It's Official. I'm now a dirty rotten stinking Tobacco Smuggler!

[bobby47]

And the Pilot said, 'we'll be landing shortly. Thank you for flying with us. Expect a little turbulence'.

Turbulence my right nut! If that's his idea of Turbulence I want nothing else to do with him!

And so, we began our decent from the sky. The first inkling I got, sat in the back seat watching my bloody offside wing light was that this rotten light, in relation to the runway lights, clearly indicated that at no time were the wings of the Boing 747 Airbus ever in a horizontal position.

Anyway, we hit the ground like a sack of spuds, bounced no more than five times, the Pilot hit the full thrust throttle and within twenty seconds, at an angle close to ninety degrees we shot off like a Saturn Rocket to an altitude of ten thousand feet.

All the loose change from the pockets and purses came tumbling down the aisle, women began to vomit, and I for one don't blame them at all, and for the most part, most people who were still breathing howled, 'Fu.c.king Jesus'.

My tormentor, the bloody wife, had been good enough to dig her long, sharp and well manicured nails into my left wrist and seeing a complete stranger sat to my wife's left clutching her arm for some human comfort didn't bother me one single bit. More than bloody understandable as far as I was concerned!

Then the Pilot said, 'sorry about that aborted landing. The crosswinds are extremely strong. We're going to fly around, get into position and do it all again'.

Imagine the worst fairground ride you've ever been on? Now multiply that by a factor of hundreds and you'll be halfway to understanding how bad this experience was.

Anyway, down we went again. Far more quickly than I would have liked. Again, I sat there watching the wing rising up and down, hearing the muttering of The Lords Prayer and thinking to myself, 'I'm delighted to know that if we do crash, hit the ground like a bullet and begin to explode at least, at the very least, I can console myself knowing I'll have access to a tiny whistle and a flash light that'll alert my rescuers that I'm sat on the back seat'.

As before, fairly predictably in my view, we hit the ground, happily, we only bounced twice and once again the Pilot hit the full throttle and we hurtled upwards at a speed that was no slower than three hundred miles an hour.

Course this time all forms of restraint and human dignity disappeared. After a number of screams, 'we're all going to die', I decided to lighten the mood and shout, 'The Lord is always by your side', at which point my wife hit me and some chap sitting further forward than me shouted, ' get stuffed'.

By this time, speaking for myself, I now no longer could care less. I'd resigned myself to the fact that that very soon I'd be sat on the Lords knee plucking my heavenly harp.

Then the Pilot, who's voice had alarmingly risen by one full octave announced that he was going to give it one last try. Me? I'd have much preferred it if he hadn't and instead chosen to ditch us in the ocean.

Down we went again. Rattling, shaking and the rivets loosening by the second, we again hit the ground but this time we didn't bounce, we didn't hurtle upwards forcing the flesh upon my fat face to contort and we remained upon terra firma.

The ordeal was over? Not for me and not for her. After collecting our luggage we innocently wandered through Customs to be stopped by a lovely lady who represented HMRC who enquired where we'd been and were we in possession of tobacco. I told her we'd been to the Canaries, we'd purchased a few kilos of tobacco as we were entitled to do because of EU legislation.

Then she told me! Despite the fact that the Canaries are a part of a member State, namely Spain, and despite the fact that they are governed by Spain and the Euro is the currency, the Canary Islands are not in the European Union which meant that all tobacco found within my suitcase was to be confiscated. The only good news was that because of the ambiguity and the mistake is a common one made by other poor souls who'd travelled my way I wasn't going to be prosecuted.

My reaction? I swore and I swore until I could swear no more. I begged them, 'have a little pity. Show me some compassion. I've fallen out of the sky three times. Death has been my companion for the past fifty minutes. I've no tobacco in my pocket, show me some human pity and let me keep a tiny handful so that I can smoke on my way home'.

Nothing! They'd give me nothing other than a smile and a little giggle that suggested they'd thoroughly enjoyed their encounter with yet another hapless headbanger who only wanted to smoke a cigarette purchased lawfully within the European Union.

Worse! It's all my fault. The HMRC did their job and now I'm committed to driving to Belgium, lawfully purchasing my tobacco hoping that the bloody boat doesn't hit rocks, sink and I end up in a raft whistling and waving my tiny torch light in the hope that some good soul will drag me aboard and reunite me with Blighty.

[WirralPC]

Haha. Welcome back. You know what it's like to be a council whistleblower now !

[Ubique]

That was a bit scary , seizing your Duty Free tobacco . speaking of cheap tobacco etc. If you check the posts you will find one relating to your favourite outlet in Commercial Rd. They really hammered the person in Court - joking of course !

[Denise Lloyd]

Welcome back hope you've recharged your batteries.  There's much to read up on here and the HT.  I haven't read your latest contribution yet I'm saving it! 

[dippyhippy]

I sincerely hope they didn't subject you to the ultimate humiliation of a full body search!

 

Thank your lucky stars of you were spared this. You may have returned without your baccy, bit at least your dignity is still intact!

 

Great to have you back!