Happy holidays

It's clearly not a good idea to travel when my parents go on holiday. Last year they visited Canada and only days after they touched down in Toronto, a plane landing at the same airport overshot the runway and burst into flames. Earlier this year, while they visited Budapest, Hungary was racked by some of the worst flooding in years. This year, they'd decided to visit the States and what happens on the day they fly out? That's right, all hell breaks loose.

As you willno doubt be aware, unless you've trapped in a steel box on top of a mountain somewhere, security at airports across the country has been stepped up following police anti-terror raids. Apparently, those arrested intended to blow up planes on their way from the UK to the US. As you can imagine, this was a distinctly discomforting revelation (although it appears that my parents are now on their way, albeit two and a bit hours behind schedule).

Bizarrely, reports suggest that the plan involved liquid explosive and that the alleged terrorists would have "smuggled it on board hidden in drinks, electronic devices and other 'common objects'." Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson reassured people that there was no need to worry, commenting, without a whiff of hyperbole, "Put simply, this was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

This all strikes me as slightly bizarre and I can't help recalling earlier threats from other terrifying tools in the terrorist arsenal such as ricin and red mercury. I wouldn't be surprised if this supposed threat is forgotten about pretty quickly, who now remembers the tanks patrolling Heathrow? Then again, maybe I'm just being a cynical whatnot and this time it's for real. Wherever the truth lies, I'd rather my parents weren't blown up because the government have cried "wolf" so many times people don't know whether to believe them or toss them the finger.