Dom Joly: My close encounter with American gorillas

Published: 10 September 2006

I'm off on my travels again. I'm flying to Mexico on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 - should be a breeze. I'm sure that there won't be any excessive security ramming inquisitive medical gloves up where the sun don't shine. I'm off to do another programme on alcohol. In this one I'm going to get a PhD in Tequila Studies - honest! It's lucky that I checked the costumes for the shoot in the office. We're headed for the desert, the Wild West of Mexico, and there are two cowboy costumes for Pete, my best friend who accompanies me on these taxing work outings. I was just checking the quality of the costumes (I recently had an unfortunate incident with a shoddy morris dancing costume in Russia) when I discovered two holsters complete with imitation revolvers in the bag. No one seemed to have thought that these might present something of a problem at airport security.

It reminded me of having to take the Big Mobile Phone from Trigger Happy through customs into New York not long after 9/11. The gorilla at JFK security pulled the two-foot-long phone out of the bag and stared at it for quite some time.

Article Length: 536 words (approx.)