Victorian reassurance

[Fat_old_dwarf]

The police have been conducting what they call reassurance operations at Victoria Coach Station fairly often this year: I was caught up in one at the beginning of June and again just the other day. According to Twitter they've been around at the beginning of November and at some point in the middle of the month, but not when I went in the first week. Luggage scanned, you go through metal detectors and on one occasion I was asked where I lived, where I'd been and for how long.

No problems, as I'm clean as a whistle – well, apart from my pipe. The first time I put it inside my umbrella in my pack, hoping it would all look like innocuous metal. The second time the umbrella had died in Amsterdam, so it should have stood out, but still no questions. Still, I should have dumped it – if they'd found it, it might have meant a search at worst and embarrassment at best. They're mainly looking for illegals and weapons, but the dog that they took onto the empty coach probably wasn't after those.

[OneHighMofo]

cheers for the heads up - this is happening more and more at UK stations.
I came across these 'speciality' bags recently. I shall be purchasing one - they come in all sizes, for all purposes and budgets.
http://www.abscent.eu

[Fat_old_dwarf]

I've never seen sniffer dogs at UK stations, but everyone else I know has, which makes me think I owe my relative bliss to the fact that I don't take trains or the Tube all that often and shouldn't be complacent when I do. The problem is there's no real alternative to carrying if you're hoping to enjoy a smoke wherever you're going, as there's an unaccountable lack of coffeeshops in the UK.

What breeds of dogs are people seeing, and where? I'm trying to see if there's a correlation between breeds and what they're looking for – there probably isn't on a large scale, but certain forces may use specific types of dogs for specific targets.

[OneHighMofo]

Spaniels mainly - periodically throughout all major cities in the north.

AFAIK dogs tend to specialise in one scent so your coach dog probably was looking for explosives .

[Fat_old_dwarf]

It was the cutest little spaniel you ever saw who rushed up to me the only time I ever saw dogs on my way to Amsterdam; dogs love my backpack, because the cats used to lie on it. But I panicked needlessly, because of course it's only when they sit down next to you that you start worrying. And it was a spaniel that was taken onto the empty coach this time. My gut feeling is that it wasn't explosives – more likely to be one kind of drug or another, hastily junked by a panicking traveller when they saw the police swarming about. But I'm speculating, obviously.