Just spent a few days in Firenze, Italy with my daughter. We had a great time and I managed to achieve one of my childhood ambitions; I finally got to visit the Uffizi Gallery.
But that's not what this story's about. It's about fucked-up airport security...
I have to go into the past. Not, you understand, the distant past, just a few weeks ago...
A few weeks ago, I went to visit my mum in Liverpool. We had the usual two weeks of chatting, fighting and gardening. I knew that, as usual, I would get some cuttings from the various bits of plants that had fallen off since my last visit. Since my mum has always sworn by a plant food called "Baby Bio", I bought a bottle of the stuff to take home with me and nurture the fragile cuttings.
It wasn't until I got to the start of the security line of John Lennon International Airport that I realised that, firmly ensconced in my hand-luggage, there was a full bottle of liquid, nitrogen-based fertiliser. PANIC!!! What to do? Throw myself on the mercy of the courts? This in the same week as a group of (albeit brown) people had been sentenced in the UK courts to kazillions of years in prison for CONSPIRING to smuggle explosive liquids onto planes. Not doing it, just planning to, maybe, do it. No chance that these kids would have bottled out at the last minute, they had conspired, and English jurisprudence often carries heavier sentences for conspiracy that for committing the actual offence. But, no matter...
I decided to bottle it out (haha). Put my bag, jacket, cell phone money, etc. on the belt and walked through the detection port, confident that I had nothing to set it off...but no! I had to take off my boots! They're Timberland types, no metal in then anywhere and a bugger to lace up, but never mind, they had to come off.
When I got to the other side, my bag was going through the x-ray device a second time. PANIC EVEN MORE!!! But, no, I just took my bag from the belt and went on to board the plane.
And didn't have any more hassle until last Tuesday at Galileo Galilei Airport, Pisa...
I'd flown to Italy with my trusty aluminium camera tripod attached to the outside of my bag. The security at Eindhoven Airport didn't even comment on it. I used the "device" frequently in Florence and Pisa and strapped it on in the same way for the return journey. Airport security didn't like this (I assume the security guard thought I might use the legs to stab the pilot!) and ordered me to return to the check-in desk - 20 minutes before departure! All protests being in vain I ran back through the queues of people waiting to be ritually humiliated by the security staff.
Got to the airline check-in desk and they young "lady" there informed me that it would have to go as hold baggage and it would cost me $40 for the privilege. Since it wasn't worth that much, I told her to keep it and went back to the security desk where I insulted the security guard, her parents, the whole of the population of Italy and aiport personnel throughout the world. Luckily she didn't understand a word I said or I'd now be basking in an Italian jail.
I then proceeded to the duty-free area where I bought a bottle of liquer for the mother of my children...and that's when I realised that airporty security is not about protecting passengers, it's about terrorising them...
I stood there with a twelve inch-long bottle of Italian booze and realised that with one smack across the back of my airline seat I would have a stabbing implement that would make a box-cutter look like a toy.
I realised that, should I stuff a piece of rolled-up newspaper in the neck of the bottle I would have a molotov cocktail that would wreak as much havoc in an aircraft as any bomb (you have to know how flammable those things really are!).
I realised that if 4 people went through the duty free area and each bought two bottles of vodka or scotch as opposed to my sugary, lemon-based liqueur they could do even more damage AND THEY WOULD HAVE PASSED THROUGH "AIRPORT SECURITY" WITHOUT A SINGLE "BLIP".
I realised that "airport security" is a sham. If the evil hordes want to get us in the air, they can. If we want to take steps to really reduce the risks we have to ban all sales on the other side of the airport (what the professionals call "airside") and they ain't gonna do that, because those companies pay the rent.
(I also realise that, since "Echelon" monitors all mail, and this one is packed with "key words" I can expect a visit from "them" purty soon...but I don't care because I'm pissed off with being terrorised at airports by people who are being paid out of MY pocket to do it...and I'm especially pissed off because they keep telling me it's in the interests of "my safety")
