Word: sniff
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...behind it. The nine road, eight rail and two canal crossings are tightly guarded and brightly floodlit at night. Traffic is minutely inspected to foil escapes. Heat-sensitive devices are used to detect persons hidden in vehicles and barges, and trained German shepherd dogs roam underneath all trains to sniff out would-be escapees clinging to undercarriages...
...play's conceit is that Remington has invited the audience to be his guests in his home in New Rochelle, N.Y., in 1902. Remington is middleaged, but one can sniff gunpowder in his temperament. Remington (played with granitic force by Michael Kevin) begins on an elegiac note. He recalls sitting beside a wintry campfire and hearing a gnarled veteran of the receding frontier say: "In a few years, the railroad will come all along the Yellowstone ... the wild riders and the vacant lands are about to vanish forever " But for a boy of 19, there were plenty of adventures...
...high fences. To gain entry, visitors must have proper credentials bearing their photographs and an authorization code. New York State troopers guard the road leading to the village administration building, where more policemen watch over a pair of airport metal detectors and X-ray machines. Specially trained dogs even sniff the luggage of arriving athletes for bombs. Says Britain's Paul Gibbins, a competitor in the biathlon (which combines riflery and cross-country skiing): "Sad to say, but in these times, a prison for Olympic athletes is a good idea...
English auction firms are particularly renowned for their well-connected staffers' ability to sniff out what they delicately call "aristocratic sales of necessity" (translation: the duke needs cash). Even the sophisticated rich often have unexpected treasures on their premises. Before sitting down to lunch at their country estate with the Earl and Countess of Verulam, Christie's Oriental ceramics director, Sir John Figgess, asked his host "if there was a cloakroom [bathroom] handy." There were two cloakrooms, allowed Verulam: "You take this one and I'll take that one." In the John that Sir John took...
Admittedly, modern times are fraught with real hazards, and no sensible person would sniff at prudent precautions. Still, it is hard not to shudder at the sheer volume of disquieting cautions, at the constancy, variety and intensity of the fearful clamor. Indeed, one may reasonably wonder whether the very climate of alarm itself has not become a hazard to health and serenity. Everybody's psyche now takes a drubbing day in and out from the concatenations of danger. An American can scarcely make a move nowadays without being pushed into a state of alert...