In South Africa my cousin Keith took me to a remote airfield where he kept his half of a plane, or to be more accurate, a plane in which he had half shares. I didn't realise I would be required to pull it out of the hanger, but when we did I saw it was a side-by-side two-seat, high winged design. Keith then spent ages walking round it checking wings, aileron, wheels, rudder and other flappy things I have now forgotten. The airstrip was deserted and we soon took off, easily missing the control tower, because there wasn't one.

It was then that he said we were rather short of fuel and I realised hadn't seen any aviation fuel bowsers or filling pumps nearby. After flying for a quarter of an hour, Keith landed on a grass airstrip and taxied over to a loan petrol pump. There were a couple of buildings but no one was about. Keith produced a credit card and pushed it into the mouth of the petrol pump and filled her up. So simple. So unlikely. We took off and continued our journey.