Are biscuits a terrorist threat?

Why can’t you take biscuits on board at JFK, when computer games are fine at La Guardia? Rod Liddle, in the US, is mystified

Aurora, Illinois

I’m here to look at a particle accelerator. They’ve got a big one in Aurora, Illinois, all these neutrinos whizzing round and round, wishing they were anywhere but here — and with some justification. Aurora is too distant to properly associate itself with Chicago, 40 miles to the east, but sufficiently attached to the city to not exist in its own right. A desolate concrete ‘hi-tech’ suburb, a hastily tarmac-adamed prairie festooned with Taco Bells, pay-day loan outlets and anti-matter. A sort of endless Slough, except without the charm.

Here’s a guess, though: particle accelerators are one of those things which you’re still not allowed to take as hand baggage on flights out of British airports. I think we can be pretty sure about that. It may be the only thing we can be sure about. When I flew out last Saturday you could take absolutely nothing as hand luggage, not even the huge

family-size packs of Nicorette chewing gum which I need for flights of more than two hours. The rules were at least straightforward, even if they seemed absurd: no hand baggage, nothing, nada. OK, maybe a sanitary towel or two, but even then make sure you carry it in a transparent plastic bag.

Since then I’ve been through a further four airports, all in the US, and each time the rules have changed. Everybody is still pretty worried about liquids, especially liquids of a medical or pseudo-medical nature, or hi-energy drinks — but those other taboos change by the minute. At JFK you were not allowed to board a plane with biscuits, even if they were in an unopened packet.