Thread by @jonronson

I'm going to tell you my Concorde story. Many years ago the UK radio presenter Chris Evans was supposed to go on a private plane to Minneapolis to meet Prince. They had a spare seat and asked me if I wanted it. I said, "YES I DO."

https://twitter.com/jumblejim/status/1188114858299969536

For some reason Chris Evans bailed, so they cancelled the private plane, but they didn't want to abandon the whole trip so asked me if I wanted to fly on Concorde to meet Prince instead. I said, "YES."

I turned up at Heathrow and went to the Concorde desk and said, "I'm a passenger on Concorde today!" The BA woman said, "Are you the courier?" I said, "No. I'm a passenger." The woman turned to the woman next to her and said, "Find out if he's the courier."

I said, "I'm a PASSENGER." Anyway they eventually let me on and gave me a certificate that said, 'I've been on Concorde' or something. I noticed they didn't give Liam Neeson a certificate. Then the person in the next seat to me sat down. It was KEITH RICHARDS.

I thought, "Shit, I'm going to have to spend the next four hours pretending I don't know Keith Richards is sitting next to me." Then Keith Richards poked me in the ribs and we got talking. At one point (I swear this is my memory) he said, "I've done everything, man!"

So the plane took off and when it reached Mach 2 (or is it Mack 2?) a sign illuminated and there was a ripple of applause. Then the plane began to LURCH and SLOW DOWN.

People looked alarmed. The captain came on the tannoy and said, "You may have noticed that we have slowed down..." Then the tannoy malfunctioned. It was, "KSC KSC fuel leak KCH KCH we're going to turn around...KCH KCH."

The person sitting on the other side of me said, "Oh! The last time this happened they gave everyone £500 Marks and Spencer vouchers." The person in front said to their companion, "Did you hear that? We may get £500 pound Marks and Spencer vouchers."

Anyway the pilot came out of the cockpit and started talking to passengers row by row. When it got to my row I guess he had to look at someone so he looked at me. He said, "You may have noticed that we've slowed down. It's because we've got a fuel leak..."

"We've turned around and are going to TRY and make it back to Heathrow, so please try and enjoy the..." At this point the person sitting in front loudly whispered to me, "THE VOUCHERS! ASK HIM ABOUT THE VOUCHERS!"

Keith Richards turned to me and said, "Well *I* don't care, but I'll tell you who's going to be really pissed off. Mick. He's at the front." I saw Mick Jagger stand up and look for Keith. When he saw him he gave him a very Mick Jagger wave.

I said, "You know how you said you've done everything..." Keith Richards said, "Yeah, well I've never flown over Greenland twice in a day." Anyway, we made it back to Heathrow, switched planes, and finally made it to Prince's house. It was some kind of record launch.

There was a Sun journalist there. He said, "I hear there was a malfunction on Concorde. Were you scared?" I said, "I WAS a little scared." He said, "Was Keith Richards scared?" I said, "No, he didn't seem scared."

The paper the next day said, 'I was TERRIFIED' said passenger Ronson. 'But not Keith. He just knocked back another Jack Daniels...' Or something. Anyway, it's lucky we didn't die because the headlines would've all been 'Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Liam Neeson and 97 others..."

End of story!

We DIDN'T get the vouchers. We got a letter from BA saying, "If you had any out of pocket expenses like telephone calls we will reimburse you."

Prince's house: It was very nice if a little like a large shopping mall. I did not meet Prince but he did do a private concert for about 30 of us, where he played the hits. That was amazing.

I just told the best story that's ever been told on Twitter and people are complaining that I wrote the thread too slowly. Honestly!