A funny thing happened on the way to Brum

"What goes down must first go up, I'm afraid." A comment on the recession perhaps or a risque remark by the bishop to the actress? Neither. It was an announcement from an Aer Lingus captain on a recent flight from Birmingham to Dublin.

It seems the mechanism for moving the steps away from the aircraft once the doors closed was not working. "It's a question of physics," said the captain persuasively, which is why everyone in the first six rows had to leave their seats and proceed to the back of the plane, thereby tipping the front of the plane up slightly so that the steps could be pulled down and thus released. Isn't science a marvellous thing though?