My Christmas got off to a terrific start with a thirty-hour delay at Heathrow airport, en route to stay with my partner's family in Warsaw. Airports are pretty depressing places at the best of times, but when you know you are missing a Christmas feast (of carp, eel and more cake than Marie Antoinette would know what to do with) then it is doubly so to pass the time I made friends with my fellow travellers - mainly the Polish diaspora living in the UK. Many of them are paid at, or close to, the minimum wage and are often employed as temporary, agency workers, so hearing their stories, I did feel that my frustrations were rather minor in comparison.

Progress Online, 11 January 2008, read more...