Back to current affairs

Apparently I have been blogging writing way too much about history and despite my best attempts, there was insufficient sarcasm. Sort of like the insufficient dose of ammonia in beef. Yes - they were injecting beef with ammonia in an attempt to reduce bacterial infection. Yet people still try to use the bankrupt morality argument (plants are alive too, so there!) as an excuse to berate vegetarianism, when sheer sustainability - economics and energy efficiency - is sufficient to establish its superiority.

Anyway, finally the authorities have cottoned on to the next big danger to humanity. I am of course talking about duty-free shopping at the airports. Excerpt: "[Rainer Wendt, German police union chief] said the European Union should 'introduce as quickly as possible an EU-wide ban on selling potentially dangerous items like alcohol, perfume and similar things.' Mr Wendt also said it was absurd that metal cutlery was available in airside restaurants and that in some cases cleaning chemicals were lying around 'that a resourceful person could make a bomb with'".


Indeed. What is this man smoking? I don't know, but it could be that he inhaled out of a large vat of, "Dune" (I believe this is the name of the perfume in my mind). This was the rage among women when I was a horny young man, and smelled roughly the same as a crushed bug during summers, where I grew up, except only much worse. One moment I would be fantasizing about a night of plenty (ahem!) with my date, the next I would be running out the restaurant leaving a sorry trail of bread crumbs. Too bad they had not invented the "fake call application" back then. Too bad they had not invented cell phones back then, come to think of it. I'd reckon a few broken bottles of "Dune" will cause instant death by disgust. I am sure there are more youthful perfume counterparts in the market today, but these days I do not go past the fantasizing. Nothing ventured, nothing pained.

Speaking of things liquid, can you imagine what a liter of booze could do? That's right, the chances of getting knocked out by a hefty bottle of liquor are much higher than getting a pinprick from a nail clipper. You have the slim mace-type weapon family, comprising most normal bottles; the Viking edition, comprising bottles fatter at the bottom such as those for Drambuie and Baileys; the art-deco version exemplified by the angular Cointreau bottle (used mainly by Euro-trash); and the super-slim ones reserved for dessert and ice wines so that young children and old ladies may also participate in hijacking a plane. All this is for hitting people over the head, of course, what's inside be damned. But then again, frankly, anyone who has actually drunk tequila knows that it is nothing but liquefied propane and is routinely used to fuel space vehicles - why do you think those guys are "floating" around "up there"?

Next up we have the trinket / memorabilia shop. In Australia they sell rocket-launchers, purportedly as some kind of Aborigine wind instrument called "didgeridoo". Yeah right - what a hoot. Not to mention the cheeses of various European countries which are known to cause immediate death, if not general pandemonium, by projective vomit; "Delhi belly-up" served up at South-Asian airports; ginseng root, frog ovaries, melamine and assorted deadly microbes skilfully (and cheaply) combined and packaged, at Chinese ones; and, darn this list could go on but I will get too much hate mail. You get the picture.


Then we have duty free salespersons. There are many variations. Take the ones that man the boutiques, such as the Scotch section - if you let them on the plane, they will hound the pilot ("Have a sip sir! Just one sip!! It's free!!!) until he is drunk as a sailor (sorry sailor dudes) and then a midget could take over (sorry midget dudes). Then there are the useless ones that appear just after you have painstakingly chosen your wine using sophisticated parameters (Red = good, white = only for dates) to take your basket and presumably get a commission. On the plus side they sometimes help you jump the queue. They are prime candidates to take all the credit after brave passengers have tackled the terrorists. It is an abomination! Finally, there are the completely clueless helpers who do not understand English, and just letting them loose on the cabin staff could cause immediate lunacy, followed by a swift suicidal dispatch into the nearest ocean, mountain, landmass or, if we are very lucky, Oprah.


And let us not forget duty free prices. If I were a terrorist, I would take over the plane with a butter knife and bring the whole flight to its knees in tears by reading a list of the items, their duty-free prices, and their prices in Mohamed Mustafa Samsuddin and Sons. "Weep and die", I'd shout maniacally into that weird phone whose ear piece  they always hold far away from their ears, and the entire flight would comply.


So in conclusion ladies and gentlemen, please sign my petition to get rid of duty free shopping in its entirety. 


PS: Note to DFS: will drop petition for a vat of Dune for future homicides of annoying people research purposes.