Here's the first of what may become an occasional series on Unusual Attitude (you never know with us bloggers...). Feel free to contribute more.
The reason I had my dalliance with the regional business recently and flew Exeter-Brussels was because I couldn't fly from Newquay, a couple of miles from where I was staying, to Brussels. In fact you can't fly to many places from Newquay, although they're working on it with increasing success. But, as of yesterday, you can fly to Dusseldorf, for which you can thank Rosamunde Pilcher. Obviously.
I'm going to guess that for most of you that will need some explaining. Here's the lady in question.
I confess that before Lufthansa somewhat unexpectedly launched this route I had frankly never heard of Mrs Pilcher. In Germany, it seems, I would be considered somewhat odd in that respect. There, major TV station ZDF has filmed some of her books - OK, rather more than 70 of them actually. (Caution: Wikipedia fact.) In 2006 one of them pulled in 7.7 million viewers.
They're based in large part in and around north Cornwall it seems - Newquay country in other words (although as it happens, Mrs and Mr Pilcher have now settled in Dundee, Scotland at the other end of the UK.)
However, it is a fact that a certain sort of German can't get enough of Cornish romantic novels "with no sex or crime" and Lufthansa reckons that enough of them will want to take a first-hand look at PIlcher-country to justify a weekly Eurowings CRJ200, for the summer anyway. So they're giving it a go. Viel Glück.
(Actually I have mixed feelings about Newquay Airport's expansion. Two or three times a year I camp well within earshot of the place for this stuff - if I'm not woken by the resident cockerel, I'm woken by one of Michael O'Leary's 737s!)
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