Chris Saul's Blog

Saturday November 11, 2006

The aerosol of doom

Flying back from Vienna on Wednesday I was faced with a stark choice. Drop my deodorant and shaving foam of doom in the bin provided by airport security, or stick my bag in the hold and add up to 45 minutes to my journey whilst waiting for it to arrive at the other end.

All 'containers' of more than 100ml had to be either checked in or thrown away. Those of 100ml and under had to be carried through security in a clear plastic bag.

I have two responses to this - one is the rational version, the other the mildly ranting.

The first is that I expect that the security services know what they are talking about, that a real threat has been detected and that it involves liquids and aerosols. Some kind of reasonable allowance has to be made and 100ml represents a small, carry on container that can't be used by terrorists to make explosive concoctions. Yes, it could be larger, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. If we told people why it's dangerous to carry these things on board, some nutters might do some internet research and end up doing exactly what we don't want them to do. Passengers will eventually get used to the restrictions, the security threat will be reduced and life will carry on as normal.

The sercond version... This seems utterly pointless as noone can explain what's so dangerous about my 150ml Gillette 'Cool Wave' BO basher or why my shaving foam (with aloe vera) might down a jumbo. What can 150ml of Cool Wave do that 100ml can't? Is a large tube of Colgate really an instrument of death? Why is it that Chris can ship his tools of terrorism quite happily from Dubai to Vienna on Sunday but not from Vienna to Dubai on Wednesday? Is all this really necessary when 6 weeks ago the x-ray machine at Islamabad didn't even notice the shaving foam bottle in my hand luggage, even though I was forced to throw away my deodorant bottle? If the whole process relies on honesty, surely the entire process is radically flawed?

If I worked for a supplier of toothpaste, deo and shaving foam I'd be in raptures. Hundreds of thousands people will now be buying my small but overpriced tubes of modern day essentials at knockup prices in shops and airport duty frees across the world.