How do you make people watch your airplane safety routine?

The mySociety guys are a pretty globetrotting bunch. On the way back from a recent trip to the USA, Tom, el capitán, saw this awesome safety video from Virgin Atlantic.

It’s awesome, not only because it takes the piss out of the insatiable urge to zone out of those boring safety demonstrations, but also because it crams a dozen British movie tropes into a 5 minute segment – from Spaghetti Westerns to The Avengers and Brief Encounter; from 2001 A Space Odyssey to any one of a number of 1960s spy thrillers, some Beatles psychadelia, and a breathless James Bond title sequence.

And at the same time, it manages to tell you what you already know, about how to use safety belts and jump onto life chutes.

It’s nice seeing a company like Virgin Atlantic take time to think about the little things—the boring things—and to give a hat tip to some of their national culture. Nice work Art & Graft!