs Benedict and a Bellini. I, our greasy flagship and a cup of tea.

Just as breakfast threatens to arrive, my wife decides it's time for a trip to Boots. For once I don't care - I am well on my way to fulfilling my one and only New Year's Resolution.

Mr Ramsay is a man after my own heart: his breakfast arrives promptly at our table, and I am not disappointed. The pre departure checks are swiftly completed: all passengers accounted for - two first-class fried eggs, toast, some proper Business Class British back bacon with a hint of reassuringly fatty rind, a sausage, beans, and finally, stuffed into the back in Economy, a pair each of fat tomatoes and mushrooms.

Now Security - at this point mostly theatre, but checking for any egregious violations of the rules that would threaten the very safety of this Full English. None are present - the beans are in a little pot, but these days such little disappointments have become part of life. Perhaps in a bygone age I'd have been served runny baked beans on the same plate as my breakfast, balanced on a silver tray by a high-heeled flight attendant in the cabin of a gleaming Electra, thick with cigarette smoke as we'd buzz and bounce over the Atlantic. But those days are long gone, for better or for worse. I am asked how I'd like my sausage cooked, which is a little like the pilot popping his head out of the cockpit and checking whether the passengers would like the plane to crash. Valuing my life and my fellow passengers' lavatory experience, I opt for well cooked pork.

Boarding: finally my wife returns and I begin to load the breakfast onto my plate, assessing the passengers. I butter my toast and dip it into the beans - the sweetness belies Mr Ramsay's fondness for tradition over fashion. The eggs are suitably runny, perhaps missing some of the fat and crisp of a greasy spoon, but a solid effort. It seems the waiter's brief folly did not catch on in the kitchen, as the sausage is a perfectly browned and juicy Cumberland.

I eat quickly knowing our boarding time approaches, but the experience is thoroughly enjoyable. The tomatoes, usually my least favourite ingredient as the acidity tends to upset the delicate greasy balance of the breakfast, are pleasantly sweet. Nothing is exceptional, but this is an English breakfast - a meal free from pomp and circumstance, and this offering from the Malcolm Tucker of celebrity kitchens is more than adequate.

Satisfied, I pay and usher my reluctant spouse towards the gates. No doubt 2023 will continue the world's, and its airports, descent into pointless idiocy, but the English breakfast remains a bastion of sensibleness, and Mr Ramsay's airport rendition a beacon of hope.

Happy new year!