I recently had 4 great sectors in F - 1 long haul (JNB-HKG) and 3 short haul (HKG-BKK-SIN-HKG) including 2 where SO and I were the only F pax. (As he remarked: luxury is having your own bathroom on a plane! I decided not to point out to him that the crew use it too.)

But then I had another very disappointing flight on CX255 to LHR. This time the flight was full and I am the first to admit it is probably a tricky service. With the almost 1am departure some pax want to sleep and are likely to wake up early for breakfast, while others will take advantage of the full dinner service. Still, there's 13 hours to do it in...

I was one of the former and asked for an espresso, glass of wine and dessert (more of that later). The coffee arrived without sugar and the wine never arrived. Using the call button produced no visible effect at all. Eventually I lassoed an FA and matters were corrected. When I wanted to change into my sleeper suit I asked the FA to cut open the tie (from my previous l/h flight I knew that force would only tear the stitching but not open the bag). Instead he opted for brute force and duly tore the stitching to no avail before doing what I'd asked in the first place.

Next morning I woke fairly early though by no means the first. In any F cabin I am used to an FA immediately approaching to ask if pax need anything when they see them stirring. Despite the fact that they were moving about the cabin at times none of the crew reacted to my switching my reading light on nor did they approach me when I went to the loo. So I ordered a coffee at the galley.

Later my breakfast order was taken. I ordered scrambled egg and was told that would take 20 minutes (seemed excessive, but ok) and my table would be laid when it was ready. No problem. 30 minutes later I asked if my breakfast is ready. "Did you order breakfast?" was the reply. Mad scurry to get my breakfast table laid and me fed. The FA's were looking shame-faced as they made amends but instead of offering a sincere apology and then being charming and careful, they were slap dash and avoided all eye contact as if they were afraid I might beat them. And I hadn't even raised my voice or so much as grumbled.

All sorts of minor things were forgotten and had to be asked for - toast, the smoothie, sugar. (What is it with this crew and sugar?! SO asked for sugar with his corn flakes and they brought him cubes! ). The final indignity was the cappucino which had a dreadful watery foam and was full of coffee grounds. Yuck! The one I had when I awoke was perfect (although it too was served without sugar or any of those yummy almond biscuits).

I would really rate this crew as very poor. I seemed to spend the whole waking apart of the flight calling for things that had been forgotten and waiting. Once again I have been disappointed in CX's F service - that makes 2 out of 4 l/h flights. (At least this time I knew the trick about using the duvet to cover that dreadful steel bar in the seat join that otherwise digs into your hip.) Are my expectations too high? Am I just unlucky? Or is CX prone to this sort of inconsistency?

Aside: The dinner menu listed "almond cordial with fungus" as a dessert. Certainly piqued my interest, so I enquired as to what that was. "Oh it's delicious" was the informative reply. Anyway, I had it and it certainly was unusual. Like thin almond custard with a great big, well... fungus... floating in it. The fungus reminded me of those you use to culture your own yoghurt and was rubbery and almost tasteless. It was also impossible to cut with a spoon and I had to carefully manouevre the thing into my mouth without splashing the "cordial" all over the place. The whole thing was very bland (sort of invalids' food) but I was pleased at the opportunity to eat something so different. I love it when airlines expand your culinary horizens.