LIFE IS FOR LIVING # 2

Yesterday was a bit of mad day here in London Town. It started off with all the airports suddenly closing down – no flights going anywhere and hardly any flights coming in.

Terror Attack – plot foiled!! That was the word from the TV and Newspapers.

I am preaching peace and love today check out this website for information on The International Day of Peace - 21 September 2006.

What I don’t understand is the hysteria that accompanies these events – not the ordinary people, but the security forces.

You can only carry the following onto a plane:

Your keys
Your passport and tickets
A small change purse or loose money
Sanitary items for women (not boxed)

All this must be carried in a clear plastic bag.

If you have a baby and wish to take on their bottle, you must taste the milk in front of the security people to prove that it is milk – you may also take wipes and nappies (which are probably not checked for explosives).

Women are going hysterical because they cannot take on their handbags with all their make-up and other weird and wonderful things that women carry in their capacious sacks - poor dears (she said dripping with sarcasm).

MI5 is our country’s security service, they received information that a terror attempt was imminent and that the explosives would be in a liquid form, so anything resembling a liquid item is barred from being carried through the security checkpoints, but who is to say that when you have passed through the security gates that these explosive cannot be bought in a Duty Free Shop or Pharmacy or any other shop in the airport – how much checking can be done and for how long are these measures going to be in place?

I do applaud and appreciate everything that is implemented for our safety, but believe that no matter how much security is put in place, it will always be the random element that perpetrates the atrocity. No one can work out the random element, because if we could, then most of the suicide bombers/bombers would not have been successful and many people who have lost their lives would have been saved.

What happens when one of these events occur is that suddenly everyone is a suspect, especially if your skin is a darker shade of pale – white people can be Muslim too you know – is our life to be governed by fear and suspicion - I hope not.

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The following is an example of how illogical people can be when they are frightened, it is an exerpt from The Mirror Newspaper.

5 April 2006
AIR TERROR ALERT OVER CLASH HIT
By Jeremy Armstrong

AN ASIAN salesman was hauled off a plane as a suspected terrorist because he was listening to The Clash song London Calling.
Harraj Mann, 24, was quizzed for three hours by Special Branch after his taxi driver overheard the lyrics, which include the lines "war is declared and battle come down".
The mobile phone seller, from Hartlepool, said: "I got a taxi to Teesside Airport and it had one of those things that plugs into your music player.

"I played Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale first, which the taxi man liked.
"I figured he liked the classics, so I put on Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. Then, since I was going to London I played The Clash and finished up with Nowhere Man by The Beatles.
"He didn't like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don't think there was any need to tell the police."
Durham police said: "By the time it was established the man did not pose a security risk, the plane had taken off."

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Things are not completely back to normal today, but at least flights are getting out with some delays – better to be safe than sorry. I have been asked in the past by family members from Spain if I am frightened of travelling after these things have happened and I always reply ‘are you frightened of crossing the road or getting out of your bath/shower at home’, bad things can happen anywhere and at anytime and you can’t and shouldn’t live your life in fear of losing it.

Life is for living – enjoy it while you can.

There endeth the lesson.

Jo xx