The interesting fella is taller than me—who isn’t?—but very thin. His face is deeply lined, to the point where it’s hard to say if he is fifty or seventy. He has a Boeing. He thinks there are too many gadgets on the Airbus, and it is in the nature of gadgets to go wrong all the time. What you want from a plane, the interesting fella says, is purity of purpose. It goes up and stays up until you want it to come down. You do not want it to fiddle. The Boeing company understands this, which is why he gets his planes from them. Planes, plural, because he has several. There are three waiting for us on the tarmac, and he picks one at random. "Security," he says, and pantomimes a machine gun. "One has always to be a little careful."