We’re just settling in for the usual pre-flight vigil, after barely making it through security with our sanity intact.

I’m wondering if anyone’s actually thought through these new security arrangements - I mean, does anyone really believe that baby’s milk, gravy and jars of jam (just three things explicitly listed on the liquid no fly list) pose an actual safety risk? How about curry or stew? or a nice pot of Muller rice?

Additionally, this nonsensical “only one item of hand luggage per person” rule makes even less sense; before, we were able to carry two small bags plus an even smaller camera bag between us as carry on luggage - watch now in amusement as we are obliged to conform to the rules, and reduce the deadly potency of our our three bag combination by skilfully placing the camera bag inside one of our others - voila! Our potentially deadly trio of mayhem is now diffused. How this makes things any easier, safer or more efficient is beyond my understanding, and added to all the to the “take you shoes off, put your laptop in a tray and you can’t travel with that jar of marmalade” palaver almost puts me off flying completely.

Now, if only that were the end of it - after you finally make it through to the other side, you have two hours of precisely bugger all to do except shop. I think that the guy who came up with the idea of “airside shopping” should get the Nobel Prize for captive marketing - I wonder how many times people have gone “ooh, I can save x amount on this thing because it’s tax free” when they would probably have never bought the thing in the first place.

Right, i’m off for a peruse around World of Whiskies…