Somewhere over northern Germany the large scottish man wearing a t-shirt saying 'nae neck' opened the aeroplane's toilet door, grimaced, and turned back to his group of mates and said

'Jaysus, it stinks of burning plastic in here!'

The stag party laughed. But then the cabin began filling with the smell of cooking electronics. When our pilot spoke through the intercom, we could hear that they were using a respirator. We were told that we had to make an emergency landing. People started making birdlike noises of concern. A quick descent and we bumped into Cologne airport, where an armada of fire engines raced to meet us. Sheparded inside, we sat and waited. Of course, they could find no fault, but we could not fly on. It was a day of two halves. After 5 hours of waiting, we were taken by taxi to Dusseldorf to be put up in a luxurious hotel for the night, with all meals paid for, before finally flying home the next afternoon.