Dressage whips. My teenage daughter and I were in England in January and stocked up on equestrian supplies. Dressage whips are about a meter long and our mateched set would not fit in our bags, so we thought we'd just carry them on. We were flying business class.

No. We were first turned back at the security checkpoint because I had 200ml of biotene mouthwash that they insisted had to be separated into two 100ml clear plastic containers. When we had gone to the erminal's Boots store and taken care of that we went back.

No. The whips. A security guard took them and together with another they examined the handles. Then she took the whips off to her superior and came back about fifteen minutes later. She said, and I quote: "It's not what you might do with them, it's what might be done with them in the hands of another."