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Airport safety is something we are all aware of, but this instance takes it to the extreme.

Christmas travellers passing through Stansted Airport, London, England, will find no Christmas crackers anywhere around.

The powers that be have banned these festive decorations from planes leaving their airport. They won’t be offered to passengers taking the traditional celebratory lunch, or dinner on board their flight and what’s more, they are not allowed to be carried in luggage.

You can never tell what a Christmas cracker might contain.

The reason given for the ban is that the “crack” from the crackers may alarm passengers and that no one can see what’s hidden inside these decorations, so they might contain something unsafe.

This sounds a bit like Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol”. Think about it, did you ever hear a Christmas cracker make anything louder than a small “phut” sound?

With regard to the possible security problems that might arise from the contents of the crackers, the paper hats don’t last long enough to form part of a disguise, and it doesn’t say much about the quality of the x-ray screening facilities if they can’t peep inside a cracker to make sure it doesn’t contain anything more sinister than a plastic moustache, or some false teeth.

Did you think that Scrooge was a fictitious character?

He’s certainly real and he works at Stansted Airport!