“Well, I’d rather be bored than dead.” – My daughter, contemplating a return flight next week, America to London, without a book in her hand luggage.
Same daughter, comtemplating a 35 hour journey from Virginia to Malaysia with a rambunctious two-and-a- half-year-old in December and without any toys, books or dvd player of teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine: “The flight attendants can’t throw us out of the plane, can they?”
I don’t understand how a book can be a lethal weapon. Severe paper cuts?
Obviously there are bigger things to worry about in the current climate, but when I read that PDAs, laptops and electronic doodads were all being banned I thought ‘never mind, there’s always a book’ Seems not.
Problem is these restrictions will slowly get more severe. US and British citizens want – demand – to feel invulnerable. Anything that threatens this will be eliminated in dramatic overkill, whether it’s your hair gel or Saddam Hussein. Until people learn to live with risk this folly will continue.
Wonder if a book can be saturated with chemicals to make an instant explosive…
The no book thing initially was so as not to increase delays any further. Imagine searching all books. You’ll find that restriction will ease — or all the airport bookshops will go out of business and they won’t let that happen.
I think Russell’s right about Western society expectations — we have entitlement issues about pretty much everything and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Mind you, after living so long experiencing unimpeded travel it’s not unrealistic that people are a bit pissy. I am.
It’ll settle.
*It’s overkill, people!*
I love that “you can take keys in, but no electronic key gadget thingys”. Hands up, how many people still drive cars without the electronic central locking gizmo? I bet not many who drive a car which isn’t older than seven years or so. And just WHAT are you supposed to do with your car keys when you get to the airport? Go “hey presto” and make them disappear? Or simply swallow them and, er, let’s not be any more disgusting than we have to…
And toothpaste. TOOTHPASTE. Really.
They’re allowing baby food. What’s to stop someone determined to blow something up from grabbing a generic baby from someplace and bringing on its “baby food”? If they’re planning to blow up an entire planeload of people an extra baby more or less isn’t really going to make them lose any sleep. And the rest of us aren’t any safer with baby formula on board than we would be if we had our toothpaste with us. Feh.
And don’t forget this – has a potential suicide bomber EVER been stopped getting on to a plane by a thorough search?
They are stopped – if they are stopped – by police work, by snitches and informants, and in one memorable case by the passengers themselves.
Well, at least I know my daughters (the other is heading this way next week from UK) won’t suffer any horrendous paper cuts on the way…