For the sake of balance and fairness, I was searched last night at Heathrow, no idea why the arch alarm went off.
The young man who did the search was courteous and professional.
I told him so afterwards and he seemed pleased to get some positive feedback.
If only his colleagues were uniformly the same - it is because of the generally poor experience that a competent search stands out.
E.g. last week, same airport, same terminal I was "pulled" after the scanner and a very stern faced guard asked me what was the problem with my bag, making quite a big deal of it and askng me to show and explain something they had seen on the scanner.
It seemed that the person operating the scanner could not recognise the hangar built into the suit carrier and thought is was an offensive weapon
No apology for the intimidating attitude, but I was gratified to see a distinct reddening of the facial region when I explained, as requested, what a coat hangar is, what it does and why it isn't an offensive weapon.
To be clear, I have no problem with them checking something out, but the manner was unnecessary.