I remember a few months ago a friend and I had popped down from F to the J bar - this was a morning flight ex-LHR, so I was surprised that it was pretty empty. Another F pax joined us so we outnumbered the two J pax, one of whom was unsuccessfully trying to use the pick up line "I work in Oil & Gas" on the rather unimpressed girl in the bar. The purser then came down with the Dom for the other F pax and this was my chance to make things a little more right in the world: I had already met this purser before we got on so, armed with some liquid courage "right, everyone, I'm taking over the bar, I'll handle the cocktails, what would you like". Bargirl is a deer in headlights so thankfully the purser took charge with, "of course, don't worry x this is Mr. x one of our platinum F pax". On the way to the galley she looks back with a relieved look in her eyes. Mr. Oil&Gas has a scotch on the rocks and shuffles back to his seat, never to be seen again for the rest of the flight.

Now, the Dom is sitting here on the bar, and the other J pax is eyeing it hungrily. My friend is beside himself - "you crazy ****, what are you doing?" and is abusing the in flight wifi takes pictures to share WhatsApp. Some orders come in, thankfully I can refer to the cocktail cheat sheet in the bar. Before anyone complains that a dirty pax was handling drinks for them, the purser was supervising and various crew members came by to "supervise"/laugh at us. That said, I'm pretty sure anyone going for an evening meeting in DXB was in danger of already having a hangover by the time we landed with the measures I was using...Apparently I make a decent martini, at least according to the F pax - my secret is if you ask for a perfect/sweet one you get a dry one, and if you ask for a dry one you pretty much get no vermouth at all, so the secret is actually alcoholism...Anyway, J pax, who I must say had much more entertaining conversation than "I work in O&G", has slowly been working up to asking: so...about that champagne...the Dom...can I try some? My turn for deer in the headlights. Quick as a flash, turning to the other F pax: "I'll leave this one up to you - does he deserve a glass?!". Turns out he felt his new friend's conversation was acceptable enough. Dom was served. Good times were had.

The things people do for F drinks!

Suffice to say, compliments email was sent in for this flight...