Distraction techniques!

When travelling, I often used (what to thought to be) a clever technique for distracting potential burglars. I would be using a big backpack and worried that someone might easily zip it open so I put, all the way around in a line, some *ahem* lady things. You know. So that it would be the first thing someone saw when they opened the bag. Hopefully they would be male and horrified by this sight and rapidly rethink his plan to steal from me.

That was the plan. I’ve never been stolen from while travelling but I’m not sure whether it was my clever distraction technique or luck.

Anyway, this one time, my friend and I were off backpacking around South East Asia for five weeks but we had different flights. He had had a stopover in Sri Lanka, been wined and dined and a beautiful hotel, swum in their beautiful pool and had a little nap. I, however, was changing in Kuwait and had a long eight hours in Kuwait Airport, with lots of massive duty free shops selling Toblerones and alcohol, neither of which I wanted.

For some reason, although I definitely wasn’t keen on staying in Kuwait longer than necessary, the announcement for my connecting flight wasn’t being made in the area I was sitting in. So I realised a bit late and had to make a dash for it. As I was running, I heard the announcements that they were waiting for one more passenger to board. That was me!

Desperately embarrassed, I arrived at the gate, panting and sweating and a stern faced lady said they were just about to close the gate and I had held everything up. I apologised profusely and handed over my backpack for her to search.

She zipped it open at double speed, her face a picture of grumpiness….

And all my *ahem* lady things spilled out all over her little desk.

She looked at me like she hated me.

I did a nervous little laugh and vaguely tried to explain how I did it to deter thieves.

“Well maybe you should have repacked it when you knew you were getting it searched,” she said, very very unamused….

Woops.

My James Bond moment

Firstly, I would like to know, as a newcomer to the world of James Bond, if they have always been such terrible films. I watched one last night and it was like watching a comedy. The English girls have such terribly, terribly English accents, yah! And they’re so stiff-upper-lipped that it looks like they’ve had Botox. Daniel Craig is great in cool-calm-and-collected way but even his pout is ridiculous. Even mid-death-defying-car-chase, his pout is firmly in place.

The times when I did try to get caught up in the action and stop sniggering at everything, I couldn’t actually follow it because it’s filmed so close up that when Bond is chasing someone across a rooftop or climbing some rickety scaffolding which then collapses, you can’t actually see what’s going on. They need to zoom out a little. It’s just lots of glass smashing and gun fire, really close up.

I just felt I needed to get that out of my system. I haven’t really followed James Bond films at all and then I finally sat down and watched one and it was utterly ridiculous and I am very puzzled about why people love it so much.

And anyway, a little while ago I had a James Bond moment which was actually way more superhero than any James Bond film.

I was waiting at the train station in Liverpool, for my train back to London. It was evening time, about 7pm. I was sitting on a bench, minding my own business, when I heard a bit of a commotion. A young man, while leaving the M&S Food shop, had been stopped by some people with M&S uniforms on.

He struggled against them and started trying to pull away but the M&S people called out to a security guard standing close by, who started to run over. In the struggle, two bottles of wine fell out from under the young man’s coat and smashed on the ground. The commotion attracted some people who were working in the McDonald’s next door, who started to walk over. As the young man broke free of the M&S workers, the McDonald’s crew got hold of him and tackled him to the floor. He had struggled out of his coat in the process.

The security guard arrived, got the young man off the floor and held him tight, bringing him back to the M&S. Things calmed a little and in the chitchat with the M&S lot about what had happened, he saw his moment and broke free, running for the door.

It just so happened that the bench I was sitting on was on his route to the door. I would stop this petty thief! He needed to learn the rules of socially acceptable behaviour! And theft from a shop is incorrect behaviour! I would single-handedly teach him that he had to pay for his wine, just like everybody else.

Cue the James Bond theme tune….

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. DUH NUH, DUH NUH NUH!

Being the quick-thinking gal that I am, I put my leg up as he ran past, to trip him up and gave an extra little kick, right on his shin, as he ran by me. Grrr. I was getting nasty. See? I’m way tougher than James Bond.

Then he dropped to the floor, gripping his leg in agony, which I’d basically broken, because of my extreme toughness and strength. I leapt up and made a Citizen’s Arrest and was later awarded numerous medals for my bravery.

O no, wait, sorry, that was me daydreaming. What actually happened was he kept running as though I hadn’t done a thing and got away.

But still…. I was very brave, don’t you think?