It is still the case on transatlantic flights that a drinks trolley comes to even the farthest reaches of Economy. If you’re lucky, the gay man or imposing Essex girl wheeling it will, with a wink and a smile, palmed you over an extra mini bottle of gin or a wine for the meal. They can tell who will be a good, and who a bad, plane drinker.

I like to think of myself as the former. I am not someone who drinks to get drunk. Yet that initial buzz from a lemony Bombay Sapphire and Fever Tree glugged through ice is hard to beat. It’s an empowering, controlled, merrymaking high. In the wrong person, this buzz causes unwanted chattiness, but in my case it makes me sit back in my cramped seat and think pulsing, magisterial thoughts about the wonders of modern life. That’s the G&T effect. The wine

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