The joys of air travel

As I type this I'm cruising at about 30'000 feet, (which is quite high, even by my standards) somewhere over Siberia, on what feels like a flight that could only get worse if the cabin crew asked us nicely if we wouldn't mind popping our arms out the window and flapping them up and down for a while.

Suffice to say, this, as with pretty much everything else on this blog, is going to be a bit ranty. So buckle up and get comfortable, as the emergency exits are only painted on, and you're going to be here for a while.

Air travel is shit. From the moment you get to the airport, to the second you leave the next one. You arrive at security where you're asked to strip practically naked, be casually groped by someone so unappealing that you're pretty much certain that their job satisfaction comes from a less than conventional angle, and then someone waves something scary at you, and empties your bag on the floor. Thus completing an experience that I was promised wouldn't happen again once I stopped  doing PE at school.

So why? Security apparently. They don't want you taking explosive death fluids on planes. Which, on the surface seems entirely reasonable, until you notice what they do with them. 

Once your vicious looking bottle of middle class mineral water has been removed for being the threat that it is, this, supposedly highly dangerous, and/or explosive mixture is, quite literally, thrown in a massive bin full of other explosive highly dangerous things right in front of you. Don't believe me? Then you've never flown from Gatwick. They literally fling all these potential bombs into one massive container, or super bomb if you will, right next to the security check point, and expect you not to realise that they're taking the piss. Frankly at that point they might as well drop their trousers and start slapping you in the face with something floppy and ask if you'll blindly accept that too.

Right now you might be thinking that it's for the greater good. Fair enough. You're an idiot, but at least you've made it easier for the rest of us to spot you. That of course is because the actual stupidity started 24 hours earlier with the concept of the 'online check-in'. Where we're basically asked by an inanimate object to promise not to put any nasties in our luggage, on what can at best be described as history's most laughable honor system. Let's face it, humanity stopped clicking on anything other than 'I agree' the second iTunes started its ceaseless T&Cs barrage, and nobody has ever used the Internet for anything that wasn't at best a mask for something morally dubious.

So, hand luggage is a mockery, checked in luggage is laughable, body scanners are staffed by perverts, and not once when I've been quizzed about bringing on any weapons or general pointy things with me has anyone ever asked if I'm a Ninja.

How's that secure feeling working out for you?

Lets get on the plane.

You're spending 12 hours on a metal tube hurtling through the sky. 60% of the other passengers are on day release, 20% are under the age of 5, and the remainder have locked themselves into the one working toilet. Then finally you find yourself sat next to someone who's last shower was apparently administered when they were walking under a window in Victorian London (that was clever, look it up if you don't get it). Then at some point a homosexual will ask you what you'd like to eat, pay literally no attention to your answer, and present you with something that looks like it was originally prepared in the mess room on the Ark, and has just this second been reheated for your culinary pleasure. What a treat!

This is usually the point where you give up, and turn to that last bastion of hope, the in flight entertainment system. In my case being one of the 5 people on this flight for whom it works, initially left me feeling immeasurably smug. But as I said, right now I'm writing a blog on a plane, and not, obviously, enjoying a selection of Hollywood hits. That, quite simply is due to one very simple thing. I clicked on 'movies' and the first thing it deemed to present me with were the words "Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Part 1."

Don't damn me

It’s a strange experience arguing security logic with the police. Particularly in the lifts at work. The real problem isn’t with the debate, it’s with the discovery that the person you’re debating it with is less intelligent than the chair I’m sitting in, and the fact that if you make them look too bad they’ll probably decide to cuff you and ship you to Cuba, anyway........

Let me set the scene, I work in the same building as a police training centre London. The security here is dire, and the security barriers can just be walked through by anyone over the height of about 6’4”. They’re also un-responsive and generally crap, so a lot of the time I just walk through them. I shouldn’t, but I do. The few people who notice me do this tend to laugh. Not once have I ever been told off for doing so, and I’ve been doing it for months. Until today. Today one of the police women from the training centre decided to have a go at me for “ruining the security of the entire building”. Fair enough to have a go at me, I’d been wondering how long it might take, but what followed was one of the most earth shattering failures to understand the basic concept of security that you’ve ever seen, and it went, a little something, like this (my thoughts in italics kids):

PW: “Did you just bust through that security barrier?”

Me: “Well, I walked through it yeah, I often don’t use my card because I don’t need to and the barriers are painfully slow to respond after people go through them.”

PW: “Can I see you pass then, I don’t believe you’ve got one.”

Me: “Sure.” Deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt over the fact that she just that second watched me use it to access the lift.

PW: “Do you realise you’re putting us all at risk by walking through the security barriers?”

Me: “I don’t really consider them security barriers if you can just walk through them, surely that somewhat defeats the point of having the barriers in the first place”

PW “I don’t care about that, you’ve just put us all in danger.”

Me: “Surely the fact that I ‘can’ do that is what puts us in danger, not the fact that I ‘did’ do that.”

PW:”I don’t care if you can do it, by not following security procedures we’re all at risk”

So, had I just used my pass like a good little automaton we’d all be dandy, and you’d be blissfully ignorant, but by pointing out a fundamental flaw in the process I’ve now endangered you? Oh I do beg to differ.....

Me, somewhat stunned by the logic: “I’ve done this hundreds of times...”

PW: “I don’t care how many times you’ve done it security procedures are there for a reason!”

WHAT! You just decided to complain to me about doing so and you’ve no interest in how many times I’ve done it. You’re talking about building security, and you’ve no interest what so ever in the fact that for several months I’ve been walking through security barriers completely unchecked, and the in all that time you’re the only person to EVER mention it?

You really have to worry. Ultimately she was right to have a go at me. But I’m a little more concerned that the Met’s finest decided that rather than flag their concerns with the security of the entire building, she decided that it was actually a personal issue entirely involving me. That’s not security, that’s idiocy.