Editor's Blog: Tear up that boarding pass...

I'm lucky when it comes to travelling for work. I often get asked how much I have to travel. The answer is that I travel mainly about as much as I want to, with my days of being ordered off on reporting assignments to far-flung places just a distant memory. And that all suits me - with a young family back at home, I feel lucky.

So when I do travel I tend to notice changes.

I write this from a Las Vegas hotel room, here for a conference which didn't fit into one of the other team members' diaries. My journey here from London was good - direct always helps - but I can't get out of my head an exchange with an official sitting under the huge Departures sign that hangs over the security check at Gatwick.

I passed him a boarding pass that I had printed up only moments earlier at a self-service kiosk, which all went swimmingly, too - the airlines are getting there.

"You won't need that from here on in," the official said.

I was a little taken aback - at the comment and at getting a comment at all, given how busy the place was - but thought I'd make conversation.

"I collect them for my scrapbook," I said. Not exactly the best retort but there you go.

"And you soon won't need them at all," he added. "Once we've got ID cards!"

And with that last comment he smiled broadly.

Now I could have gone on about silicon.com's far-reaching coverage of ID cards, the likelihood of the project never happening, at least not in its entirety, due to technical and logistical limitations, a change of government or even the current government having a rethink - though I wouldn't bet on that.

But I decided to say no more. I shrugged, moved on and probably thought I'd done a half-decent job with the scrapbook comment.

So isn't it funny that on Saturday morning as I kicked my heels among the construction work at Gatwick's South Terminal, one of the most dramatically crowded departure areas I've ever seen, I was asked for my boarding card about four or five times - from buying paracetamol at Boots, newspapers at WHSmith and ultimately at the gate, going though the final security check.

At that point I even asked if my passport would have been enough to get me through. I wasn't told yes or no but definitely heard that they still want to see passengers' boarding cards.

I'm hoping there aren't lots of prematurely torn up boarding passes at that airport. And surely even ID cards will be appropriate only for those who have them. While that will be most Britons who travel - hedging my bets again here - by its nature an airport serves an international public, most of whom won't have had such an ID plan thrust upon them.

A footnote. At the end of last week silicon.com was briefed on another wi-fi rollout, with news that McDonald's is making its UK outlets into free wi-fi hotspots. Could I see that at Gatwick Airport? And what would the likes of BT Openzone, T-Mobile et al think as they offer their chargeable services at such high-traffic - in every sense - locations?

You can guess the answer.

I'm wondering whether there are exceptions to the "1,200 outlets" announcement or whether I just hit the road too early.

Next time, which could be a while, things might have changed.