Is it just me and the couple flights I had recently, or is the UNICEF video with the tubby kid who wants to be a pilot gone ? I also noticed the PA after take-off (serving food and drinks, you may turn on electronic devices) is now played from a recording. Much more professional sounding.

How recently?
That video was playing in late november.

Oh yes please. That UNICEF video is horrible to watch. I still don't understand the "3,2,1" coundown in the video...

Thank god I hate that kid who wants to be president and also Jackie Chan telling me what one dollar can buy

Considering what kind of reputation he has in HK !

Jackie hasn't been telling us what one dollar can buy for years. Now we have the even more forgettable Leon Lai, looking overweight and haggard telling us what one dollar can buy.

I hated watching the fat Russian boy speaking Russian telling us about his dream (who cares) straight after the safety video.

Glad that it is now taken out.

Thanks God for that!

Thanks to CX, that's the only Russian sentence I know.

I second that.

Of all the children, the Russian fatty boy has to be the loudest and the most annoying. You'd think the focus would be on Asian children but at times, I felt as if I was on an Aeroflot aircraft.

CX, please do a new UNICEF video and please remove that Russian kid out of it!

What Russian ? I thought the fat boy was speaking Spanish (maybe, "yo quiero ser piloto cuando ser mayor") ?

0:04 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ2iOx76DjM

I hate the seemingly endless advertisements on the IFE. Five and a half minutes of crap (which, of course, I now fast-forward through) until you get to your selection. That is really taking the Mickey. And it isn't even as though most of the ads are worth watching. Especially the Samsonite one. Perhaps a native-English-speaking spokesman for the (American) company should see the drivel that appears on screen in their name. Here it is, word-for-word:

Open, there's space
Open, it can be enriched
The inner-substance is accumulated
In the process of enrichment
But revealed unintentionally
Built with inner-substance

I mean, honestly...

Frankly, the advertisers would be far better off if they only had one minute of advertising per programme, tops - then most of us would sit through it instead of fast-forwarding through it. Well, except for the Samsonite ad, obviously...

Making fun of a child in a charity video? Stay classy, FT.

Back on topic, it was pleasant not to have to watch the Unicef video on a couple recent flights. Now could we please have more interesting safety videos? It doesn't even need to be anything as outre as Air New Zealand. But in terms of holding pax attention for important information, the long-running videos are an abject failure.

And why don't they use sign-language any more? (Anyone remember those safety videos? Or am I the oldest one here? Lol)

I still pine for the in-flight exercise video with some self-satisfied twerp in shorts doing exercises in a park. Would always look forward to the close-up shot of his sandal-clad foot doing rotations.

It's actually Portuguese. Why do they have some fatty speaking Portuguese wanting to be a pilot is beyond me.