On my flight to the US, I found myself waiting outside one of the aeroplane's lavatories for quite some time. In order to distract myself from the increasingly urgent task at hand I let my eyes and mind wander. They all found their way to the external door which I was standing by, and its big, shiny handle.

The possible danger involved in flying has always been slightly titillating. Take-off and landing are my favourite parts, partly because of all the things that could go wrong. People find their thrills all over the place - amusement parks thrive on the lust for danger that a good roller coaster can satisfy. It just happens that I get my kicks from a big metal roller coaster with wings.

So faced with this handle, how easy, I thought, how easy it would be to just turn it and open the door at 38,000 feet. And what fun it would be to jump out. Fly. Drop towards the earth from more than seven miles high. I normally have no great fondness of heights, but one this large felt intoxicating. The sky called to me.

Of course, the fact I'm here, means I didn't give in to temptation. As mentioned before, I have no particular wish to stop living, and if that hadn't been enough to stop me, the knowledge that several hundred other people would have been dumped in the shit certainly was. Besides which, I'd never have got to see my friends in New York and Atlanta (including Jim).

But what a way to go.