Secret Life of Planes

Secret Life of Books

Hosts Sophie and Jonty record from the back of an Airbus A380 on flight QF2 from London to Sydney, exploring literary scenes set in the air.

Key takeaways

• Antoine de Saint-EXupéry's 'Night Flight' illustrates the romantic and dangerous transition to nocturnal airmail services.
• Ian Fleming uses flight in 'Diamonds Are Forever' to establish a sense of tension and high-stakes atmosphere for James Bond.

Main topics

• Literary flight scenes
• Aviation history in fiction

Notable quotes

The full moon and all the constellations were changing them to light.

Conclusion

A nostalgic and literary journey that finds beauty in the clouds throu

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:03) Heathrow Terminal 3, so it's Speaker 3 (0:04) all ours, Jonty. We're taking it. We've just had our pre-flight meal. Speaker 1 (0:10) How Speaker 3 (0:10) was your, what did you have? You had a Thai curry. Speaker 1 (0:12) I know it was a Cambodian vegetarian curry. Yeah, Speaker 3 (0:15) how was it? Speaker 1 (0:16) It was pretty good, except it did feel like airplane food. It Speaker 3 (0:19) wouldn't be out of place on an airplane. Speaker 1 (0:21) It's probably about to be served to me again in two hours time once we're up in the air. Yeah. How was your chicken shawarma? Speaker 3 (0:27) Yeah, it was flight adjacent, for sure. It had that sort of softness and the particular form of warmth that plain food gets. But now here we are in the thronging heart of Terminal 3, surrounded by watches of Switzerland, the Yo Sushi, obviously, WH Smith, the Cafe Nero. Where can't we go, Jonty? Well, Speaker 1 (0:47) the board says 8.50, QF2, and it's going to be gate one. Gate 1 feels very... Wow, that's important. But we've got a bit of time, so yeah, we can hit any of the shops. Yeah. Well, shall we Speaker 3 (0:58) walk around and see what takes us? I know you love an electronic, and I see there's an electronics shop. Speaker 1 (1:04) I do. I might actually switch off recording when I go in there, because that's a very intimate moment for me. It's an intimate. Yeah, it's intimate. But I am very happy to look at the Boots Travel Essentials with you, and also WH Smith. Well, Speaker 3 (1:15) I think WH Smith is on brand, so why don't we pop down there? Speaker 1 (1:19) Again, we want the listeners to know that nobody is actually sponsoring us. Sophie and I are proudly independent. So much so that we just decide whose brands we're Speaker 3 (1:28) going Speaker 1 (1:28) to promote. And this is very much in keeping with what's been another revelation of the last week, which is our ability to partner with Speaker 3 (1:37) friends without them Speaker 1 (1:39) knowing. We have a partnership with the River Thames, with Northwest Trains. The Speaker 3 (1:45) Globe Theatre. Speaker 1 (1:48) It's going Speaker 3 (1:49) really well. And Speaker 1 (1:49) all of it on our own terms. Speaker 3 (1:51) Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:51) So that's been a revelation. Speaker 3 (1:53) We've had an entrepreneurial milestone. Now Speaker 1 (1:56) we're at the bookshop by WH Smith. Shall we look at their classics section and what they've Speaker 3 (1:59) got? Let's Speaker 1 (1:59) do that. Let's see Speaker 3 (2:00) what they've got. What a great idea. There Speaker 1 (2:02) was a moment 10 years ago where a big survey was done and it turned out that WH Smith was the most despised brand in Britain. And they've really tried to up their game. So I'm Speaker 3 (2:13) expecting a pretty solid offering on the classics. Yeah. Speaker 1 (2:17) But Speaker 3 (2:17) we're having trouble finding them. Maybe they're integrated. Oh, wow. Oh, Speaker 1 (2:20) my Speaker 3 (2:20) God. There's Speaker 1 (2:21) a whole stack of classics. This Speaker 3 (2:23) is incredible. Speaker 1 (2:24) Yeah. Okay. I've got to say, this is an impressive turnaround for a brand that had, 10 years ago, pretty much abandoned books. I mean, here, we've got Italo Calvino. Yeah, Victor Hugo. We've got Radcliffe Hall, D.H. Lawrence. John Speaker 3 (2:38) McCarray. We've got a very solid offering from Shakespeare. Speaker 1 (2:41) So let's just test actually how classics literate we are. In alphabetical order, have you read Elizabeth von Amunds' The Enchanted April? Speaker 3 (2:49) I have not. Have you? Speaker 1 (2:50) No, which is embarrassing because she was Australian, although she moved to Europe when she was very young. Have Speaker 3 (2:56) you read Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim? Speaker 1 (2:59) You know, Soph, I love that book. Speaker 3 (3:01) So do I. Speaker 1 (3:01) And it'll be very interesting to see if it still packs a punch. Mental note, let's do that soon. Yeah, let's do Speaker 3 (3:08) that. Have you read Hotel Dulac? Speaker 1 (3:10) No, have you? No. That's Anita Brooke now. We're not doing very well for two people who pride ourselves. Something that I'm going Speaker 3 (3:16) to say about this classic selection is that I feel like it's almost directly speaking to classics that I don't read. It's sort of the unifying theme of these classics. John, have you read 1984? Speaker 1 (3:31) We're really desperately trying to claw back our reputation by just pointing to books which we've obviously read. I have Sophie. I've even talked about it on a podcast. Sophie, this is an interesting one. Have you read John le Carré? Any of these le Carrés? Speaker 3 (3:46) Yes, Speaker 1 (3:46) I have. OK, you've read Tinker Taylor? I've read Speaker 3 (3:48) Tinker Taylor. And I've read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Have you? Speaker 1 (3:51) Yeah. Speaker 3 (3:52) I love le Carré. I do, I love le Speaker 1 (3:54) Carré. We Speaker 3 (3:55) should do le Carré. Speaker 1 (3:56) OK, Sophie, let's get up out of here and head to our gate. Sophie, we're in the air. And we seem to have spent a lot of this trip standing by public laboratories recording. Speaker 3 (4:05) Huge amounts. It's going to take us weeks to get the smell out of our clothing. It's Speaker 1 (4:10) not the most glamorous, is it? Speaker 3 (4:12) It's not glamorous, but boy, is it authentic. Speaker 1 (4:15) And, I mean, unlike the northwestern train service, you can actually hear the flushing where we're standing here, so that's going to be exciting for listeners. When that Speaker 3 (4:22) happens, yeah. When they Speaker 1 (4:23) hear the vacuum suction. Speaker 3 (4:25) Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:26) Pulling out another turd. Speaker 3 (4:30) We've just had the post-takeoff loom rush, so it's going to be... A lot happening. Anyway, here we are. There it is. The first flush of the trip. Speaker 1 (4:40) I think it's fair to say that we are members of the Mile High Podcast Recording Club. I love Speaker 3 (4:45) it, yes. A Speaker 1 (4:46) very exclusive elite club. Speaker 3 (4:49) I'm not sure that we've shared with Slobs, they said, but at the beginning of this trip, an announcement was made that in welcoming first-class passengers travelling in first class to board the aeroplane, and the implication was that there were first-class passengers on the flight who were not travelling in first class. And we feel very strongly that we fit into that category. It was a revelatory Speaker 1 (5:14) moment for us when we realised that although we do not fly first class, we cannot afford to, we are first class travellers. And Speaker 3 (5:22) we felt that Qantas was honouring that distinction in their invitation. Speaker 1 (5:27) Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:29) Just to be clear, things have reached a new low down the back here. One of the toilet doors is fully open. The engines are making... Quite a lot of noise. It smells quite bad. So, Sophie... I Speaker 1 (5:41) think Speaker 3 (5:41) that's Speaker 1 (5:41) a Speaker 3 (5:41) really bad idea. We need to Speaker 1 (5:43) do some literary content, because we are here to talk about the secret life of planes. Speaker 3 (5:47) That's right. Now, what was your experience like, Jonty, finding material on the secret life of planes? I thought that was interesting in and of itself. Speaker 1 (5:56) It's slim pickings, I think it's fair to say. Yes, Speaker 3 (5:58) it Speaker 1 (5:58) is Speaker 3 (5:58) fair to say that it's slim pickings. It's not Speaker 1 (6:00) like train journeys. Speaker 3 (6:02) No. Literature... Especially literature out of copyright does not abound in scenes set on aeroplanes. Speaker 1 (6:09) And as usual, we love to surprise one another, but I have been very concerned that we've just hit upon the same ones. Speaker 3 (6:17) So let's put that to the test. Shall we try to go chronologically or should we just go turn in, turn about? So why don't you kick us off? Speaker 1 (6:26) Well, Sophie, I'm going to start with... Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Antoine de Saint-Exupery is most famous for having written and published one of the most successful books of the 20th century, which is The Little Prince, Speaker 3 (6:42) which Speaker 1 (6:42) he published in 1943. Which is Speaker 3 (6:45) a Speaker 1 (6:45) splendid book. He was first and foremost an aviator, and The Little Prince, for those who remember, actually begins with an aviator landing in a strange land. So Speaker 3 (6:55) there's already a flight. And Speaker 1 (6:56) pretty much everything that... Saint-Exupéry roads concerned planes. He was obsessed by planes. He came from a well-off French family. And as a young man, in the early days of air travel, became completely obsessed by planes. And in the early 1920s, he became a pilot with the French Air Force. And then he went into the air post business. This was a new frontier, was air mail. Speaker 3 (7:24) So Speaker 1 (7:24) we're back in Alden, like mail type territory. Not least because one of his most famous books is called Night Flight and it is about, it's based on his experiences of both being director of the Aeropostal Argentina in 1929 to the early 1930s, which means he was responsible for the