Airport security is a giant exercise in arse-covering — and it doesn’t work (obviously)

Wednesday, 6th January 2010

Hugo Rifkind gives a Shared Opinion

What’s the big deal with aeroplanes, anyway? If you want to get a bomb on to the London Tube or the Madrid train network, even now, then you can leave your bottom alone and just carry the damn thing. Never mind restaurants, or cinemas, or the public bits of airports themselves. Tell me that shadowy counterterrorism operations have made the world a safer place since 9/11, and I’ll take your word for it. But airport security? Before the World Trade Center came down, flying was a breeze, and there was a tiny chance you might get blown up. Now it’s a nightmare, and there’s still a tiny chance you might get blown up. In what way is this progress? Our attitude towards getting onto aeroplanes is starting to look weird. It’s like a disorder. It’s like they’ve won.

Stuck in the snow last week. It was pretty desperate. I was en route back down south from Edinburgh, and the roads were white all the way to Newcastle. You know that feeling you get when something bad is going to happen? I had that. In a blizzard, and somewhere slightly shy of Morpeth, I needed fuel. So I indicated, slowed down, and pulled into the layby that led off to a tiny, steaming petrol station. As it turned out, it was hosting something of a snowdrift. Wrrrrfthfth. The wheels spun and spun. Couldn’t go forwards, couldn’t go backwards. They aren’t built for snow, Skoda Fabias. And, as the blizzard got worse, I started to panic.

‘Hell,’ I thought. ‘I’m stuck in the snow. I knew something bad was going to happen. It’ll take the AA hours to get out here. If they even can! I’d better call the office and tell them I won’t be in tomorrow. Wait. No signal! That’s it. Stranded! Do I have enough warm clothes? Can I survive until morning? Do people ever die of hypothermia on the A1?’

After a good five minutes of scrabbling around in the back for a blanket, I calmed down enough to realise that the petrol station would probably have a telephone. So I opened the door and stepped outside. And then I realised that, while I was indeed stuck in the snow, I wasn’t stuck in very much snow. About seven inches. So I thought for a moment, and then I got down on my hands and knees and pushed it away. It took about three minutes. And then I drove off. I’ve never felt like such a Londoner in my life.

Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.

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stephen maybery

January 8th, 2010 1:24pm Report this comment

I know I am crude, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, but I can not help it. That must have been the mother of all farts.

Kennymac825

January 9th, 2010 5:00pm Report this comment

They know airport screening is ineffective, otherwise, in the USA, you would be able to get up and go to the toilet with less than an hour to go in the flight. Of course these security Einsteins believe that terrorists are too stupid to get up one hour and five minutes before the end of the flight and do their dastardly deed. The lessons from the shoe-bomber have been forgotton or ignored. I don't know how we can feel safe anymore.

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