Norman, my dear, as usual you miss the point almost entirely. Whilst I find it a repellent curiosity that you should have pinned your colours to the mast of the
BLAPA club, I don't for a moment wonder that you want it just like it was in the Officer's Mess at RAF Laarbruch and elsewhere, just like in the good old days, but life is about change and those who don't adapt, old boy, perish.
Now then. Clearly, your Mr. Harrison is testing the boundaries of your put up ability. Imagine the wickedness of nicking your paid-for tea and coffee, and delaying the god-given career paths of "senior" first officers, whatever they are. He wishes to know just how far you can be pushed without flexing those junior, unused muscles of implicit threat to strike you've decorated Orange Land with since you, rather foolishly in my view, permitted the rats of
BLAPA into your Orange hen house.
The thing about unions is that they institutionalise mediocrity, and there is no greater apotheosis of mediocrity than BLAPA. Your Andy seeks to test the limits of this mediocrity so that he has boundaries within which to operate, since the
BLAPA club have been forced upon him by you and those lesser mortals who look to you for guidance in such matters. Go on, Norman, you show 'em! Goad the troops into a summer of strikes, over...what was it again? Oh yes, that's right, tea and stale cheese sandwiches, and see how rapidly the SLF abandon ship to the yellow and the blue where strikes are, thanks be to God, out of the question.
It's really very funny, when you get right down to it. BLAPA are salivating at the prospect of all those extra thousand pounds a year from Ryanair pilots by offering them "dignity and respect". Last time I checked, dignity and respect came from within, the very same qualities becoming rapidly absent at Easyjet as you dance the
BLAPA dance of the stale sandwich strike.
Do let me know how it turns out for you, won't you Norman?