An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – The Most Dangerous Place

Only two places felt dangerous on my recently completed odyssey – the ascent of sheer cliffs on the way up to the summit of Korakos Petra on Ithaca [see this blog An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – The Big One, 15 June 2021]... and the arrivals hall at London Heathrow.

In the former there was a real risk of falling and breaking my neck... in the latter there seemed to be an even more real risk of picking up covid. The difference in the two situations was that in the first I had some control over what happened to me... in the other I had none.

Exhortations to keep socially distanced rang hollow in a huge cavern of a building where planeloads of people from all over the place were forced into zigzags of queueing pens where movement was slow or non-existent.

We shuffled about the place for an hour and 20 minutes before finally getting to the exit. I can't illustrate the awfulness of the queueing situation because we were forbidden to take pictures.

The lines eventually led to a row of four or five (I can't be sure because it was difficult to see them properly through the hundreds of passengers) UK Border officers who were grilling individuals, presumably about their covid documentation.

Things only started to move a bit when all four (or five) of them went on a break at the same time. This allowed us to press on through to the automated passport readers – a quite different kind of hell.

When I finally got to one of these, an official behind me told me to get through as quickly as possible and not cause delays – which seemed a bit pot-and-kettle.

It might have been better if she had admonished the robot readers. Since two of them in succession failed to let me pass. I asked her for help but was told: "Go to Desk 36." This appeared to be the Heathrow equivalent of the naughty step.

I waited at Desk 36 for some time and then – when it was free – the official there told me to wait because she was having to re-start her computer. I never did see it start again.

Instead I was finally allowed to go to another desk. 

The man behind me (also sentenced to Desk 36 punishment) observed: "They've given you a difficult time."

"Yes," I said. "It's great to be back in the UK."

"I've just been travelling through Bangladesh and Egypt," he said, "and I've not seen anything to match the chaos here."

Eventually, he and I both escaped. We had been warned to have passport, proof of a negative covid test, passenger locator form, and an invoice for quarantine covid tests.

In my case only the first two of these four were checked... but the UK Border Force had succeeded in keeping countless people penned up together with no real possibility of social distancing for the best part of 90 minutes.

"Welcome to GREAT Britain" shouted the posters at every turn...