Horror games could learn a lot from the human-scale suburban layout of Manchester airport.

The whole place is a special kind of liminal hell - carefully constructed to lead you through what is essentially a fucked up cyclical mall for several hours while you wait for escape. You're led from winery to food court, periodically tormented when the word "Relax" pops up on the automated display, right next to your increasingly delayed flight hour, leaving you to weave between boutiques and bars desperate to find anywhere comfortable to sit down.

A kind barista looked at me and my haggard girlfriend and offered us a quiet table round the back to eat breakfast while we lamented the artificiality of our new prison, surrounding us were hordes of pale British folk guzzling down alcohol as if it was the last time they'd ever get the chance (It was 8am).

My girlfriend tells me a story about flying back over and how a guy on the flight kept asking the attendant for a particular brand of cigarette, I pet my girlfriend at her other girlfriend's request while we share an entirely too small and overpriced box of potato wedges.

After seven hours in the air we will finally exit this commercial labyrinth, navigate through customs with ease, spend an extra twenty minutes searching for a suitcase that was there the whole time, before finally, making our way home on the street car, hours later than we had expected to.

Who built Manchester airport, and why do they hate God?