THE TERMINAL TERMINAL

I don't know whether to shake my head, cry or laugh reading all this BA terminal 5 nonsense.
Thomas took one look at that picture and wondered what would happen if a terrorist now claimed to have put a bomb in one bag. Would they just remotely detonate the whole pile (taking the building with it?)
And I laughed out loud at the story of passengers sitting in the plane watching luggage being put on and taken off 3 times, only to see the whole plane emptied just because staff weren't sure the cases had been scanned properly... That reminded me of my flight out of Barcelona to London on 15-9-01. US airspace was just reopening and we were sitting on an Easyjet beside the Delta airlines flight to Atlanta when a member of airport security came up the stairs holding a large blue suitcase - Does anyone recognize this? she asked... tickticktick? :-) When no one claimed it, the airline staff hauled it down our steps and up the steps of the delta flight, no doubt to ask the same question. Had they learned nothing 4 days earlier?
But why am I surprised at the BA fiasco? When I think back to the pre-Ryanair days, when I always flew BA, BMI or Air France when visiting my French family, I had to go through Heathrow 3 or 4 times a year. They got so good at losing my luggage (12 times in 3 years!), I knew exactly what was in their emergency handout: a toothbrush, hairbrush, soap, a pair of white pants and a white XL t-shirt with a BA logo on it. I acquired so many of them over the years that even now - 9 years on from the last time Heathrow last lost my luggage - I still regularly sleep, DIY, and garden in BA t-shirts as I still have a stock of them!