Friday, April 13th, 2007
En route to Las Vegas for LMS 2007 which I have been co-hosting with Elliott Masie and Cushing Anderson. At security in Gatwick Airport, South Terminal, if you really want to know. In front of me is a very elderly couple who have been visiting one of their children. Security insists they take their shoes off for the X-Ray machine. No chairs, no place to rest. I, the rest of the long queue, along with at least 3 security staff, watch them really struggle with the task. They can’t bend over to reach their shoes and both pairs are lace-ups. In the end they take each others’ shoes off and help each other on with their shoes the other side of the machine. It is, clearly, a huge effort.
What a cruel, ridiculous spectacle! Surely one of those security staff could have had the compassion to simply say: ‘don’t worry, not you.’ ?