Concealed in a Book?

Reading on the Beach

Our holiday in Greece this summer got off to a bad start. We found ourselves at Heathrow at 8am, in the middle of the security alert that was widely reported.

Queuing at the check-in desk we were told to put all hand luggage into the hold, so we had to stuff our suitcases with all the things that we expected to be able to carry-on. Are we OK to take a book each? - I asked. That should be alright, said an airline worker.

furthermore...

When we reached passport control, we were told 'No books allowed - we can dispose for you - just pop them into this rubbish bag.' We had the time, so we rushed back to the post office and posted them back to ourselves at home.

We moaned a lot about this and felt lost without a book for duration of our journey. I wondered what security risk a book might be. And just recently I remembered that The Book is a potential hiding place and has been used in many contexts as a place of concealment.

In Ian Fleming's From Russia with Love, the villain hides a gun in a hollowed out copy of War and Peace. In the film Shawshank Redemption, a character hides a useful escape tool in a copy of The Bible. Research should find me some more examples.

In trawling the web I noticed that a book could serve as a useful iPod case and if you need to know how to hollow out a book to hide your jewellery etc then you only need to visit how2dostuff

So what about airport security?

Books are allowed again, so it must have been realised, that secuity personal need to do nothing more than flip the pages of your carry-on book! 

Posted on 12 Sep around 9am

Tags: • • •