Facing up to the problem

By B.R.

IN LONDON doss houses during the Great Depression, the destitute could pay tuppence to spend the night sleeping on the rope. Those with nowhere else to go would sit shoulder-to-shoulder on a wooden bench with a rope stretched in front of them. The wretched souls would rest their faces against it and try to get some sleep. At first light, the patron would cut the rope and send everyone on their way.

Gulliver once experienced something similar on a ten-hour Monarch flight back from India. Having tried every possible position to doze, I finally found peace by placing my forehead on the back of the seat in front. It worked because the seatback was already mere inches from my face and, naturally, there was no entertainment system with sharp edges to worry about. For a couple of hours it was possible to escape the ennui, even if the price was ending up with the airline’s moquette temporarily tattooed on my face.

I give both of these examples as proof that if the conditions are desperate enough, it is possible to sleep while slouching forward in one’s seat. That fact hasn’t escaped Boeing. GeekWire has noticed that last year the airline manufacturer patented something it called a “transport vehicle upright sleep support system”, although GW gives it the rather more pleasant name of a “cuddle chair”. The idea is that fliers can attach a tray to their seats which can be angled away from their laps (see picture below). It includes a rest for a face, a bit like one would find on a massage table. Although it looks a little like a medieval torture device, blissful sleep surely ensues.

Before readers get too excited, firms such as Boeing patent stuff continually, no matter how wacky, even if they have no intention of putting it into mass production. They don’t want to look stupid if the outré idea they come up with then flies for someone else. (We reported on a similarly daft seat patent by Airbus last year.) But as both 1930s down-and-outs and Gulliver have proved: it might actually work. Despite the sneering Boeing could be on to something.