As some of you will know, I have been extravagant and travelled here Business Class. This is a completely different world from mere cattle class. I already posted about the lounge in London.

You then get to go to the gate directly from the lounge – very little standing around and waiting to be called. What I didn’t realise until I got on the second plane in Dubai was that it was two storey. Upstairs, business and first, downstairs the plebs.

Champagne is, of course, presented on arrival. I know they say you shouldn’t drink alcohol on planes but when they offer…….

The seats are one in the space that would be used for two downstairs. You have a footrest underneath the next person’s shelf and the seat extends to meet it at the touch of a button. They also give you a mattress and quilt.

The meals are slightly confusing because of the time change. We were offered dinner in London, breakfast in Dubai then lunch over the Indian Ocean and breakfast in Sydney.

The lounge in Dubai is a whole floor of the building and, again, you go straight to the plane from there.

For most of the (very long) journey to Sydney, the lights were down and a lot of people were asleep. It’s disconcerting, going to the toilet and seeing cocoons with masks over their eyes and straps round their middles (seatbelts) as if they were being transported to a sinister research facility.

Another limousine ride later and I am now in my hotel under the Harbour Bridge and in desperate need of a shower and a change of clothes.