Lose the force
A friend of mine was travelling to Dublin via Heathrow with her two kids yesterday. When checking in, staff, with a straight face, told the children that their plastic light sabres would not be allowed on board the plane because they posed a security risk. While I would quite like to live in a world where light sabres did pose some sort of risk (to bad people, obviously) I’m not so keen on one in which adults with apparently responsible jobs in airports think it is perfectly reasonable to force six-year-olds to dispose of incredibly flimsy plastic swords for reasons which are completely beyond reason.
8:01 am
I was queuing for a New York flight in Shannon in February, and a chap ahead of me in the queue (who was old enough to know better) was allowed to check in a toy lightsabre - one of the 6-foot long double-handed ones that appeared in the Phantom Menance nonsense. The lady at the desk said it was ok, as long as he didn’t try ‘to use the Force’.
Comment by John Smyth