Clapping on Landing

I've wondered what happened to this for years. When I was much younger, I remember the passengers clapping on the landing of the airplane I happened to be riding on. I recall particularly landings at HNL. For reasons I will not go into, from about the age of ten until I was eighteen, I didn't fly much, and since then have noticed no clapping. What happened? Was this the end of a certain carefree attitude by traveling public? Was I remembering some holdover ritual from the good old days when all you needed to do to drink and drive was to turn on your hazard lights?

Turns out the Landing Clap (there is a name for it!!) is not dead. I checked Google and there are sites devoted to the topic. Apparently the topic hides a hitherto un-guessed at divide. Here is one example:

Dear Plane Landing Clapping People, I Hate You.
2009 FEBRUARY 24
tags: douchebags, people I'm smarter than, plane clapping fucksticks
by the llama
Riddle me this assholes, why would one clap for an individual when all they’ve done is do their job correctly? Granted, landing a plane is not an easy task but it is 1 of 2 primary tasks bestowed upon the aircraft’s pilot. I want you to think about how foolish it would be if you applied this response to some of the other professionals you encounter throughout your day. For instance, do you clap after you finishing paying the tranny hooker that just blew you on the D train? No you don’t. You thank it for it’s services and go on your merry fucking way. Next time, just grab your goddamn carry-on and your stolen copy of Air Mall magazine and get off the fucking plane.

Here is the link to that cheery soul.

A better explanation, at least one I had not considered, is found in a NYTimes article from 1997: the author views it as an expression of relief by international travellers returning home. That could be right. Did I say much of my travel back in those days was between Europe and the US? That would make sense. I have a dim recollection of some clapping on a later flight to Europe in 2001 or 2004. Maybe.

At any rate, I'm glad to know people still clap. Even though there has been little to clap for in air travel since about 1980.

Wonderment in Newcastle

This sums it up: especially the graceful part.



That last bit reminds me of the last time I got dragged across the rocks at some beach in Ventura.

Winter Swell

Got locked out of the pool after I got there 15 minutes late. Was a little miffed at that. I can see having a late policy, but when all of the normal weekend pools are closed and there is only one Sunday practice, it seems more flexibility is in order. Bad SCAQ, bad!

So I drove south and took a look at the waves coming in at the MB Pier. The morning sun was beginning to peek out and there was a swell - possibly in advance of the storm that is rising as I write this. Water temp a cool 59-60 degrees as posted by the lifeguard tower on the pier. That felt about right.

Waves were good, but too many boogie boarders and surfers on the north side of the pier. I thought surfboards were not allowed there. Maybe there is a time limit, like no surfers after 10:00 (if there are swimmers or body boarders in the water too)? Anyway, the waves WERE good, but I kept getting thrown off by boogie boarders with priority, or gave the wave to a rider who looked like he would catch it, only to pull out as the wave got to me (I have to sit more inside).

Is it too much to ask that you actually catch the wave you try for? Wasted waves. I had to get out after about a half hour as it was just too cold and I wasn't getting enough waves.

As a side note, surfers are dangerous. I bet more people would swim in the ocean if they didn't have to contend with surfer competition. Is there an economic term for this? The problem is akin to monopoly. The existing market is skewed to the current participants and the barriers (too few swimmers to push out the surfers and too great risk for most to go it alone) to entry are high. In this case, it also appears that government regulation is either nonexistent or is not enforced.

Quick Movie Review

Up: Ed Asner can only carry a cartoon so far.Up: Ed Asner can only carry a cartoon so far.

Passing of a Legend

He still holds the record for swimming every day for eight years at coney island. Stuck down by a minivan. God I hate minivans.

Eloquent Nude

Here.

20.11.2009 Charis Wilson who used to swim in the kelb beds on the northern California coast.

??

The Underbelly has a nice piece on Louis Mountbatten here. I mean nice in the near-hyperbolic sense.

As a follow up, Ludovic Kennedy reports on a happening in a confirmatory vein - a retelling of a story by the late great British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan:

On one of the last occasions I [Kennedy] saw him [Macmillan], I mentioned my dealings with Mountbatten and asked what he thought of him. 'Very good at his job, but very vain.' He paused a moment. 'After Winston had retired, he used to give lunch parties every two weeks or so in the basement of his house in Hyde Park Gate. One day there were about a dozen of us there, including Dickie and myself; I was Prime Minister at the time. Winston wasn't in a very good mood. Dickie bored him all through the first course with stories of the Navy in the First World War, and all through the second course with stories of the Navy in the Second World War, and then he got up and said, "I've got to go out to a meeting of the Chief of Staff, but the Prime Minister will keep you amused." Winston was furious. He waited until Dickie had reached the foot of the stairs and then said in a very loud voice, 'Who is that fellow? Ought I to know him?"'

On My Way to the Club, pp. 378-79.