...if you get caught stealing you get your hands taken away....
I smiled when I read this. I was in some small-town fleapit airport ( tin shed, dirt runway), in a certain middle-eastern country many years ago, when an artificial hand and wrist suddenly appeared on the little 'sliding box' conveyor going through the x-ray machine. It was just as if a grenade with its pin out had appeared. Everyone, the devout that is, (except Joe Muggins here), literally sprang off in all directions in a blind panic, including the soldiers! Turned out to be a practical joke by a bored guard, and I can't remember ever seeing so many people convulsed in laughter, before or since, once the joke sank in.
Then, I got bounced off my flight by some rich SOB, but I was still laughing!
Alan
[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-19-2005).]