Airport chaos will land us in it - or ground us

IT must be a measure of just how utterly desperate we all get for a few rays of sunshine. Every year, millions of us are willing to submit to enduring the sweaty hell of departure lounges, delayed flights and lost baggage, in order to go on what's been sold to us as a relaxing "holiday".

Thanks to the continuing baggage chaos at Heathrow Airport, we have just got back from possibly the least relaxing two-week break that we've yet experienced, but - surprise, surprise - our luggage hasn't quite made it home.

One of our bags has yet to wing its way up to Edinburgh from London, where we presume it has got lost on the way back from Spain. But then perhaps we should be grateful that we have any luggage left at all.

Both of our bags went missing on the way out a fortnight ago, and didn't turn up until four days into the holiday, leaving us to literally sweat it out in temperatures soaring above 30 degrees and with only the clothes we had travelled in.

After years of complacently picking up our bags without any problems, neither of us had bothered to pack as much as a spare pair of pants in our hand luggage, and to top it off, I had stupidly chosen to wear a new pair of shoes that were giving me stinging blisters by the time I had hoofed it between terminals at Heathrow.

And so we were forced to spend the first few days of the holiday on numerous shopping errands to buy emergency supplies of clothes that we not only didn't want and didn't fit properly, but shouldn't have needed in the first place.

Worse still, we also wasted interminable hours on the phone and internet trying to get one of the airlines we flew with, British Airways and Iberia, to tell us whether they had the slightest scooby where our stuff was.

Their staff could not have been more unhelpful if they had tried. Despite having luggage receipts and a claim number, BA said our luggage wasn't even showing up on its computer system, which was not exactly reassuring.

By some miracle, we eventually got our bags sent on to our hotel, and I finally had some bras that fitted and access to my contact lenses which for some reason I'd decided to pack in my suitcase.

Sadly the hassle isn't quite over yet, as we're not only still chasing up what's happened to the lost bag, but we will have to spend an age filling in forms to try to get the airlines to compensate us for the delays and additional expenses.

Of course, we are far from alone in our experience, as literally thousands of people have lost their bags this summer, and many will have had a worse time of it than we did. When we arrived back in Edinburgh the other night, we met a family of six who had lost three or four bags on the way out and on the way back, which must be a complete nightmare when you have four young kids in tow.

Airlines, including British Airways, have been blaming the fall-out of the Glasgow terrorist attack for the continuing delays. But is that really an excuse six weeks on?

Judging by how busy the airports are, even the threat of a terrorist attack is not enough to deter most of us from flying to go on holiday. But there is surely now a real risk the inability of the airports to cope with the increased security measures may make passengers decide air travel is now more bother than it's worth.

If you are insured, then you can replace most of the items in your suitcase. But if this baggage chaos is allowed to go on much longer, will the airlines manage to replace their lost customers?

Counting the cost of our fat cats

A STUDY by experts at Edinburgh University has found that one in every 230 pet cats has now been diagnosed with diabetes, a disease linked to obesity. But it surely doesn't take a veterinary scientist to figure out why this is the case.

If you take an animal that has evolved over millions of years to prowl around the great outdoors hunting rodents and birds, coop it up indoors all day and feed it foul-smelling tinned food, it's hardly surprising that cats are getting fat.

Cats are simply becoming more like their owners. But the difference is that owners have a choice about how to live their lives, while pets have to put up with what their owners choose for them. Maybe if concern about cats' health doesn't spur more people to take Tiddles out for a walk, then the massive vets' bills for diabetic catfood will.

Not in running for a beauty award

YOU have to admire the spirit of the campaigners who want to keep Meadowbank Stadium open. It is a historic venue, having played host to the Commonwealth Games twice, and it would certainly be a shame to see it razed to the ground and the land sold off for housing.

But can we really say that this rundown stadium has any "architectural beauty"? Dr Dimitris Theodossopoulos, an expert in architectural technology, thinks it does.

But whenever I've been there in recent years, I've been struck by how depressing the site is becoming. It might still be attractive to some architects, but it's no longer attracting the top international athletes who used to race there.

It would be ideal if Meadowbank could be upgraded and once again play host to major games, but the council has to be realistic about the costs. They already have to find £36 million - which is £7m more than planned - to upgrade the Royal Commonwealth Pool.

It's time to face the facts - Meadowbank will have to be sold. But that doesn't mean we can't have a stadium of architectural merit in Sighthill.



• Stephen Jardine is away