Beachhutman – The Blog

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Since the recent nastiness involving aircraft, national authorities and the anti-democratic European Union have really stepped up their efforts to annoy airline passengers. They pretend this improves security, which they know is total cock.

Amsterdam Airport in about the worst I know. They are quite honest that the EU in to blame, and they persist in utterly stupid security checks. I fly through Schipol several times a year, and it is simply an annoyance. For example.

As you wander down the long corridors, you can see the checks going on. Some gates have your shoes off, some don’t, some Xray belts, some don’t. Some take laptops out of bags, some don’t. It’s down to chance. That may be “random” checking, or it may be simply that the security staff know it’s bollocks, and make up the rules as they go along. (I saw this happening at east Midlands Airport in Britain, where when the staff changed shift, the incoming shift simply stopped doing the same checks on passengers - on the SAME flight!)

Then there is the idea that bombers are going to try and get their bombs in through the checks. On the air side of each check is a refreshment counter, fully stocked. It would be a easy job to corrupt the staff, or even get a job, and simply bring explosives airside in the stock replenishment. They won’t be x-raying every bag of coffee, every box of chips, every bottle of cola.

Or, as you are planning to blow yourself up anyway, why not just take the bomb through the security check? They never ever inspect the contents of your silly plastic bag of toothpastes and stuff. They frequently miss tubes and bottles left in hand baggage or jackets (It has happened three times to me that I have found stuff that was prohibited in my bag well after arriving at the other end). They ignore even quite large pieces of electrical equipment (back in the 60s it was common to have to turn on a radio to prove it wasn’t full of drugs, but they don’t do that now). They take your shoes off – sometimes – but you can shove whole handfuls of assorted phones and Ipods on the belt and it just goes through.

And of course, Schipol – blame the EU – are blatantly profiteering from the checks. It you turn up with a bag of duty free scotch, bought at a duty free shop other than Schipol, even if sealed, (bag, box, and bottle) they will break the seals and pour it away, telling you to go back and buy one in Schipol duty free.

In UK we have it just as bad, and just as stupidly. After the incident at Glasgow, they started to put barriers up around airport doorways. Now you can’t even drop off a disabled person near the door. Taxis can’t collect. All vehicles have to use the car parks. And uses what? They have all decreased the free drop off periods, so that they get extra revenue from cars forced to use the short stay parks. Security? Complete bollocks.

So what’s the point? Are they saying that we are all at risk from terrorists? Well, we aren’t. The risk of a terrorist attack on a plane or airport is, even without these “measures” is infinitesimal, and has been falling since 9-11 anyway. We take bigger risks getting the bus to work than using an airport.

Or are they saying that determined terrorists, on seeing an x-ray machine, will simply go away? Crap. They will find a way around or through the checks. After all, drug smugglers shove drugs up their bottoms, and so far Schipol hasn’t decide to check THAT location for every passenger.

(But as Europe is now ruled by the cretins and bastards in Brussels, it could happen any day)

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Cross posting. Clicky.

Look, I am well over fifty. OK? No secrets. Well over. 50.

I love my daughter, at university, her last year, but I can’t get my  daughter to reply to mails, emails, texts, chocolate, even to money.

But she sends me Facebook links.

Facebook.

Would YOU use Facebook to retain contact with your child, when all else failed?

This is a cross post linK:

Cross posting, picture link:

Cross posting:

Eating Pizza and drinking beer.

Tonight I went with a colleague to eat pizza and drink beer in “The Tree” in Sanlitun. I don’t do this as a rule, but it was a pleasant change. Really authentic Pizza, wood fired oven, everything. But I found it hard to attune myself to a place where you ordered western food in English, could drink draft Irish stout, and the customers all seemed to be Europeans. We had a great evening, alternately saddened and amused by family events and life experiences we shared.

At lunch I went with the two girls from the office to a local eaterie. We had spicy tripe, cold glutinous noodles in chilli sauce, and shredded tofu and cucumber. I was the only Laowai in the place. We had a great lunch together, although they did press me on Tibet, and why the Westerners are making such a FUSS about a lump of Himalaya.

In about three weeks I return to Europe for a change of scenery, and change of pace. I need the break in routine, I am quite seriously exhausted now, and the weekends are now not giving me time to recuperate from typically 80  hour weeks.