We are all nudists now

Is Gordon Brown going to make children walk through his body scanners?  Isn’t that going to be illegal?

Update: the Guardian has now caught on to this problem.

Here’s a follow-up:

If children are exempted, doesn’t that make the entire exercise absurd? Or it is assumed that there are no suicide bombers under 18?

Update: these scanners do not in any case appear to detect all explosives hence are merely security theatre with nude scenes. Hooray!

‘Hayseed’ rants to Guardian Online…

Writing as a member since 1959 of the Junior Jet Club, I am confused because BA does not seem to want me as a customer anymore. I am amazed that BA is still unable to introduce flexible, transparent, on-demand pricing, like easyJet, so I can find value when I am shopping for a long-haul ticket, like I can when I am going to Berlin. I am astonished that BA think their Club World is worth twice as much as other business class seats. (Hayseed does not wish to know the world behind the curtain to steerage). I am sad to see the once proud esprit de corps squandered. The staff seem either harrassed, unhappy or losing their patience for trying their best when nothing is working. I blame the management and the board which has tolerated a performance that is lamentable. There is no comparison between easyJet boss Andy Harrison and BA’s failed leader Willie Walsh. (Ryanair’s Mr O’Reilly is another matter, although despite his grizzly reputation he flies many more passengers than British Airways). BA operates in another time dimension. Only the BBC is so insanely out of touch with economic reality. If the unions are impossible it is because the management has failed. If BA now fails I expect we shall be asked to save them – so having failed to persuade me to be their customer, I am going to have to pay anyway! The BA business model is completely broken and the current management is clueless. You can tell you are in the presence of a doomed consumer-facing business when it is obvious that the staff hate their bosses. BA is being run by a facsimile of David Brent. Hayseed is dejected.

Update: A correspondent and fellow traveller in the Junior Jet Club reminds what we used to say of BOAC – ‘Better on a Camel.’  The point is sound. There was no golden age. This outfit has been a basket case forever. They’ve not just lost all our luggage but the business. This is careless, at least.

Linda Ellerbee’s Greek Hunting Dog

Le blog brièvement se leve. I am compelled to share this image of my friend Daisy. She has her own jet! Isn’t that cool!!! (Actually, it was loaned to her by Warren Buffet.) On NetJets nobody cares if you are a dog – they just ask you what you want to eat. Flying commercial is so pre-9/11.