A friend of a friend recently was in Naples. On her return she was stopped by security who demanded that she either forfeit her Italian marmalade (which, by the way, is very good) or she should check it in. They said it was a banned substance - a liquid. Some basic understanding of science is clearly not part of the Italian school curriculum. Marmalade can be liquid if heated at a very high temperature.
Another friend of a friend had a similar experience at Heathrow. He, like me, is a pork pie addict. He had been to Fortnum and Mason's (a very fine and extremely expensive food hall) and bought six pork pies. These too were not allowed through security. Clearly not a liquid, the security people used some other reason for confiscating these at the security check point. (I think they felt pork would be offensive to Muslims and may therefore incite rioting and violence on the flight).
A colleaguse coming through Frankfurt had ink capsules for his fountain pen confiscated while another colleague coming through Oslo had difficulty persuading the security people that his deodorant stick (a solid one) was not in fact a liquid.
My conclusion. This is all getting out of hand, Terrorists must have good taste if they like pork pies and marmalade and take care of their appearance and use fountain pens.
Travel really is getting very degrading.
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