I've got some pretty pointy forks too.

I think the start of the decline was when they banned nail clippers on planes.

"Take this plane to Beirut or I'll very, very slowly remove millimetre thick bits of you over a period of 2 weeks or so. No-one can stop me!"

P:illows, what about pillows? They can be used to smother.

I know someone who had their teaspoon confiscated by airport security.

My favourite story was one used by a guy from the FAA to illustrate the idiocy of some of the staff they're having to train. An FBI agent had all the necessary paperwork to be allowed to take his gun on board. So the security guy let him take his gun on, but broke the nail-file off his nail-clippers.

There was another story like that just recently, with a soldier being allowed to take his rifle on board but not his nose-hair-scissors. I saw some eejit on a messageboard actually defend the decision: no soldier's going to let his gun out of his sight, he said, but nose-hair-scissors could fall into the wrong hands. For that to make any sense, a terrorist needs to have the following plan. OK, so we're going to hijack this plane. We'll go on completely unarmed to fool security. There will be a soldier on board, armed with a rifle. We steal the soldier's scissors and everyone will be at our mercy. Any questions?

no comment on this, but I do enjoy the irony of all your current google ads being for kitchen knives.

Yeah, I like that too. Not sure it's ironic, though. If I'd written that I supported the idea of a knife ban, that'd be ironic. Or is it kind of ironically ironic? That's always a possibility. Irony's confusing me these days.

It's rather annoying when you do a big rant slagging off something - say, online quackery - and then your page is populated by ads for said quacks.

I think there's a setting to stop that, isn't there? Like any of us can be bothered.

Wow. The faithful manservant would have to have his Global knives removed from him at, well, knifepoint probably. He’d sleep with his Globals if I let him.

Senior policeman calls for identification and waiting period to be required on knife purchases.

"All we're suggesting is that if you go in to buy a knife, that we ask for an address and identification, and I would suggest further that we would then post the knife to you. That seems to me reasonable."

Oh, fuck, no. Doesn't really surprise me: I've dealt with Strathclyde Police, and the last thing they want to do is get off their fat arses and do anything about crime. Maybe, just maybe, rather than having a cooling-off period for knife purchases, they could try decreasing their response time to thug-ridden Castlemilk to less than 90 minutes. That's when the operator doesn't just tell the frightened victim "We no longer make calls to your street."

Doctors should be banned. Think about it: Harold Shipman, Josef Mengele, Dr Crippen...it's just not worth the risk.

And Doctor Fox.