A Lovely Day for a Guiness

It's a Lovely Day, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

A better day for a Guiness than a day for flying, it seems. I am now in the departure area of London City airport, waiting for my delayed flight back to Amsterdam. They have taken my briefcase off me because the Home Office thinks that more than one piece of hand baggage is a security threat, and this wuill delay me a further half an houtr the other end, when I have to wait for it to come through. Oh the joys (not) of travelling.

I read in the newspaper on the way here that the police at Glastonbury are carrying hidden cameras in their clothes as they wander around. Pictures/live video will be streamed into a special unit where the polifce will be checking for people taking drugs, Thre is going to be a tough stance against drug taking this year. Why? What is wrong with a bit of cannabis? Why will there be so many hundreds of police on patrol at Glastonbury? And you can be assured that there will be hundreds of security people of various costumes wandering around. It was like this at The Derby three weeks ago. It never used to be like this. There used to be more people in the early 80's and there were never any incidents. What has changed? May be the security firm bosses have friends in high places and are able to earn lots of money on these jollys.

It would have been 22 years ago at Royal Ascot. I was up in London on one of my accountancy courses. It was my birthday and it was also Royal Ascot. I skived off the afternoon session and took a train to Ascot to find that the tickets had all been sold out (this was at a time when such events were never sold out). So desperate I was to get ion that I wandered around the periferal fence and found an opportunity to climb up a wire fence and jump down into a hedge of conifers the other side, an opportunity which I took up, without so much as a sprained ankle. Nobody saw me, nobody was even looking. This would not happen these days, as every twenty yards there would be someone in unifrom patrolling.

What I DO think IS a safety danger ios that there are so many hundreds of people in this small departure lounge, more than its proper safe capacity, I should think. There is hardly even any standing space and the air is very stuffy. If a fire were to break out I can quite imagine that many people would be killed in the crush to get out, not that thre are ANY fire doors to be seen. This is allowed and yet my briefcase is not allowed. What a load of nonsense.

Now I have had my rant maybe I can join the crush at the bar and order my pint of Guiness. Mmmmmmmm!!!!