Airport security gets ever more surreal. Yesterday, I set off with my fiancee for the lovely island of Malta to spend the Easter break. At London’s Gatwick airport I had my first real experience of the wonderful charm for which security staff are famed, having never really had a glitch before. My hand luggage was seized by a woman who asked that I opened the bag. I was happy to do so. She fished out three novels from the bag, and after loudly making some rude comments about them and sniggering to a colleague (which was thoroughly unprofessional on her part) she picked up a small hair brush, and put it through an X-ray machine. She handed it back and with a grim expression pronounced that a hairbrush, at a certain angle, looked like a gun. Yes, a gun.
In future it is definitely going in my heavy luggage. It really makes me wonder about what your average security guard thinks a gun is actually supposed to look like, let alone as to whether any of them have used a gun. Or maybe they comb their hair with an automatic.
Oh, and the next time I fly down I’ll take a couple of porn magazines to really give some security jobsworth the vapours. Heh.
Did you mean fiancee? Or do you take your finance on vacations? I don’t think you could have meant fiance because I’m pretty sure England doesn’t allow gay marriage.
Maybe I should respond to your post instead of just poking fun. My dad was trying to transport his pistol from Michigan to Florida in his checked luggage. He had a trigger lock on the gun and both were in a soft bag inside a regular travel bag. The comprehensive wisdom of the FAA apparently says a trigger lock is not the safest way to transport a firearm. Luckily he was early enough to run home, get his hard case and cable lock, and return with them both in time to make his flight. Why the FAA thinks a plastic hard case with a cable lock on the case is safer than a trigger lock, I don’t know. Any blunt instrument or even a screwdriver could break into that case, but a trigger lock requires either a good locksmith or liquid nitrogen. Needless to say, the ignorant lady giving him the hard time got quite the earful, and the rest of my family got a good laugh at my dad’s expense.
My spelling error!!!! aarrgh. Spelling error corrected.
Funnily enough, it was the way the silly woman poked fun at my books (James Hogans and an Ian Fleming) that grated. The sarcasm was palpable. I guess they think they can get away with it while we endure their attempts at humour.
Oh well, Happy Easter.
The last time I flew from the UK was just before xmas. I was asked to open my hand luggage and expected to get some funny looks because of the reading matter in there (2 books on biowarfare) but they never batted an eyelid. However as usual the oldest person in the queue an old chap about 80 in this case got the full treatment. I have seen this a few times at British airports and suspect they are given a quota of people that must be fully searched on each flight and so they do this to the oldest person they can see who is the least likely to give them any problems or to complain. Now I am might be wrong here but I don’t think any terror act in history has ever been carried out by anyone over the age of 70 🙂
This may be a cultural matter. I have travelled often since 9/11, and US and Asian (several countries) security seem quite polite and solicitous, even during things like shoe inspection.
I fly 20-30 times a year and security wise it is a bit of a mixed bag all over the world. Some airports are utterly insane, Frankfurt with it’s double check and second x-ray strikes me as the most OTT. Heathrow T-4 now has full body scanners which are interesting, although seeing naked 3D images of yourself can be a little weird.
I’ve never had security staff maiking silly comments. I’d report them myself.
I’ve flown out of Heathrow several times recently and found the security to be the same as ever – apart from the fact that the inane ‘did you pack your own bags’ questions don’t get asked any more.
Flying out of Manila I think my hand luggage was scanned 4 times at 4 different points in the airport, and I had to go through 2 pat-downs and 4 metal detectors. All were conducted in a superbly professional and thorough manner, without adding any significant delay. The trick seems to be scanning people at the ‘far end’ not the ‘near end’ i.e. you scan the hand luggage and do the pat-down at the gate, not at the ‘entrance to the gate complex.’ You need more staff and more scanners, of course, but it reduces the backlog significantly.
I suppose filming the security checkpoint whilst they search you and yours is probably a no-no. “Well gee, officer, if you’re doing nothing wrong, you haven’t anything to worry about, now do you?” Yeah, that’ll go over like a mighty breaking of wind in a job interview.
Don’t bother putting your hairbrush in the hold baggage. This time it was the hairbrush, next time it will be something else. You can never tell what they’re going to go nuts over.
I have sometimes wondered whether packing a Koran might scare them off the searches. We old white guys get searched a lot.
The US Federal government has been mandating locked containers for interstate travel for awhile, so having the same requirement carry over to flying is sort of unsurprising.
“Oh, and the next time I fly down I’ll take a couple of porn magazines to really give some security jobsworth the vapours. Heh.”
I recommend Swank, Just 18 and Penthouse. The hardcore stuff that’ll knock ’em for a loop.
Oh, also a vibrator. It’ll work better if you’re traveling alone. It’s one thing if you’re with your woman but if you’re alone they’ll just about shit themselves.
It is company policy never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. We always use the indefinite article, “a dildo”, never… “your dildo”.
Of course the obvious answer to dealing with lowlife security guards like those is, “I’d lend you the book dear, but I’m not sure you wouldn’t understand it without the accompanying pictures and space for you to trace the letters with your index finger”.
Oh, yes, pack a dildo and some other interesting sex toys, and watch the inspector freak out. A female friend of mine coming back from a holiday weekend away with her husband reported that the poor luggage inspector turned as red as a beet and about wanted to sink through the floor, when he found some “toys” in her carry-on.
You can have lots of fun with this… even before you get to the destination…
Oh, yes, pack a dildo and some other interesting sex toys, and watch the inspector freak out. A female friend of mine coming back from a holiday weekend away with her husband reported that the poor luggage inspector turned as red as a beet and about wanted to sink through the floor, when he found some “toys” in her carry-on.
You can have lots of fun with this… even before you get to the destination…
Well, at least you didn’t have a zip tie locking your checked bag shut. I got that out of O’Hare.
Isn’t that contradicting their requirement for no locks?
I got pulled for a bag check because of a bookmark once.
Of course, it was a metal bookmark, so I can completely understand.
(My husband, however, got the full deal once when he flew out to drive me to a new state— 1. Male 2. flying alone 3. one-way 4. with a ticket purchased over the Internet 5. less than a week before. He says he now knows what the “full screen” code looks like.)
One of my most embarassing moments – having the zip break on my toybag (I’m talking leather here) while leaving the luggage collection area at Wellington airport, but I won’t dwell on that now.
My manager at work says she has had several pairs of eyebrow tweezers confiscated at airports. I guess they must be worried that one day you, with your hairbrush, and she with her tweezers will break into the cockpit and give the pilot a makeover,