Monday, August 2

We arrived at the airport early having made sure that we had filled in every online form available for filling. Everything seemed normal. In fact everything seemed very efficient, fast and smooth.

Once we had gone through security we had to show our destination and got pointed away from the duty free and towards gate 20. Irma decided that we needed to fill in some of the extra time we had by looking around the duty free area and so she negotiated safe passage for us.

We enter and wander around looking for things to look at. I find a shelf of sustainable vodka that, for some reason, amuses me greatly.

I have no idea whether this constitutes clever rebranding of something that has always existed, or whether it constitutes a new farming practice – in which case why doesn’t all the vodka use sustainable grain?

The idea of cleverly bringing my attention to something that would prove equally true of any other vodka reminds me of “graded grains make finer flour” and “brewed until all the sugar turns to alcohol”: two advertising slogans from years ago that grabbed a activity inherent in the manufacturing process (“flour manufacturer sifts flour!”, “brewer brews beer in the usual way!”) and suggested that we should think of it as a special distinguishing feature of one particular brand.