Happily,I can report the BAA's information staff are trained in body language.
A Sardinian woman asks if it is easy to find a taxi at Heathrow.The answer she gets is a cheery British thumbs up.(Very likely from one of the 900 cabbies who serve the airport on an averge day.)Immediately,she clonk the unfortunate man with her handbag for making such a devastatingly insulting suggestion.This is why,incidentally,it's not a very good idea to thumb a lift in Sardinia.
Isn't there at least one truly international gesture?Don't bet on it.
A Japanese asks and American passenger whether Heathrow has a luggage trolley service.
It has.And as it happens, this service is not only first class, but FREE!So the Yank replies with the famous'A-OK' ringg gesture.But to the Japanese this signifies 'money' and he concludes Meanwhile,a Tunisian on-looker thinks the American is telling the Japanese that he is a worthless rogue and he is going to kill him.
B
It is so easy to give offence.Suppose a passenger asks at the Information Desk where he should go to pay his airport tax.
Now the good news is that at Heathrow,unlike many airports I could name,passengers don't pay any taxes.But just as the Information Assistant begins to say so,she is assailed by a tremendous itch and tugs at her earlobe.
Astonishing though it may seem,this simple gesture means five different things in five different Mediterranean countries.
Depending on his nationality,the Assistant has offered the passenger the following insult:
TO A SPANIARD:'You rotten sponger.'
TO A GREEK:'You'd better watch it, mate.'
TO A MALTESE:You're a sneaky little so- and-so.'
TO AN ITALIAN:'Get lost you pansy.'
Only aPortuguese (to whom the gesture signifies something ineffably wonderful)would hang around long enough to hear the answer.
C
The ring-gesture can have further meanings.AFrenchman has just read a BAA advertisement.Glancing around the restaurent in Terminal4,he remarks wonderingly to his wife,'you know how much zis aeroport cost the British taxpayer?Not a sou'. And he makes the finger and thumb ring which to him means 'zero'.
Unfortunantely,at the time he is glancing at a Colombian who is enjoying a fine Burgundy with his steak Bearnaise.The Colombian,enraged by the deadly obscenity which he assumes is directed at him,chokes on his wine and catches at his nose with finger and thumb.
This appall a Syrian sitting opposite,who thinks the Colombian is telling him to go to hell'. The Syrian is restrained with difficulty by his Greek colleague from getting up and punching the Colombian on the nose. Meanwhile the maitre d'hurries over and attempts to clam the situation with two out-thrust palms.This of course is taken by the Greek to be a double-'moutza'and in his rage he promptly skewers the unfortunate man with his fish knife.
D
Something in your eye?Think before you touch the lower lid.It a Saudi sees you, he'll think you're calling him stupid,but a South American senorita will think you're making a pass at her.
Therw is no greater insult you can offer aGreek than to thrust your palms towards his face.This gesture, called the 'moutza',is descended from the old Byzantine custom of smearing filth from the gutter in the faces of condemned criminals as they were led in chains through the city.So vile is this insult that in Greece even the Churchillian Victory-V is taboo, as it look like a half-'moutza'.Thus the Cretan or Athenian traveller, ordering two teas in a Heathrow restaurant, will carefully reverse his palm and give the waiter two fingers.With 22,600 orders for cups of tea open to misinterpretation every day, the wonder is the place function at all.