Isn't travel mind-broadening?

Take those TV screens in airport departure lounges, for instance. As you watch the "delayed" signs slide up and down, do you ever wonder why so many people where you are feel they'd be better off somewhere else? And are there people at that very moment watching TV screens in Riga or Plovdiv or Quezon City and hoping for speedy news on getting to you?

And will they be equally disappointed when they get there?

All this is prompted by my discovery that I have been booked out of Toulouse on United Airlines. This will surprise you if you know that United Airlines doesn't fly to Toulouse. Or from it.

When I got my ticket, it said I was travelling United but I'd actually be flying Lufthansa. To be exact, from Toulouse to Munich, then on to Washington, followed by the return from Chicago to Munich and Toulouse. All on Lufthansa. Not a United flight in sight.

Well, I want to take a bike. Airlines have different rules and so it seemed best to phone the airline I was going with and which would actually be at the airport. I phoned Lufthansa.

Lufthansa is German but when you phone Lufthansa in France, a recorded announcement asks you to choose between speaking French or English. Not German. Well, no problem: I don't speak German anyway and I was getting tired and irritable so I pressed the button for English rather than French. When it was answered, it was in French. I began to wish I was German, just to be a nuisance.

The Lufthansa lady was helpful but hindered by my not being on her list of passengers. Yes, she agreed, I'd be flying Lufthansa but really I was flying United, because my ticket said so, so Lufthansa wouldn't know about me.

She gave me United's number and I called next morning. It was Saturday. United gave me the choice of English or French and again I chose English. Instantly, an immensely enthusiastic American thanked me for calling United, assured me my call was important to United, that United was one of the world's largest airlines but that it was shut for the weekend. Then he started again: "Thank you for calling United "

On Monday I tried again. This time I got a pleasant woman happy to do what she could. She even found me on her list. I asked where she was. From her accent I'd have said a United glass-and-aluminium shed somewhere in America. She said she was in India.

So, if you ring United in France, you're told it's closed for the weekend. But India presumably doesn't take calls only from France, dutifully taking off French national holidays and weekends like the rest of us. It must be the world reservations centre.

Not only do I bet that doesn't close at weekends but think about it. If you call India first thing from Europe, it's already midday in India. But it's still yesterday evening in America. So if, from America, you called United's French number on Friday, you'd be told it was Saturday and therefore they weren't there. If you called from Australia on Monday, it would be Sunday in France and still it wouldn't be open.

But phone the French office on Sunday evening from America and it would still be closed (early morning in France, you see), even though it's Monday morning in India, where they actually answer the phones. Yet odder still is that, clearly, United doesn't have a reservations centre in France. It's in India. If it wasn't in India, you wouldn't be put through there, would you? So how can something that doesn't exist tell you it's not open? And in a choice of languages, what's more.

Well, I have been booked on an airline that doesn't fly from Toulouse by an office that doesn't exist in France, on an aircraft that will be operated by Germans who don't speak German and know nothing about me anyway.

At least the lady in India said the bike would be OK. I just hope it's not the weekend when I call to say there's a problem