Tuesday 4 December 2007

Who's the dummy?


I'm off to the House of Commons tonight for a posh dinner with the All Party Group on Shooting & Conservation. "Airport-style security" warns the invitation, so this morning I cleared my pockets of anything that might be construed as an offensive weapon, including the rather fine Spyderco pocket knife that I normally carry everywhere.

It's all pretty pointless of course. Having relieved us of anything sharp and pointy, I've no doubt they'll serve us wine in eminently smashable glass bottles. But you have to play along with these characters; they have little commonsense, even less sense of humour, and they carry rigid Hiatt Speedcuffs designed to apply pain compliance. So I even removed the fishing flies that have taken up residence in my tweed cap, in case an eager security guard mistook them for some sort of secret weapon.

Which made it all the more alarming when I was idly fiddling with the lining of my suit jacket and felt these - a pair of dummy .17HMR rounds we'd used for a photo shoot months ago, and which had somehow slipped through a hole in my pocket. Oops! They're totally inert and harmless, of course, but I don't think that would have helped much.

Fingers crossed there are no more nasties lurking about my person. I wouldn't want to give them an excuse for the full bodysearch.

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