LAST week travelling through heathrow airport I was stopped by security who asked to check my plastic toiletry bag.
During the search the over-zealous security guy said he wanted to take my aftershave bottle to his supervisor as he did not think he could let me through with it as hand baggage.
I was surprised but bemused. Hoping that his supervisor would inject a little common sense into the situation I was stunned to hear her quote an obscure piece of legislation from the 1980s which she claimed barred my airport duty-free bought, legally sized 50ml aftershave from continuing its journey because it was a black, grenade shaped bottle menacingly labelled 'spice bomb'. Victor & Rolf may yet regret saying it is a "highly addictive explosion of spices".
I did not know whether to laugh, cry or immediately start a hunger strike. Thinking in Ali G mode I pondered, 'was it because me is Irish?'
Nonetheless, despite my forlorn protests that my fellow passengers were not at risk from being perfumed to death or that they would be offended by my personal tastes in aftershave, my bottle was confiscated.
I suspect that it now adorns the bathroom cupboard of a security guard in Acton.
I was brought low by what some might say were two people only doing their jobs. I prefer to say I was defeated by two jobsworths who showed all the common sense of a politician with a blank expense claim.
Within 24 hours it was announced that in the USA - the epicentre of humourless authoritarian security personnel - that US airlines will soon permit the use of mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices on planes.
Given one can detonate bombs by phone and the average laptop has enough technology to hack MI5 I couldn't help but think of the apoplexy these changes could do to the mindless security personnel who appear to be trained in customer relations by former Stasi personnel.
Airport security is important - very important - but at times it's glaringly inconsistent in its execution.
In my own case, why does the airport authority duty free sell officially approved 50ml travel bottles of tortoise black glass containing aftershave called spice bomb, if only to confiscate it at security?
I have also watched elderly and infirm ladies being frisked rigorously when there is more risk to them being traumatised from the experience than any real terrorist threat.
Certainly it would appear if you look African you have an increased chance of being stopped than if you are a Caucasian Bavarian businessman.
Some weeks it's shoes off, while in the same airport in a different queue its shoes on.
Luck of the draw or intelligence-led decision making? Sometimes it's laptops out in trays on their own and at other times, if there's a shortage of trays, it's everything in together.
It's understandable that there may be differences between countries in terms of airport security but its bizarre just how different the security experience can be within the UK and Ireland.
But it's not just at airports that jobsworths rule. Traffic wardens in Northern Ireland are about as accountable Vladimir Putin and would seem to have been trained by Carol Beer "the computer says no" school of customer service.
Two weeks ago I watched from a Belfast cafe a traffic warden measure the inches a car was parked over the back of a parking bay.
The same day I saw another red top diligent protector of our laneways remonstrate with two drivers as one gave away his parking ticket to the other with over an hour left of credit. It's hard not to believe that traffic wardens are not incentivised to issue fines in Northern Ireland as they are zealous as a team of Latter Day Saints on house visitations.
Unsurprisingly, one traffic warden even managed to ticket a van with a dead driver at the wheel.
We live in a world of increasingly self-important jobsworths such as those tin pot officials who tried to ban children playing conkers in playgrounds or the GP receptionists who gatekeep patients from doctors as if it was their last stand at Stalingrad.
Incredibly one jobsworth in a local authority claimed a children's party could not have bubbles on health and safety grounds.
The late Patrick Moore wrote a book in 1981 as to how to become the scourge of bureaucracy. It's an apt Christmas present for the jobsworth in your life.