It took two years and many trips on planes for TheLab™ to figure out how to transport one multi-part video camera, digital SLR, several lenses, a laptop computer and other sensitive equipment without having to rely on the troglodytes that always get hired to load planes with luggage.
It is a thing of beauty to see all of our gear packaged up in one back-pack and one small shoulder bag in such a covert way that not even the most beady eyed, knife wielding mugger/git has the foggiest idea what is contained within.
Sadly the worlds most ridiculous (alleged) terrorists, who are of course all British, have made transporting all that equipment across international borders a complete nightmare of Muppet Proof™ cases and oversize baggage claim which is always 1000 yards further away than normal baggage claim.
From the information gathered thus far it seems our homegrown uber villains, having watched Die Hard With A Vengeance, 24 and Executive Decision one evening, thought to themselves that blowing aircraft out of the sky with ‘binary explosives’ was the way to go and set about putting their evil plans into action.
Sadly, this is where the ridiculous part comes in, they apparently forgot to have some of the basics in place; like passports, plane tickets and the aforementioned binary explosives.
It turns out that binary bombs (combining inert substances together to make really nasty substances) is rather difficult in a large lab (not unlike ours) never mind in the confines of an on-board toilet with turbulence, the smell and 20 passengers waiting outside wondering what the hell you’re upto whilst getting rather alarmed at the heavy smoke billowing out from under the door.
Further comedy/tragedy can be attributed to this hapless group of (alleged) fruit baskets when the police announced, we presume with a straight face, that these clowns had ‘terrorist training camps’ in the Lake District! (stop chuckling at the back!)
The security services response to all of this is to ban shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick on planes and restrict hand luggage to anything smaller than Sainsbury’s carrier bag. Add that to the police saying they had prevented ‘murder on an unprecedented scale’ (which of course they hadn’t at all) and you have a recipe for mass panic, fear, paranoia, disruption and a drop in Ryanair’s profits (which in itself is not a bad thing) and all of this was completely avoidable and unnecessary.
Have a nice read of the two articles linked below, because if a member of TheLab™ is behind you in line at an airport and we hear you say “it’s better to be safe than sorry” you’ll be paying a visit to hospital to get an aluminum tripod removed from your…… (snip! that’s quite enough from you old chap, Ed!)
