Customs, security and immigration - learn it, live it, love it

I have many irrational pet peeves, and many seem to involve air travel. One of the most silly may be my disproportional irritation when people use the word 'customs' when they really mean immigration or airport security. But as silly as this little hang-up is, it actually does make a big difference not only to public policy but also to your rights and plans as a traveler. And yet I hear people confuse these three things very often when they're telling their travel stories, even frequent travelers. I'm in Switzerland this weekend visiting my father, himself a very frequent traveler, and I was just explaining the difference to him. So I thought it might be helpful to write a blog post about it.

Customs, immigration and airport security checks are three distinct processes you may encounter at an airport or border crossing. Sometimes you may have to go through all three, other times you just encounter one or two and other times you won't go through any. It all depends on which countries you're traveling between. For instance, when you travel between Belgium and the UK you go through immigration, but not customs. When you travel between Belgium and Switzerland you go through customs, but not immigration. If you're flying between Belgium and Finland you would only go through security, the same as you would if you were flying between Florida and California. Confused yet? Here's a quick guide.

"Yes, but is it art?" EU says no

The art world is all aflutter this month after word got around that the European Commission has decided that a light installation by Dan Flavin that was on display in a London museum cannot be considered "art".

Back in 2006, an oddly-named London modern art gallery called Haunch of Venison decided to display Flavin's 1973 work Six Alternating Cool White/Warm White Fluorescent Lights Vertical and Centred along with Bill Viola's 1995 work Hall of Whispers. Both of these works had to be imported from the United States. They were shipped with the customs classification of 'works of art,' which benefit from a special EU value-added (sales) tax of 3.7%.

But when the works arrived at the UK border, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs decided that the assortment of fluorescent lights and projectors that made up the installations were not art but rather light fittings and audiovisual equipment. They were charged the normal tax rate of 17.5%. But bizarrely, while classifying the materials as 'not art' for the purpose of their tax rate, they decided to assess the value of the components based not on their worth as light fittings and video equipment but on their market value as works of art - a huge amount of money.