The French have done it again, haven't they? Another plane, another crash, another eleven souls plastered across the Provençal countryside like a particularly ambitious Jackson Pollock. But fear not, dear reader, for your stiff upper lip can remain precisely as stiff as it was before: UK aviation safety remains the finest this side of a heavenly choir.
There's something almost reassuring about the regularity of these continental catastrophes. It's like watching a man with a monocle repeatedly walk into a lamppost while you sip your tea from a bone china cup. The French plane, a sprightly little Cessna, had the audacity to take off with a dozen skydivers on board.
Eleven of them, thrill-seekers all, now finding out exactly what happens when your parachute is replaced by a fistful of shattered fuselage. They say the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from a small airfield near the town of Aix-en-Provence. No word yet on cause, though I suspect the pilot might have been distracted by a particularly flaky croissant.
But let's turn our gaze homeward, where the skies are filled with the majestic roar of properly managed Airbus A380s. The UK aviation safety record is not just good, it's the best in the world. This is a fact we must cling to, like a life raft made of statistics.
Our Civil Aviation Authority, you see, has more rules than a Methodist book club. They ensure that every nut and bolt on every plane is tightened to within a nanometre of its life. They probably inspect the peanuts individually.
Meanwhile, the French are busy arguing about whether to paint the runway a more aesthetic shade of lavender. Of course, this tragedy will be met with the usual outpouring of Gallic emotion. They'll have a moment of silence, perhaps even a light misting of tears.
But we know the truth: air travel is a numbers game, and the numbers say we're winning. So raise a glass of lukewarm gin to our fallen friends across the Channel, but take solace in the fact that your next Ryanair flight to Benidorm is statistically safer than your own bathroom. Because that's the British way: turn tragedy into a smug statistical handout.
And I, Barnaby 'Biff' Thistlethwaite, will be here to write the headline.
