Yesterday, as I came through immigration at Heathrow Terminal 3, the Border and Immigration Agency officer was very helpful, commenting that I should take a look at the IRIS Scheme and consider signing up. So I did. And I probably will sign up.
And in that strange serendipitous way these things happen, I came across this completely unrelated site while Stumbling (I try and Stumble for 15 minutes a day, freshens up my thinking). if you ever wanted to know just how different irises are, i guess Rankin’s research will convince you. I found the images fascinating. Here are a few examples:
Rankin himself seems to be an unusual guy. I have no idea what his first name is, doesn’t appear anywhere that I could see. His bio makes interesting reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankin_(photographer) forgive my brevity, I should be in bed :)
Terribly arty people don’t have first names.
I had stumbled across this as well a few days ago, and was fascinated. Too bad the images are not available in a higher resolution; they would have made for a nice desktop wallpaper (serving as a constant reminder of the omnipresent Big Brother… ).
As for the IRIS scheme, that sounds very interesting.
But I’m not sure whether I should entrust authorities with that kind of data. Although, I can’t really think of a realistic abuse scenario – am I being too naive?
JP: As it happens, I went to Heathrow T3 to drop a friend – using the Express rather than a car – yesterday and what a shameful mess of a 3rd world village bus depot it is! I am so ashamed of Heathrow.
While leaving for the Xmas holiday in December, one of us registered for IRIS. The benefits were evident on return. Terminal 2, which we had used, has the tiniest and least civilised immigration “hall”. The UK/ EU queue was 45 min long while with IRIS this friend went through in a blink of an eye. There was no queue although that may change as more people sign up… I am _so_ signing up next time I am travelling out!
JP: As many people’s experience will show, no doubt, that there is no point coming out of immigration pronto only to wait for bags in the hall. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link and at Heathrow, the weak links are holding it together…
That’s probably why I almost never check any luggage in (and why I was so glad we went back to a two-pieces rule out of Heathrow