Dear Reader

THE sun is shining but it’s been a stormy week. And, now, with dark clouds hovering on the horizon as we come into peak holiday season, it’s hard to put a positive spin on it all — so let’s not bother.

Global markets have fallen, interest rates have risen. More than 40,000 members of the RMT union will strike for three days next week, prompting the closure of the Gatwick Express and, no doubt, leading to gridlock on the M25 and M23.

In an attempt to mitigate the chaos, Gatwick is restricting the number of flights taking off, down from about 900 a day to some 825 throughout July and into August.

The consensus is that Gatwick and Manchester airports have been worst affected by airline short-sightedness and government incompetence — but thanks to data experts, Flight Radar 24 and OAG, that’s not strictly the case.

London City Airport, for which I’ve always had a soft spot, tops the league for flight disruptions, with one scheduled departure in 30 being cancelled, while Heathrow had only one cancellation in 101 between May 7 and June 6. Stansted, one of my least favourite airports, had just one cancellation in 720 flights.

Apparently, the worst time to fly is between 6pm and 9pm, the best between 11am and midday. And the destination least likely to result in a cancellation from the UK is Austria (Vienna pictured).

All depressingly baffling. So thank goodness for light relief courtesy of Boy George, who was incensed at being kept waiting to disembark from the first-class cabin of his BA flight because fellow passenger Victoria Beckham needed to leave the plane before everyone else.

It turned out Posh had paid an extra £6,000 for the privilege.

Given that there are seldom more than eight seats in first class, this strikes me as an affectation on a monumental scale — for which we should all be grateful.