Admit it, we all love to gawp at the plight of stranded Christmas travellers at Gatwick

It’s simple human desire to see something malfunction. Not everyone wants to witness the majesty of nature, art or science

I’m almost (obviously not entirely) ashamed to admit that on days like today I’d quite like to go down to Gatwick and just drink in the “traffic chaos” we’ve heard so much about.

Just as some people are drawn, dangerously, to exploding volcanoes and others to the mysteries of Easter Island or the pyramids, I’d quite like to go see the mess that a busy airport can so rapidly become.

Thousands of passengers stranded in inadequate conditions, marooned, unable to go where they want, but not to the point where they feel they can just go home. The scale of it is awe-inspiring in itself – 110,000 travellers will be affected.

This urge to see, either firsthand or on rolling news and live blogs, is not because I take any delight in the suffering of others (though watching Jeremy Corbyn and his spin doctors contort themselves out of their blatant sexism has given me some harmless amusement).

It is in fact a product of simple human curiosity, and, indeed the exact same impulse that drives any kind of tourism or human endeavour. Not everyone wants to witness the majesty of nature, to see the wonders of art or science. Some folk like to visit the sites of atrocities and terror attacks, battlefields and graveyards, each a memorial to historic events that should never be forgotten but always are.

The same goes for “misery tourism”, tours of ghettos, the “peace wall” in Belfast, what’s left of the Berlin Wall, the devastated ex-car factories in Detroit… Its first cousin, I suppose, to rubbernecking on the motorway, a more everyday bit of gawping. Everyone takes a dim view of it; everyone also slows down to get a view of the carnage on the hard shoulder. You cannot help it. I defy anyone to claim otherwise.

And that, I feel, is much of the reason why the Gatwick drones story is such a huge news event. There is also something compellingly bizarre about how someone is able to fly drones around an airport for 14 hours in utter defiance of the authorities.

I mean I can’t imagine what Trump would do if this was JFK. The copper in charge down in Sussex comments that he is “absolutely convinced” the drones are a “deliberate act to disrupt Gatwick airport”.

You don’t say.

Obviously people are worried about the possibility of terror, or that, more like it, their own flights from somewhere may be delayed by some imbecile with a flying toy.

Yet much of it is that simple human desire to see something malfunction. I guess it is also why the news outlets – to satisfy our readers, listeners and viewers – compete to find the most heart-rending stories of inconvenience as a result of the chaos.

Radio 5 Live had people who’d be hard pressed to get to Orkney in time for Christmas; BBC News had a family on the way to Lapland (or, rather, not on their way); kids wanting to get to Istanbul. Sorry stories. It’s not malicious or twisted to want to see or know about them; but it’s not exactly benevolent either.

Needless to add, I can’t wait until 11pm on 29 March…