Come on Mr Traveller, PLEASE try it on!

[Nick]

Well so far this blog has seen me accused of being deliberately ignorant, uninformed, misinformed, opinionated, selfish, narrow-minded, stubborn and, in one particularly vociferous e-mail, a spineless git who hides behind a forum name.

All well and good, everyone is allowed to have an opinion, even if that opinion is so obviously wrong... and anyway, what good is the opinion of someone who can’t even figure out that my forum name IS my real name... and to get my full name all they need to do is read HEXUS.gaming?

So anyway, we come to this latest terrorist plot, this time to blow up trans-Atlantic jets by mixing a bomb on-board the plane.

To my mind, this is perfectly possible to actually do. All you’d need is a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry and in fact, you’d not even need a big bomb, just something large enough to punch a hole in the pressure hull of the jet... they don’t call it explosive decompression for nothing you know. Whilst I’ve yet to hear of the decompression going on for ages like you see in the films, with the ubiquitous heroic air stewardess clinging to a seat strap with one hand and catching passing children with the other, I do know that decompression is a pretty catastrophic event...

Anyway, the alleged plot (note the legal get out clause there), has of course caused a massive clamp down on security meaning that I’m now not allowed to take my lipstick or baby milk on board the aircraft.

As usual, we managed to utterly over-react for the first few days, cancelling flights all over the place and forcing people to board planes armed only with their underwear and a passport... Still, at least we did better this time around and, so far, we’ve managed not to shoot anyone for no particular reason, which is always a bonus.

Last Tuesday I was boarding a flight to Germany and this Friday I’ll be boarding another flight to Germany. I’ve been told to turn up at the airport THREE HOURS before take-off. THREE BLOODY HOURS!

I’m in no way one of those stupid sods who think they can roll up for a flight 20 minutes before take-off but at the same time, 3 hours? Good lord, I could walk most of the distance in that time.

But hang on a second, why do I have to roll up so early? Ok, we’ve got tighter security and all that, but surely if I follow the new rules I’ll just breeze through?

As it turned out, for my flight last Tuesday I did indeed just breeze through security... when I finally made it TO security. You see, it’s not the extra, stricter security that’s causing the problem... it’s the stupid bloody passengers who think that the new rules are rough guidelines and that the rules don’t apply to them.

Let me tell you something, Mr Traveller, and this is a life lesson, ok? You are NOT special. No matter how much your mother told you that you are, you are NOT special. I am not special, nor is the family of four behind me or the old man in front of me. In the scheme of humanity, none of us are special. And because you’re not special, the rules apply to you just as they apply to me.

So why not listen to the girl at check in when she says that the shoulder bag you’re carrying is too big for cabin luggage. And you, Mr Business traveller with your ‘mini’ suitcase on wheels that you could smuggle a small child in. THAT is waaaay outside the size limits and neither I, the family of four behind me or the security guard are in the least bit interested if that is the way you used to travel, bugger off back to check-in and check the bloody suitcase in!

Of course, because you didn’t think the rules applied to you, you now have to visit check-in twice, which takes them twice as long to deal with you than if you’d just visited once. And you have to queue for security again, even though you’ve queued once already before being turned away.

So, all you travellers that think you have a good excuse for not meeting the guidelines, YOU’RE the reason that I have to get to the airport so bloody early as YOU are taking twice as long to be processed because YOU are the deliberately ignorant, uninformed, misinformed, opinionated, selfish, narrow-minded and stubborn one.... NOT me!

So, when you’re trudging back to check in, make sure you have a good look over your shoulder as you’ll see me this Friday, at around 4am, openly laughing at you, whilst at the same time wishing that the security guards would maybe have a quota for internal searches and trying to argue your way past the security check bumps you to the top of the list... and believe me, we saw a man lubing his glove up, so by all means try your luck...

[Howard]

Bang on.

I must say, I flew out from Heathrow last wednesday (back yesterday) and it was actually very organised. I really didn't need to turn up as early as I did, but it was all rather smooth, with only a small number of cretins trying to jam huge bags into the measuring cages and then looking annoyed as it clearly doesn't fit... Only for me to laugh quietly to myself... It's not like there's a thousand signs all over the place.. Literally... Detailing any of this

But hey, not everyone has access to a newspaper, television and internet I suppose

I managed to find a backpack small enough that I could carry my camera etc in (Nick knows, I was chatting to him on MSN about it, knowing he's a frequent flyer ) and I just packed my camera into my camera bag at the other end. Dublin's security is of course a little more lax, and I carried that back to the UK with no problem

[dangel]

Nick = candidate for a heart attack

[directhex]

mixing an explosive on a plane actually requires several litres of concentrated acid, a full-on distillery including fractionating column, and working conditions of about -30c

you also need space equivalent to about half of the first class area, and a few hours.

let's not pretend the "security measures" are anything but farcical

[Nick]

Depends what kind of explosive you're going for, Hex, and how much.

A tennis ball stuffed with matches would make enough of a bang and do enough damage.

Don't forget a pressurised plane is essentially an aluminium skinned balloon... exploit a weakpoint and it'll pop.

[directhex]

Depends what kind of explosive you're going for, Hex, and how much.

A tennis ball stuffed with matches would make enough of a bang and do enough damage.

Don't forget a pressurised plane is essentially an aluminium skinned balloon... exploit a weakpoint and it'll pop.

sure. but they weren't targetting tennis balls with the latest round of bollocks, they were targetting the supposed ability to sneak a couple of inert chemicals on in water bottles, and mix them to make some powerful explosive.



feel safer?

[Howard]

sure. but they weren't targetting tennis balls with the latest round of bollocks, they were targetting the supposed ability to sneak a couple of inert chemicals on in water bottles, and mix them to make some powerful explosive.



feel safer?

How silly is that? If you have a couple of bottled liquids you need to mix to make them go bang... "Please pour those bottles into this barrel please sir"
"Alright then"
*bang*

[directhex]

How silly is that? If you have a couple of bottled liquids you need to mix to make them go bang... "Please pour those bottles into this barrel please sir"
"Alright then"
*bang*

security theatre. it's complete & utter bollocks. the act of doing pointless **** & causing havok, so that it looks kinda like you're doing something.

guess how many commercial airships have been blown up (i.e. not hijacked or attacked by geese) mid-flight without having missiles fired at them? hint, that includes zeppelin incidents (such as the hinderburg)

[Lee H]

nail and head yet again Nick.