to realize that selling the latest issue of the UK comic The Dandy with a free gun included (no kidding) isn’t going to be a good newsstand addition at the airport, but some people are surprised. This story, by way of BBC News, is quite logical, albeit a bit daft: Airport bans toy gun comic.

D.C. Thompson, the Scottish publisher, responded: “It doesn’t make sense to have items on sale at the airport which are not allowed on board the aircraft other than in the hold with luggage.”

But the best quote is: “I don’t think a terrorist would get very far if he tried to hijack a plane with a free toy from The Dandy.”

Having quoted that, we had friends visiting us from London about a week ago, and they were sharing stories of pulling up to Heathrow just to find the airport surrounded by tanks: over 800 of them. Inside the airport, there were roving teams of heavily armed soldiers and guard dogs. So while the ban on The Dandy might seem a bit daft, wouldn’t we all nonetheless err on the side of safety rather than commerce? And, of course, there’s nothing to stop Dandy fans from either buying the latest comic elsewhere, or buying the comic and tossing away the toy gun.

And I’m refraining from the idiocy of D.C. Thompson giving guns away with a comic aimed at 8-15 year old kids during the highest level of military or terrorist alert in the UK since the Luftwaffe overflew England during the Battle of Britain. We just won’t go there, okay?

And having said that I have to admit that we still get the Beano and Dandy annuals, and that my daughter is standing next to me as I type this in, reading the 2002 Beano Annual with great pleasure. Oh, and I read them too. 🙂