Location: Gatwick Green Customs channel
Time: Midnight
Lady Customs officer: Good evening sir, where are you travelling from?
Me: Malaga
Her: Where is your luggage?
Me: I don’t have any
Her: Why not?
Me: I haven’t got any
Her: Are you travelling alone?
Me: Yes
Her: Why have you got no luggage?
Me: Well, I only went for lunch….
Her: YOU WENT TO MALAGA FOR LUNCH??
Me: Yes, why not?
Her: Do you often go to Malaga just for lunch?
Me: No, but my friend Jon recently moved there and……..
Her: You went to Malaga for lunch????
Me: Yes, I have some photographs if you’d like……
Her: Have you got a passport?
Me: Yes, I just came through Passport Control
Her: Show me
I give her my passport. She examines it closely.
Her: What do you do for a living?
I make up something plausible
Her: What is in that little bag?
Me: Cheese
Her: Do you often travel internationally carrying only a piece of cheese
Me: No, but I always buy some cheese when I go to Spain, don’t you?
She eyes me and takes the cheese off me
Her: Where do you live?
Me: Nottingham
Her: You are going to Nottingham now?
Me: No, Brighton
Her: Why are you going to Brighton?
Me: I am looking after some cats………………I have photographs of them too if……………
Her: (handing me my passport and my cheese) Just go
I think she was some sort of loony.