knives a-go-go
Languages can be a bitch. This is especially true if you try and stay on the right side of japanese policemen and neither speaks the other's language. I was returning from New Zealand nd came home via Kansai Airport. I'd got there and back with a Smith and Wesson lock-back knife in my hand luggage. It was useful for opening packets, cutting up fruit, odd bit of first-aid, the usual. nobody had challenged me over this until i got to Kansai's departure gates. There's a big picture of things you mustn't take aboard, complete with pictures for the illiterate and europeans. Pliers, swords, scissors, guns, grenades, warheads, poisons, mercury, the lot. I was without question obliged to turn it in for safe storage en route. So I approached a diminutive Japanese policewoman and it became quite clear that our languages met nowhere near the middle. I pointed at the sign, gestured vague humility and offered her the knife, closed of course. She seemed to understand, and opened it. 'click' it went, and the liner lock snpped into position. she seems satisfied that it's an ordinary knife, and tries to close it.

Except that she can't.

If you give most people a liner lock knife, they'll open it and then spend half an hour figuring how to unlock and close it. It's far from obvious. Now, here's me, i can't explain to this poor policewoman how to do it and she can't figure it out. Worse, she's stuck holding a razor-sharp knife that won't close. I had to - very gently - take it back off her, then close it. She had that "lost face" look for a second when she realised how simply it worked, quickly replaced by a "let's not mention this, eh" aspect as she took the thing for safekeeping. I got it back at LHR, in a nice envelope marked "one knife". Which made a happy end of it.

Apologies for length, it's less than the statutory 3.5".
(Jack Rarebit ...We like chillies, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 21:25, Reply)