A TV show about Australian customs sounds about as riveting as watching a live (and I use the term loosely) sitting of federal parliament, but Channel 7’s Border Security manages to keep me glued to the couch for a full hour.

The number of people trying to bring in enough dried food to keep an Asian restaurant fully stocked for a month makes me wonder if these visitors think we don’t have grocery stores in this county … or maybe they just don’t like Vegemite on toast for breakfast.

Then there’s the folk who look old enough and innocent enough to be someone’s nan smuggling in a kilo of cocaine in hem of their petticoat. Hello, people, haven’t you heard about Schapelle Corby! Australian prisons may be a tad cleaner than Bali’s, but do you really want to spend 10 years in one?

Last week a Bob Marley lookalike got his dreads in a twist when was pulled aside by customs officers for a random search. Even when the officers said they would call in a magistrate to make a ruling on the matter, Mr Marley refused to spread ’em, claiming it was against his principles.

And you know what? He seemed so calm and sincere that I believed him.

But when officers started threatening that their next step would be a search of the clothes-off variety, our friend finally relented – and pulled out a bag of cocaine as big as a rugby ball from his groin area!

There was more reality and drama in this simple saga than in an episode of Big Brother Up Late.

But the real highlight of the episode was the discovery of packages of Kopi Luwak coffee being imported into Australia from Indonesia. Luwak coffee, for the uninitiated, is made from coffee beans which have been eaten and later passed out in the droppings of a furry little cat-like critter called a civet (pictured), then harvested and roasted. link to Wikipedia description of Kopi Luwak

I’d heard of this stuff before and largely dismissed it as an urban legend – but now it’s been confirmed by a rather bemused customs man, I’m convinced it’s true brew.

And because these civets choose to eat only the finest beans, Luwak coffee is apparently one of the most expensive brews in the world, selling for around $1000 a kilogram.

After some research, our customs officer decided he could probably allow the beans into Australia without posing any risk to our agriculture industry, but the main question in my mind remained answered: Who in their right mind would pay a thousand bucks for what one website so eloquently describes as cat poop coffee?

If you haven’t seen this show (Mondays, 7.30pm), I highly recommend it – you’ll never walk through customs quite so confidently again, but you’re bound to learn something new.

Are there any other Border Security fans out there?

- Suzanne Keen