I've been on quite a few planes this year. Some of which belonged to a Brazilian airline already bankrupt, with staff honest enough to tell you the reason there is a seven hour delay from Sao Paulo is because the engines aren't working properly. While the city is under siege outside. I don't worry. I have another Brazilian beer and a bottle of guarana, try and decipher the labels and smile all the way through an aborted take-off and a shaky ride over the Atlantic.
   I worry a lot more when I am flying from a UK airport with a perfectly well-running airline. I get the feeling people aren't being very honest with me. For example, since the latest terrorist scare at our nation's airports you are now allowed to bring less hand baggage on board.
   What?! How can that possibly reduce the terrorist threat to an airplane? Are they seriously expecting to thwart people who had been planning to carry on explosives measuring two by one feet? From now on only bombs fitting in the seat pocket in front of you will be allowed on our flights. The absolute thieving bastards. This is nothing less than profiting from terrorism. Is there something included in the anti-terrorism bill that could send these unscrupulous fuckwits to prison for the next decade or so?
   And I am not even anywhere near the plane itself. After the airline is done with me, I get handed over to the airport authorities, who have decided to prevent weapons being brought on board, you are not allowed to take cosmetics, toiletries or any kind of liquids. These could be weapons in disguise, you see, and this is all for your safety.
   Which is odd. Because the US Air Force has been using Prestwick Airport as a stop-over while transporting missiles to Israel. And according to the same aviation authorities this is perfectly legal. In other words, if we suspect that someone could feasibly use items to hurt members of the public, we will ban them completely, but if we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you specifically are carrying high explosives, which we know are intended to kill members of the public and have already been used against UN peace keeping troops and civilians, then it's absolutely fine. Cup of coffee before you set off, sir?
   These people have aided the Israeli army murder more than eleven hundred civilians and displace close to a million, yet maintain the real threat to everybody's safety is my bringing a bottle of Irn Bru on board. I don't know about you, but I certainly feel a whole lot safer.

---

Ah, the joy of returning home. Imagine coming back to Scotland after several months living in the woods to find the height of popular entertainment is someone with a cup of coffee having his mates opening boxes. Just the intellectual level I was hoping to find upon my return.
   Naturally I had trouble with the authorities even before I set foot on the island again. No homecoming is complete with some civil servant stuck with a Napoleonic complex belittling you. I was trying to arrange for my puppy to come home with me, and was informed by said civil servant that my dog falls under the Dangerous Animals Act. This had everyone in South America in stitches, as the only thing my dog has ever attacked was a book by David Mitchell, and the government official was not impressed when I pointed out this was unfair considering John Prescott and all his relatives are allowed into the country.
   In addition to banning my dog, it is now also illegal to smoke indoors, which as a non-smoker means my time is now divided equally between sleeping, working and standing around trying to balance seven drinks while my friends are socialising outside. It has certainly improved everybody's health, as scantily clad women are now catching pneumonia as well as lung cancer, while at the same time distracting drivers who are already strained not to hit other drunks staggering around the streets because they can no longer smoke leaning up against a pillar inside. I'm impressed.
   So, the streets are even more filled with drunks than they were, the weather is still shite and I have started gaining weight again just by walking past the chip shops, but one thing has changed significantly. Everybody speaks Polish now. Even the website the Executive have set up to promote Scotland is in Polish. But I am not allowed to make fun of this, because we also have a new DVD teaching us to stand up to sectarianism. This is a new initiative, so I am guessing before I left we didn't have such a problem.
   Apart from that they put tarmac on the Royal Mile, they have introduced pornography at parliament and we have another election coming up this spring. And finally, when I walked past the post office and saw it does not tolerate abuse towards it's staff, I realised I was in Scotland again. Good old ridiculous illiterate bigoted rainy violent drunken Scotland. It's good to be home.