Wonders of the modern world, six . . . Cheese and its link to international terrorism

An Israeli cousin, a young woman, who had just spent a couple of weeks with us, flew back the other day. My wife gave her some cheddar to take back for her parents. For some reason, she packed the cheese in a board game she'd bought here, War on Terror. 'Stunning satire,' said the Guardian — not the kind of comment I've ever seen on, say, Cluedo. My wife warned her against the putting the cheese there. 'They might think it's explosives on the x-ray,' she said.

At the Heathrow check-in desk, the young cousin found her luggage was a little overweight. So she removed the board game and took it with her in her hand-luggage. At security, they stopped her. Of course they did. They were worried the cheese was explosives. They didn't like the board game, either. They decided it would worry other travellers. They might think she was a terrorist herself.

Oh, yes. Your average mad bomber spends his last flight playing War on Terror — which comes with black balaclava masks, with the word 'Evil' on them. (It's so hard to play, by the way, that if George W and Osama BL had started it on 9/11, they still wouldn't be finished.)

So security took the game from her and put it on the hold. For free. So now we all know how to get free extra baggage allowance. Put everything in a bag marked Terrorist or somesuch.

Next up Back to the story of a blue-glassed Turk, a column-smashing French painter and a headless young woman. Bottomless, too. Well, not literally but in the sense of reverse toplessness. On the other hand, I guess you could say she was bottomless in a metaphorical sense, too. That is kind of the point of the painting.