Here at Belly Ache we’re not shy to admit that, on occasion, in the spirit of good-natured camaraderie we sometimes over-do our celebratory tipple and temporarily lose our “spatial orientation”. Lucky for us though, not to mention potential passengers, we’re not piloting an aircraft.

The most that could happen in the course of our work is to print rubbish on the pages of our beloved Payload. This kind of reminds us of Belly Ache…Hmmm, ok moving right along!

Tragically, in the case of a Boeing 737-500 operated by Aeroflot subsidiary Aeroflot-Nord, alcohol and pilot confusion conspired and resulted in the plane crashing as it tried to land in the Ural mountains city of Perm, Russia last September, killing all 88 on board. The official investigation cited undertraining, overwork and the presence of alcohol in the pilot’s body.

Although the investigators described his affliction as a loss of “spatial orientation,” or as another official put it, “the direct cause of the accident was the loss of orientation in space”, we think what they really meant was that he was good-olefashioned “drunk”.

But, this did get us Belly Achers thinking that the “loss of spatial orientation” could be newest addition to the BBC’s glossary of 141 euphemisms for just being drunk! We’re not kidding, you can check it out yourself on the web (news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk/1883481.stm).

And here are some of our favourites from those great purveyors of English language, that perhaps the Russian aviation crash investigators can add to their reference books. The next time they find a pilot drunk, they can simply choose any of the following obfuscations and say the pilot was: Ming mong, crapulent, gubbed and fleein’, stocious, or finally, irrigated with horizontal lubricant!