Which idiot said that flattery gets you nowhere? It just made you a MUCCI.

Now to try and keep to the point - the situation regarding Ireland and the UK must be almost unique in the world as free passage was always granted without any proof of identity. When I used to fly all by myself to Dublin all you needed to show was your boarding card proving that you boarded in London. When I was at Univeristy, I flew from Manchester where EI had a large number of 5th freedom services to and fro Europe. I really do not remember quite what the drill was - what I do remember and which has nothing to do with anything - was that there were scads of businessmen aboard all eager to have me sit next to them and then ply me with gin.

However what I have done is ask Him Indoors about this and his reply was "Don't they need ID to board the flight?" I said that I didn't know as I have not done an Ex-Dub since the demise of BA1 from LCY. His reply was that he was certain that they were looking for someone in particular.