Gatwick airport security.
Ken Lloyd was about to jet home packing a nine-inch tall replica of an armed British soldier in his hand luggage. The innocent £135 souvenir – bought during a visit to the Royal Signals Museum at Dorset’s Blandford Camp – triggered a scanner alarm, prompting security intervention.
Lloyd explained to the Sun: “As the figurine was pulled from the box, the security search officer contacted her supervisor. The SA80 rifle ‘could not pass’. My wife Julie asked the staff to take a reality check. It’s a 9in painted model with a rifle that is part of the figure.
Don’t you feel so much safer now?
If you pay peanuts….
Boadicea's Chariot 
Summer 2005, a very small toy water pistol was confiscated at Accra airport Ghana. I was carrying this as a favourite toy for a young child in a family group I was with. How long was the pistol? No more than 4 inches. Still, it could have contained acid! Was I whacko of the week!
Actually, I think there are two whackos here: Ken Lloyd for paying £135 for a 9 inch painted model and the security guard at Gatwick.
What always amuses me is that one has one’s hand-luggage weighed, one goes through the security checks and then one can buy weighty items and all sorts of other stuff before getting on the plane..
Tourists buy all sorts of tat…
And, note, once you get air-side, there are lots of people with airside passes who come and go…
I know – and it’s probably good for the local economy that they do… I can’t imaging spending £135 for tat, but I suppose what constitutes tat is in the eye of the beholder.
I know – and that thought is not one bit amusing.
I do object to having to cram my handbag into my cabin baggage to get on the plane, because only one item of cabin baggage is allowed, while others stroll past with carrier bags full of stuff bought airside plus cabin baggage.