Plastic bag man rides again
The terrorists must be quaking in their suicide boxer shorts with this transparent plastic bag, for containers of fluids no greater in volume than 100ml, rule we are all now suffering under flying within the European Union and north America. And they would feel particularly thwarted in their evil attempts to drive all non-Arabs out of the Middle East (a stated aim of al-Qaeda by the way) and then convert Europe and America to their idiotic ideology (another al-Qaeda aim) if they got to Arlanda airport in Stockholm.
First of all the devious Swedes have ensured that if you arrive at terminal one you have no way of finding out what flights there are at the other terminals or even if there are other terminals until you exit to the kerbside. And to go one better, once you reach terminal four via badly positioned signs for terminals two, three and it, and the irritating slopes that are moving walkways a'la Paris Charles de Gaulle satellite silliness there are no signs to indicate that you are actually in terminal four, which of course logically follows terminal one, with terminals two and three at the end of a rainbow apparently. But the true fun is yet to come.
With my travel sized toothpaste, shaving gel, disposable contact lenses, shampoo/conditioner combo and deodorant stick in my London Heathrow (LHR) security staff provided "re-sealable" plastic bag I confidently walk towards another escalator in the alleged terminal four, to reach the x-ray machine and metal detector and accompanying munchkins.
"Stop", the young male airport employee says.
"Why?", I ask.
"You do not have the correct plastic bag," says he, sounding remarkably like the Swedish chef from the US children's show The Muppets - but not as coherent.
"What?"
"Yes, you need this one," he holds up the transparent bag. It is slightly larger than my LHR bag and instead of the adhesive sealant the LHR bag has, it has one of those lips arrangements that you force together: its the best description I can come up with, prizes for those who can do better, answers on a postcard please. I hold up my LHR bag, the employee, now joined by a colleague, looks blankly at me. I look back at them, thinking, "you have got to be joking."
This situation is another example of the way our societies overreact, where certain sections of the media whip up hysteria, politicians feel the need to be seen doing something, anything (and jobs worths enforce the silly rules), and other groups exploit such controversy for their own ends. For example where peoples in conflicts are divided by physical and cultural differences some seek to gag opinions about what one or both sides of a conflict are doing by using that catch-all term, racism. When we should be reminding people that tolerance, including a sense of humour, is the key to us living side by side. I have always found that people who throw around the word racism also use the word progressive to describe their politics. They love to liberally use words like racism to describe anyone with a different point of view. That and the word progressive is used to imply that only their ideas will advance humanity.
Back at terminal four it is still an impasse, checkmate, if you will, with an international incident only one Zidane head butt away. I eventually give in, life is too short, I tear my LHR bag and the airport chap kindly opens one of the "correct" bags and I drop my gels, pastes and fluids into it. I walk away struggling to seal the damn thing and as I float up the escalator I realise that in the airport's shops I have not seen a single packet of the Swedish confectionary called "Plop".
Damn, those terrorists have got us on the ropes already or Swedish standards really are slipping.
