Guess who's back. Back again. I'll give you a clue. It's me.

Yes, as yet more bloggers take up the new year's resolution to stop typing and go out and do something less boring instead, I obstinately remain online to artificially warp google rankings everywhere.

I flew into Newark "Liberty" International Airport yesterday, and much to my surprise found that the new inmate, sorry, immigration procedures are actually fairly swift and painless. If anything I actually got through quicker than normal, since the border patrol guard, I mean officer, dispensed with the usual facile inquiries about the purpose of my visit, and instead just made me swipe both index fingers over a scanner, smile into a cheap digital camera (couldn't spot the model, but it did look rather like those cheap Logitech webcams that you got free with every computer a couple of years ago), and swear allegiance to the great lord satan, and I was done. Meaning I got to spend an extra fifteen minutes in the baggage reclaim hall waiting for them to unload the plane that I would otherwise have spent in line in the immigration hall.

Perhaps my speedy processing was due to the fact that I'm not a gormless cretin. In a feature that I am quite tempted to title "Anchor's Wankers" (in deference to that feature on The Girlie Show called 'Wanker of the Week'. Now, whatever happened to that Sarah Cox I wonder?), let's focus on those whose sexual intercourse is forever self-inflicted. The first recipient of this accolade is the British student who told US security agents that she had a bomb in her bag.

Of course, I'm sure it was obvious that she was joking. However, the foolish girl forgot the first thing that is taught in British schools about america, which is that Americans don't apppreciate irony, sarcasm, cynicism, snideness, contrariness, or pretty much anything that traditionally passes for British humour. This is a massive oversimplification, but it works.

You might say that the US is at fault here for its anally retentive paranoia that it is prepared to arrest someone for making a joke. And perhaps you are right. But it's not as if you aren't warned that that these people have no sense of humour. To get into the country in the first place, you have to fill in a little questionairre, with questions like "Were you a member of the Nazi government of Germany between 1933 and 1945" and "Is the purpose of your visit to the united states to commit or support terrorist acts?". I'll leave the obvious gags to the various topical comedians who can be relied on to make them when necessary. The point is, it should be obvious to anyone -- and especially someone in the country on a visa, as she was -- that, sensibly or not, the BCIS [Border Control and Immigration Service] take their paranoia very seriously indeed. Under these circumstances, if you start making tedious "jokes" about having bombs in your backpack, then you are a tosser and you deserve to be locked up.

Careful readers will have guessed that this is mostly shadenfreude at seeing one of the cretins who stands in front of me joshing with the service personnel and thus delaying my day finally receiving their comeuppance. Or at least they will now that I have mentioned it.

Still, it does at least give me an idea for a film version of the events. Not quite sure what to call it. It's somewhat farcical, so the name "Carry On Luggage" rather appeals...