Vino: I think that is the flight plan. No excuses for the convoluted routing, that's what we were able to get accepted by the Eurocontrol folks in Brussels (at some point in this thread I fear my true nationality will surface).
To avoid exaggeration of the issues raised in this thread, I should add that I generally receive an excellent service in the UK. It's the responses on this thread from some of our ATC colleagues that leaves me unimpressed.
I couldn't agree more. Other than the one controller at Lamboure all of the ATC controllers were very professional that day. This thread was certainly not meant as an offense to ATC controllers but as a clarification (ok, rant) about the system idiosyncrasies, or the totality thereof on that particular flight.