OK, this one’s hot off the press, as I am writing about something that happened about ten minutes ago, and I’m writing this from one of the machines in the lounge at Prague airport.
A few days ago I gave a lecture about cross-cultural management to students of Susquehanna University in Prague. At the end of the lecture I was given a bottle of fine Moravian wine.
I forgot that I had this bottle in my briefcase, but naturally the detectors as I passed from streetside to airside at Prague found it.
Now clearly they all recognise me as having been through there eighty or so times before, so there’s no terrorism alarm bells ringing, and you can see how they’re in two minds about whether or not just to let me get on with it. But in the end the three of them say no, they have to do things by the book, which mean that the wine is thrown away.
I’m there saying to them, just take it and drink it yourselves, it’s a sin to throw it away. And of course as they know that I’m a regular, they also know that there’s no risk I’m trying to poison them, give them an exploding oesophagus, or anything like that.
It’s not the loss I’m bothered about. I could make that up just by drinking the free wine that’s flowing like milk and honey (there’s milk and honey too, in the fridge) here in the Lounge. It’s a bit early in the day for me, though, and I’m actually not a big fan of alcohol despite what readers of my blogs and viewers of my vlogs may think.
It is a bit sad that it happened to a present. But most of all it’s pity to see something like that just thrown into a bin and not enjoyed by anybody. When anyone can see there’s no real risk there. It’s just the over-zealous application of a rule book.
That’s the real shock. That’s what’s really saddened me and sent me running to the production corridors of WordPress to get it off my chest.
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It’s a pity that the letter of the law so often takes precedence over the spirit of the law.
Was it Ben Franklin who said ” In wine is wisdom, in beer is freedom and in water is bacterium”?
It may be John. He was full of wine quotes, was our Benny. I got one given to me at his old printing press in Philthy, but I’ve forgot what it was.