Friday 5 February 2016

My new addiction - "Nothing to Declare"

I am knee deep in several projects, thus I have a weary body and tired limbs by the time I plop down to sleep at night.
However, during the day I do take a lunchtime break where I feed Mr. Brownbie and myself and then settle into an hour of my favourite soap opera "General Hospital."
Two weeks ago I was scanning the channels when I came across Sky Living and a really good show....
"Nothing To Declare" Border Security.
 
Filmed in Australia the episodes detail the lives of the men and women protecting the borders at the Melbourne and Sydney airports, including the mail and quarantine areas as well.
Arriving passengers that are pulled aside and checked have all kinds of illegal items...bags of foodstuff, plant material and seeds, hidden drugs and other items that I'm learning about as I become more and more engrossed in the episodes.
The reasons that these passengers give are outrageous and borderline hilarious.
Some episodes I have watched thus far have also included raids on businesses employing persons who have overstayed their visas, as well as checking large containers and trailers being imported with goods.
Talk about a learning experience.

I already knew that there is a whole heap of sophisticated equipment being used now for scanning  baggage and persons etc, but had no idea how detailed it was.
Two years ago my blog pal AfricanAussie stressed to me that she could not receive seeds in her country after I volunteered to sneak some in to her....bad idea she warned.
I had absolutely no idea.
The mail sniffer dogs take their jobs seriously.
My gosh those dogs and scanners detect everything...good thing I adhered to her warning.
The show is brilliant...why do people "think" they can outsmart the technology that is so high-tech it can analyze drug content from a a small swab and anomalies in packages can also be seen quite clearly.
The lengths that the drug smugglers go to is truly amazing.
All kinds of illegal material is confiscated and destroyed and fines and arrests are made.
As a Caribbean national when I travel to visit my friends I am always laden with all kinds of homemade goodies.  I hardly pay attention to the line on the declaration card about bringing food.
I will be ticking the YES box from now on....this show scared me straight.
A really good show with interesting story lines and does not appear to be heavily scripted...just plain old filming...in my opinion that's the best kind of reality show.
Believe it or not I now want to visit Australia more than ever.
No more chat, off to take care of my morning chores so I can watch Border Security later.

Here is a link to the show....enjoy.
If you get hooked like me here is another link to many more episodes.

7 comments:

  1. I've not watched anything like that in the UK although I know they air there too. However when I was living in NZ I did watch a few of the NZ and Australian versions. In both these countries bio-security is a MASSIVELY important issue and they, as you now know, take it VERY seriously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've just discovered the UK version as well....my gosh money sniffing dogs.
      The sniffer dog actually caught a few persons traveling with more than one thousand Euros.
      Wonder if I can train Mr. Brownbie to do that.

      Delete
  2. Because Australia's an island and relatively isolated, we've been protected for a long time from plant and animal diseases that are common in the rest of the world. We want to keep it that way so really do take biosecurity seriously. I've seen that show. Some people innocently bring in things that could be contaminated, but the smugglers are something else aren't they.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's really good that Australia takes biosecurity really seriously....maybe that's why we have African snails and lots of other pests now because though we are serious there are still quite a few things that get by our quarantine control.

      Delete
    2. The smugglers just don't give up do they? Any way they can they try...even saw some drugs sewn into a carpet...what????

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. So glad I listened to you years ago, I would have hated to get you in trouble with the law.
      The show is addictive....at least for me.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...