George Orwell's 1984 always springs to mind and it starts as soon as you turn into the airport entrance, bright red double lines controls your passage directing "no stopping" not even to drop off, controlled or policed by CCTV equipped vans with a trigger happy attendant ready to record the slightest of suggestion that you simply dropping someone off
you are simply directed to conform to the eventuality of having to "conform" and pay the £5:00, before you even realise it you have entered the neck of the conformability net you are captured and your only option is to conform to the all seeing higher authority for the next "how ever long it takes" before you can exit the net leaving the airport at your destination.
For the next few hours or so even everything you do is controlled by a this higher authority. Information boards control your very being.when to move, where to move and more importantly with what you move.
I will admit now it was completely my fault when Ryan airways said you could only have a "cabin bag" With the dimensions of 40cm by 25cm by 20 cm I really thought they meant it not that if you paid the extra for priority the small suitcase that you packed and repacked to within a gram if it's 10 kgs limit it would miraculously become acceptable for the cabin I just assumed it would be placed along with the massive case containing helmet trousers and all the other biking paraphernalia into the hold.
Hence the problem, as we walked from baggage drop to security panic seized me as it slowly dawned upon me that the little bag that I was now wheeling towards security contained not only an adjustable wrench , various ram mounts and fixings including the spanner to fit them but horror of horrors my prize possession my engraved Swiss Army knife. Now I only know to well with what happens to Swiss Army knives at security. I have see the boxes of those confiscated at auction and have even bought a few. but mine was special my was engraved to Dad. It was my boys first real present that they had given me. The first thing they had collaboratively thought and bought together it's probably my most precious procession and as I marched forward in this Orwellian procession towards the all seeing security camera I knew I was going to lose it "forever" there was nothing I could do you can't go back you just March forward I felt like those condemned French royalist must have felt walking towards the guillotine knowing and accepting their fate.
Marching closer and closer I racked my brain as to possible methods of saving my knife the rest would be an inconvenience at best but losing my knife a disaster and I disaster that I could have avoided if only I had known that sense and sensibility and airlines just don't go together how can a bag suddenly become acceptable simply because you paid more for it. Simple ITS A BUSINESS it's not real tangible descion making its business inspired decisions and your caught in it
it what seemed seconds I was stripping off and placing all my worldly goods into those need little plastic trays I was carrying so much it took four trays one with my cabin bag complete with Swiss Army knife wrench and other pharaphinally Another for my boots one for my jacket and one for my back pack the one bag that I had packed knowing that it was subject of scrutiny the bag without my Swiss Army knife the one that would easily fit into their 40 x 25 x 20 checking cage The one that despite its size weighted over 15 kgs but hey ho there is only a limit on dimensions not weight.
I was whisked off in a separate direction to now, boot less and jacket less, walk through scanners and pat downs security checks as my four trays of property marched off to their own destiny. My euphoria of not hearing alarms bells and whistles was short lived when I saw my four trays had become separated thread three where on one side of a Perspex partition and the fourth containing my "cabin bag" sat alone on the far side of the separation
"Can't take that" the Orwellian security officer announced Oh what's that I replied well the adjustable spanner the two small spanner's and the multi tool as well as that pointing to a long thin item of which I had no clue
I muttered an apology some thing he must hear a hundred times a day and waited for the click that preceded the drop of the guillotine blade when I would be separated permanently from my priceless well to me priceless knife" You can't take that " he started "Yes I know" I was about to say when he continued "it will have to be checked in and go in the hold" what a reprieve and I was not about to say " oh I can see what's pin is jamming the blade from dropping when I thought better I took the offending bag and was escorted back out into the check in hall
I had to run unfortunately not with just the case but everything I had reprieved but conditional I had to go back to go and pass go with out collecting £200 back to the start back to check in
this time fortunately I was confronted with an empty check in ok it cost me an extra £30 but so worth it making my knife even more sentimental to me realising that it has so closely met the executioner blade.
Cabin bag checked in complete with Knife I now had to run the gauntlet yet again from the very start fortunately this time I got through and the rest of the story can come later.
Sent from my iPhone
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