For travel from Scotland back to Metro Manila, I returned to having Emirates fly me via Dubai. The connection again went smoothly. On the flights, masking was poor, even among crew on the Asian leg, and the crew again tended to wander about doing apparently unimportant chores while the seat-belt sign was illuminated. Curiously, on both flights, one of the earlier chores is to bring the large (instant?) camera to the rear of the cabin. My journey took around thirty hours door-to-door.

I explored Glasgow airport as usual but found the free newspaper stands quite bereft, even in late morning. Further, last time, Emirates had provided little menu cards naming interesting Asian and Middle Eastern dishes, this trip the choice was, for example, more one of beef and mashed potato, or chicken and rice. So, my heart sank somewhat: what's the point of flying Emirates from Glasgow without interesting food and accompanying reading? Fortunately, the chicken and rice appellation did not do the meal justice, I can't say what it was but it was at least still interesting. And, I had forgotten that they call the overhead storage hatracks.

In terms of entertainment, airport bookstores continued to disappoint me. I had failed to connect the delivery of my goods and effects with the availability of books, and the stores largely had the usual mainstream human interest stuff, unlikely crime thrillers, etc., though I credit WHSmith with a few quality recommendations. The airplane's television and film selection did not leave me spoiled for choice; I had recalled that the selection includes a decent documentary about UAE but that failed to jump out at me this time. Still, at least the safety video appeared to include some unexpected telekinesis. Had I planned better, I might also have put shows on both my home and work laptops, thus getting two batteries' worth of viewing time.

Fortunately, I discovered that the entertainment system's music selection was actually rather large. I found with Mozart's Requiem Mass that its dynamic range mixes poorly with engine noise, if I can hear the quiet parts then the loud ones are loud indeed, but other pieces like some Brandenburg Concertos worked better (and it was a nicely spirited recording), and there was plenty of other good music, artists from Dire Straits to The Eagles work well for me. Some of the Pink Floyd seemed to have the ends of tracks oddly truncated, deleterious to the soundscape woven by the album, but fortunately this was not a widespread issue and some other albums, like Tubular Bells, have rather long tracks anyway. There weren't many stage musical soundtracks on offer, though.