Still, I wish you luck – with your attitude you’ll need it – and I’ll leave you where I came in, by pointing out the obvious; that if you do dehumanise and have blanket contempt for any particular grouping of individuals then you really should expect problems each time you encounter one of those individuals; but disentangling their culpability from you own admitted prejudice is impossible, and pointless.

On the ’scissors’, ‘liquids’ point – sometimes I carry things around, and sometimes the things that I find useful include scissors and liquids. Because I have no desire to spend any more time in aviation security than is absolutely compulsory, I try and avoid carrying them through aviation security. Sometimes I only remember that I’m carrying the bloody things when I reach the pre-security tables, and so have to throw them away (I try and avoid checking luggage if I can – it’s one more thing to wait for and/or lose – I understand but have no wish to emulate your giving up on that point); about twice since everything went silly I’ve failed to spot them before the checkpoint.

In “the good old days” before 9/11, I often did a little shuffle between my hand luggage and my hold luggage to ensure that aerosols, scissors and firearms were in the correct bag prior to boarding. Since the recent, more onerous security checks have been imposed I have ensured that I carry the bare minimum through customs – passport, tickets, newspaper, nothing else – to make things as easy as possible. I’ve still had to go through the ridiculous rigmarole of getting dressed airside after having removed my shoes and belt landside, and I think that the current restrictions are in the main absurd (although the hour wasted in a pointless queue also means a hour saved wasting money in an overpriced bar airside.) But no, I haven’t had a problem with airport security, by which I mean the security staff, who were the object of your insults and hence the reason for my initial comment.

John, you’re an intelligent man, or so it is claimed; but the rules – ridiculous as they are – say that you can’t take scissors or liquids over a certain volume in your hand luggage, so why even try? The security staff, I would suggest, have zero discretion over what they can or cannot allow onboard, and so do not deserve your blanket contempt.

So it’s good to know that you’re “never actually rude” to airport security staff in person, and that you reserve your rudeness for when you speak to them via internet forums. But since you’ve now retracted those comments, I’ll leave it at that.

FWIW, I’m never actually rude to aviation security people, much as they deserve it – it’s not worth missing one’s flight for the sake of standing up to one. But I hate the experience of having to defer and kowtow to them (or indeed to anyone – but if I’m going to have to defer and kowtow to someone, I’d rather it was someone who’d actually done something worth respecting).