Fair comments from everyone (nearly). I accept that the effects of filty commerce play a huge part. I now stand corrected as to crew leaving the aircraft for shopping purposes.
As I previously said, had I paid £20 per ticket this thread would probably never have been started, but I paid in the region of £600, this is not a lo-co price, and to be fair, for that amount of money I expect a decent level of service, although I can now see some of the reasons as to why this didn't happen, and working within the field of the industry, and not being a total numpty, I accept that on this occasion, maybe I have been a little over the top in what I said, although I still stand by the original point that the in-flight service was lousy, even if there are mitigating circumstances.
As for safety, I have read what has been written along the "lead a horse to water" line, and indeed would fully accept that crew being carried as pax always pay attention to safety briefings. I am aware that the captain made the usual pre departure announcement about safety. Sad thing is, in this day and age of locked cockpit doors the cockpit announcments are generally quiet to the point of inaudible in some cases. What I find different is that today I went to GLA and back on BAC, and the announcments were clear. What was said by the captain was not "please pay attention", but "it is a legal requirement that you pay attention" On both sectors today, everyone, and sat at the back I could see everyone, paid attention, fully!
In my experience, a plane load of arrogant business types is more likely to read the paper at safety time, than a bucket and spade plane load. But no, everyone paid attention, all because we weren't asked, we were told to, nicely, but were told to pay attention.
This is a problem that I undestand appears all over the world, and not just on the one flight I took. As operating crew, what are you opinions on being more forceful at briefing time?
One final thing. There was a huge sales pitch after landing for new routes, that took the entire post landing taxi to complete. My point is it was scripted by the company, and delivered in a professional manner, the sales pitch for hello wasn't. It doesn't servce anyone in the indusrty to be unprofessional in any way.