If you're not a high-level politician or multimillionaire, you can't bring books or magazines on flights out of the United Kingdom. But you are still allowed to wear clothes on planes, and the rules don't say anything about forbidding clothes with text on them. So why not print books (from Project Gutenberg, or ones that have been released under a creative commons license) onto iron-on transfer paper and put them on a very long piece of cloth.
If airport security says your long strip of printed cloth doesn't count as a garment you can either wrap it around your head like a giant turban, or you can print it on a narrow scarlet sash and tell them that it's an emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League and proceed to wind it several times round the waist of your overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of your hips.
Reader comment:
Chris Knight says:
Actually, at the 01sj.org conference on Saturday, a nice lady at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles demonstrated cloth specifically meant to be fed through a standard inkjet printer. The cloth has a stiff backing and is pre-treated to make the ink permanent. I was trying to think of an interesting art project using this technology (I'm currently thinking bar codes would be interesting, the resolution and clarity is good enough to support bar codes) but perhaps this would be a decent way to make something to read on the plane. I believe there are a variety of manufacturers, some of whom can produce long rolls of the stuff for continuous feeding through your favorite inkjet. Here is one.
