Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
so the monitor has just crept closer over the last couple of years and now the security staff
can communicate - OK, they can still only do this by shouting, but it's progress.
I don't begrudge airport security; I travel far too much to let it bother me. Generally if you
obey the rules, there isn't a problem. Where I do get the hump - and I do get the hump - is
when individual airports introduce their own arbitrary rules which differ from other airports.
Surely airport security should be standardised? For instance, Stansted Airport insist that your
toiletries are stored in a clear, sealable plastic bag as does everywhere else, but at Stansted
it must match their dimensions exactly otherwise you have to pay for a packet of four new
ones! That is simple racketeering and is illegal (or should be); Charles de Gaulle Terminal
3 briefly had a policy where only certain types of sandwich could be taken through security,
one week ham and mayo was contraband but the following week salmon and cucumber was
deemed acceptable, apparently fish-based snacks causing less of a threat to aviation security.
Every airport asks you to remove your laptop and phone; Terminal 2E in Paris asks you
to remove everything electrical, cables included. And they watch while you do it. I had just
come through security and felt like my electrical goods had been used in evidence against me
as some kind of dilettante. I could tell the security guard wasn't impressed. She picked up the
laptop and turned it over, for no good reason at all other than to show me who was boss; my
phone she held like it had fallen in dog poo; she had clearly never seen a digital radio and
just tutted at it; I thought she was going to vomit such was her reaction to my compact nasal
hair-trimmer.
It's airport security, you just have to play their game. I once kicked up a fuss at Stansted,
but the small point I was making at six o'clock on a Sunday morning really wasn't worth the
alarm of having a machine gun pointed at me.
Terminal 2E also provides some of the world's most absurdly expensive food - it's like they
thought, collapsing roofs and dignity-stripping isn't quite enough so we'll charge €12 for a
chicken burger and €13 for a
'Jambon, Mimoulette et Poire'
sandwich; that's just ham, cheese
and pear right? Just because you name the cheese doesn't give it €10 extra worth of grav-
itas! But as you wander around the terminal you realise that they have to charge that much to
pay for all the staff. In the space of 200 yards I had my passport and boarding card checked
SEVEN times! On one occasion, I walked 5 yards from one check to the next, the second
check watched the first check take place, eyed me suspiciously in the intervening 5 yards and
then checked my passport with as much sourness as he could muster, clearly believing I could
perpetrate some passport fraud in that small time.
So I was stressed and already tired when Natalie sent her text - my guard was down,
something which I think Natalie has a sixth sense about. A dog, it seems, had 'turned up' at
the gate; a small dog with either a hernia or haemorrhoid problem and the texts, a veritable
flurry of them, were asking what they should do about it. As if my opinion in these matters
counts for anything, as if I ever have a real say in the matter.
