Prompted by the various OMG -Security Queues! threads from about a month ago, I "accidentally" left a small bottle of shampoo in an inside pocket of my bag.

It's not been placed in a plastic 'liquids' bag, in fact it's never been removed. It has, however, been through security screeing six times each involving a flight either to or from the UK, and has never been noticed/commented on/whatever.

Three of those times involved a departure from the UK (2x LHR and 1x MAN).

What is going on is either (a) security theatre of the very worst kind, or (b), they are so amazingly good that their job that they can read my mind and tell I'm just a frequent traveller who's fed up with the whole security malarky, and not someone who'd flush a bottle of shampoo down the loo at FL380 and make lots of bubbles ... or whatever it is people think you can do with 101ml of (banned) shampoo in an aircraft.