Andrew Pierce, airport queues and the world’s smallest violin

The “world’s smallest violin” playing to mock excessive self-pity has cropped up in M*A*S*H* (1978), Reservoir Dogs (1992) and even SpongeBob SquarePants (2002), but dates back at least to 1950s Africa. Rod Cameron, a missionary who travelled to the Zambesi Valley with his family and his ventriloquist dummy Gabby, wrote about local customs in his memoir A Dummy Goes To Africa: “When you’d get feeling sorry for yourself, somebody would stick out his thumb and draw his index finger across it. That’s the world’s smallest violin playing the world’s saddest song.”

Now another dummy has travelled a long distance and heard the strains of the planet’s tiniest Stradivarius sounding just for him. It was Andrew Pierce, the Daily Mail columnist and GB News host formerly known as “Tory Boy” on Good Morning Britain’s political slot. “1 hour & 50 minutes from arriving Madrid Airport to getting into seat on @Iberia plane. Appalling service”, he tweeted on February 15.

Madrid is a sprawling airport and given that general advice is to arrive at check-in two hours before departure, it didn’t seem that Pierce had much to complain about. But the troublesome passage of this keen advocate for Brexit will hardly have been eased by having to go through non-EU passport control, which now involves the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System (EES).

Since Pierce was a keen Brexiteer and had posted in January 2018: “When we leave EU next year free movement of people should end at the same time”, the responses were not kind. The best was a poem that read: “Roses are red, Your passport is blue, Now stand over there, In that very long queue”.

For those yet to enjoy it, the EES is similar to how you are now greeted on arrival in the US. On your first trip, your fingerprints and a photo of your face are registered at a normal immigration kiosk. Subsequent trips for the next three years are supposed to require only a quick check, and the ambition is that major airports will have the kind of machines seen at some major US airports, where a quick scan of prints and face allows you to skip the line and the grim-faced, glacial-paced immigration officer waiting at the end of it.

Suggested Reading

Daniel Hannan’s next campaign: ending decimalisation

Rats in a Sack

Except not much of the above seems to be happening yet. Having had my picture taken and dabs done on a business trip to France last November, when I travelled to Berlin in January, I was pleased to see a row of gleaming booths that invited those already registered to line up for speedy access.

My travelling companion, also pre-registered, ignored this completely and went into the queue for the traditional immigration kiosks. Which is also where I ended up a few minutes later, having completed a booth scan which served no purpose whatsoever. Twenty minutes later, guess what? The officer was taking my photo and scanning my prints once again, and I was free to go. My friend, who had ignored the booths and got through much quicker, was waiting for me.

But look – having to stand in shame for an extra 30 minutes at the start or end of your holiday isn’t going to ruin your trip. It’s hardly the worst thing in the world. It’s not even in the top 10 worst things about Brexit.

And unlike Andrew Pierce, I’m not moaning about it. No need for tiny violins.

But there’s a difference – I didn’t vote for waiting longer in airport queues. And he did.