When Swedish Customs (as in The Excise, rather than what Swedes do that nonSwedes, or unSwedes, do not) board trains they do it in style. None of the barathea and gold-braid with peaked caps here. Noway, nohow. They leap on in dun coloured boiler-suits rolled up at the wrists and ankles, which makes them seem to be a good sight taller than they are already. It seems to me that there is something about a boiler-suit worn with such elan that makes even an elfin whisp of a young thing (with altogether the most penetrating sapphire eyes and a straw-gold pony tail) look very convincing. And her burly colleagues, the more so. Let me tell you, I feel no great temptation to argue with anyone in both authority and a boiler suit.
Of course, it is all show. It is hardly as though they were in any way interested in looking for contraband. They just want a chance to pretend still to have borders up there.
Norwegian Customs on the other hand are quite subtle. Crossing from Sweden they did not even bother to get on the train. When they failed to challenge us before the train arrived in Oslo, I began to think that the border had been abolished because there is no customs barrier at Oslo Sentral. Then, as we lumbered up the platform from the train fully occupied by the carrying bags and the putting of one foot in front of the other, this shifty-looking chap in a grubby anorak, scruffy whites, and soft shoes sidled up to my companion. He pulled something rectangular out of a pocket and hunching over both it and her mumbled something which had this but been the Middle East rather than Scandinavia would have been the offer of either exotic postcards or the use of a young sibling.
Pah. It was his badge and it turned out that he was `Norwegian Customs, please come with me...'. So she did. And they were altogether more thorough, she says. No postcards, no siblings; at least, that is what she said.
If only I knew why it is that I have never been searched at any of the many customs barriers I have crossed, I expect both that I could make a fortune out of selling it and that I would be so ashamed that I would not tell even you about it. There was one time, when coming in to London Gatwick from the USA, I tried to declare something in the Red Channel and they just laughed. It ought to have cost me the best part of a month's rent in import duty. Heh. I must be painfully innocent. Either that, or the strategy of beginning by trying to declare some new T-shirts is a good one.
Never argue with a Swede in a boiler-suit.