My documents were taken away into a back room, leaving me to come to terms with my new status as Special Registrant. I have heard plenty of stories about people who have arrived in America only to be deported whence they came, due to cases of mistaken identity – sharing a name with a wanted criminal – or a long-forgotten cannabis conviction. As far as I could recall, I had neither, and nor had I written anything particularly scathing about the US recently. But I knew that being sent home on the next available aircraft was too common an event for comfort. So all I could do was make sure my laptop was still with me, and eavesdrop on interactions between would-be visitors and immigration staff.”Sure you can go and get your luggage,” an anxious Korean man was told, “you just can’t get out of the building.”A male official and a Hispanic woman were having a blazing row that concluded with him telling her, “Shut up; shut your mouth; sit down.” Welcome to America, Land of the Free.I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition, and luckily I didn’t get it. When my name was yelled out half-an-hour later, I timidly raised my hand.
An official marched over with my passport.”You have the name of a very famous criminal: Simon Peter Calder,” he explained. “Luckily for you, he doesn’t have the extra middle name Ritchie.” He paused, then added: “Oh, and you’re not black.”At least at no stage was military action a factor in my travel – unlike passengers on a recent Buzz flight to Stansted from Toulon airport in France. Tim Ball of north London writes in to suggest one of the best-ever reasons for a flight delay. Buzz uses the term “Toulon” loosely; the airport is some distance east along the coast. Indeed, “airport” is a bit of an exaggeration: the facility is a military airfield, which is where Mr Ball’s problems began: “Everyone had got on board only to be told by the captain that she was unable to take off. The reason was that a French Navy aircraft carrier was on operations in the Mediterranean.
Toulon was part of the exercise zone.”The French take these practice sessions very seriously. “The military had erected arrestor wire systems at either end of the runway, and our aircraft type made it impossible for us to take off over them.” To the passengers’ chagrin, an Air France aircraft proved capable of clearing the hurdles.”The captain, who was doing her best under difficult circumstances, told us that we couldn’t go anywhere, and she was unable to do anything. About 20 minutes later she told us that the military had agreed to take down the system at the far end of the runway.”The passengers waited for a further hour, before the aircraft began to taxi – and promptly stopped again: “Our captain again came on the intercom; unfortunately the military had taken down the system at the wrong end of the runway.” The passengers endured a further 30-minute wait on the runway before the right arrestor wire was lowered “Eventually we took off about two hours late,” says Mr Ball. “Perhaps this could be a scenario for BA’s new ad campaign,” he suggests – a reference to the British Airways television ads hitting out at the problems of using the secondary airports beloved by no-frills airlines.Suppose you reach your destinations safely, but then find that belongings go missing from your hotel room Relax. Next Tuesday sees the 40th anniversary of the European Convention on the Liability of Hotel-keepers Concerning the Property of their Guests. You can sleep easy in the knowledge that your property is covered to the value of 3,000 gold francs.
