please empty your brain below

Maybe barrage balloons will return over the city.

When they first really clamped down on airline baggage in 2006 I was going on holiday to Norway. After the hellish scenarios at Heathrow I expected more hassle on my return journey. But I could just walk on with all that prohibited stuff no problemo.

So if I wanted to blow up a plane using a 1l bottle of shampoo, I'd just do it on a plane going in to Britain not out of it.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but sometimes these things seem like they're more about making us afraid than protecting us.

Counter IRA terrosism was reliant on the principle that the perpetrator doesn't want to be caught afterwords or die in the process of carrying out their atrocity. As Blackadder would say if applying it to current terrorism: "there was a tiny flaw in the plan".

I delight in going along footpaths that people try to discourage. I found on once on a nice sunny day where all trace was gone but the sign was clearly visible from a road with lots of tourists wandering about. The start of it was pointing across someone's front garden and lead to a lovely river. I took it despite no-one else being bold enough to do so. On returning I must have passed at least 50 people using it.

I have also challenged a security guard in the City of London who tried to ask me questions about what I was doing haning around on a path which was part of the public highway. A quick retort about why should I answer any question from him and he had no right to hassle me brought smiles and thumbs-up from the nearby building workers who obviously didn't like him.


These barriers interest me every time I walk into the City. For one, they're one of the only places you can see a clear delineation of the borough boundaries, eg, where Worship Street is cut in two on the border between Hackney and the City. They also make it imaginable that the City may one day actually post border guards in all those boxes and turn itself into a Hanseatic, free trade city state.

Oh I can tell tales about self important people who'll have you know that because their road is private you can't walk on it. Makes me laugh every time. I can't help it if they're ignorant about what 'private road' actually means in some circumstances. They certainly won't find any law that enables them to remove me.

Incredibly interesting stuff. I certainly hadn't noticed, I wonder what proportion of people know about it....

As a City resident I love the ring of steel!













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