I liked two pieces of advertising currently on display in Chicago.

As you travel to the airport on the Blue Line of Chicago Transit Authority, you notice that some of the cars of the trains have American Airlines' advertising on their sides. The adverts are just place names - London, Frankfurt, Delhi - and a picture of an American Airlines aircraft. Good, but not as much fun as the old Munich Airport line, whose trains carried posters saying things like, "Non-stop to Osaka"!

And when you get to the airport and have laboriously got to the head of the security queue, the trays you put your shoes, coats and liquids in contain Amtrak advertising. One which caught my eye was along the lines of, "If you've a hole in your sock, no-one will ever know".

Excellent!

So far this year I've made four flights - two transatlantic and two domestic within the USA. Punctuality has been variable!

The flight from London to Boston was delayed by heavy security checks at the gate - shoes off for a second time, pockets emptied, bags searched, full pat-down - and a need to queue for ice inspection (in fact, we didn't need de-icing). Result - we took off exactly 2 hours and 46 minutes late: push-back was 2 hours late.

A flight from Washington National achieved push-back a minute early, and then a 4 minute taxi time at O'Hare. This was amazingly short - the cabin crew hardly had time to welcome us to Chicago!

The next one, later in the day from Chicago to Boston, pushed back a mere 3 minutes late.

And coming back to London from Boston, push-back was 11 minutes early and take-off just 2 minutes after scheduled departure time. Thanks to some nice tail winds, we were early in Heathrow.

It looks like being an interesting year!