Elbows at 10,000 metres

The cliche of Germans and their towels on holiday never bothered me much as I'd never been much of a beach or pool person, but there is a nuisance around far more irritating and up front and personal. Do the words "armrests"," "elbows" and "airplane" mean anything to you? My last flight was a nightmare of cringingly self-conscious moments of trying to get a share of the armrest whilst simultaneously being acutely aware of the 2 on either side of me trying to do achieve at least the same. Both were Englishmen, as I am, and there it is. The typical reserve and rote politeness of the English that prevents an open and meaningful discussion to resolve the problem. And there is the territorial focused mindset of males in general. So seat 3 Englishmen in narrow seats all determined to read the FT broadsheet at the same time (I kid you not - that is the primary free newspaper from MUC to LHR on Lufthansa) and there is bound to be some kind of overlap. It got so bad that after takeoff I tried to change seats but the only spares were together near a window but a recently injured traveler (also an Englishman) plonked on the outside of that seat group could not move enough to allow anyone in. But I had a nice chat with him and his colleague. Anyway back in my seat I found some space on the oh so priceless armrests and held my ground while the one on the right who looked like an aging rottweiler lookalike was ridiculously not giving a millimetre to accommodate. After a while pressing forearms with Mr Right Side became a very tedious and irritating sport, so I went and did something else.