I travelled from Leeds Bradford airport on Friday. I'm used to having to put my liquids, which can't be more than 100ml, in resealable transparent plastic bags.
However, this time my liquids were chosen to be tested and taken aside to another table. My bag happened to contain toothpaste, shaving oil and after sun lotion.
I was astonished that the security officer asked me to choose one item from my bag for testing. I handed him the toothpaste and he put a little bit of toothpaste on a testing stick (like diabetics use to measure their blood sugar level). Phew! My toothpaste was deemed non-explosive.
What's the use of this? If I was a bomber, I could just offer up the non-explosive liquid from my selection!
When I was flying to Italy in Aug they asked if they could open my hand luggage bag and rubbed it with a tissue or something it might been something that worked like pH paper - what did they expect me to find?
I feel like such a criminal at airports sometimes, it just puts me off flying!!
Anyway my sister thinks they just do it to make up numbers on paper work or something like that.