Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Provokes Bomb Scare

Bomb disposal teams were called in and a nearby pub evacuated after water company engineers mistook a Monty Python film prop for a hand grenade. After nearly an hour of examination by bomb experts, they counted to three. No more. No less. Three was the number they counted, and the number they counted was three. Four they did not count, nor two, except to proceed to three. Five was right out. Once the number three had been reached, being the third number, they declared that the grenade was actually a copy of the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" used in the film Monty Python And The Holy Grail. A police spokeswoman confirmed that the device was a toy and that it had been no danger to the public.

Comments

Whiny bastards

[grasshoppa]

Local businesses criticised the police for taking so long to realise there was no threat. Alberto Romanelli, owner of the Windmill put that was evacuated, said: "I lost a good hour's worth of business."

What a bunch of whiny little bitches. I bet they'd have been whining pretty loudly if the cops were faster but didn't a thorough job of it.

Re:Whiny bastards

[retchdog]

It's not whining, it's a statement of damages. The world would be a better place, if the aggregate of costs like this were counted in policing decisions.

Fat chance, though; here in the US, stomping black teens to death and shooting mothers; grandmothers; kids; and even the mayor's dogs, is just a day in the life of a SWAT Drug Warrior.

Re:Whiny bastards

[spacefiddle]

Hmmm. From TFA:

Water company engineers spotted the object when they lifted up a fire hydrant cover during work on a street in Shoreditch, east London.

If it's the mass-produced replica pictured - does the goddamn thing look like an explosive device? Do you think maybe the word GRENADE on it had almost everything to do with this?

"spotted a cheap piece of crap and kicked it away as they got to work" would have been the events of the day, had that placard not been on it, i betcha. So some genius thought a bright gold beanbag with a silver cross and a plastic gem on it was a bomb, because it said HOLY BOMB on it.

Add to that years of pandering to public idiocy and paranoia, and you wonder if a city couldn't be shut down overnight by putting little post-its with the word BOMB on it all over the place. "Well, we can't take the chance! We have to assume it is!"

Bah, i'm not explaining this as clearly as i'd like. And maybe TFA doesn't fully explain the context, i grant you. Bottom line, i believe the only reason this happened is this very un-bomb-like object had the word GRENADE on it. -shudder-

Re:Whiny bastards

[grasshoppa]

Once the bomb squad's involved, they must treat it like it's a real explosive until they can determine otherwise. Were I a criminal with a grudge against cops, I would do something exactly like this in the hopes they dismissed it as a toy. Then, when they got close because it's just a toy, I'd blow it.

Can you imagine cops not taking it seriously, and having it hurt the public?

Talk about a lose lose situation.

Re:Whiny bastards

[Gat0r30y]

Do you ever suspect that stories like this are out there - this, the whole adult swim guerrilla marketing fiasco, and so on- to get us to stop pandering to public idiocy and paranoia then when nobody is paranoid anymore they come for us?
Also, I need a new tinfoil hat, this one has lost its pizazz.

Re:Whiny bastards

[guruevi]

Maybe somebody wanted to go home early?

Re:Whiny bastards

[Pantero Blanco]

A BAA spokesman said there was no record of the incident and no "formal complaint" had been made.

"If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it," he said.

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category.

"If it's offensive, we don't want other passengers upset."

So, if it had been a realistic picture of a Beretta, or a rapper or a cowboy holding a pistol, everyone would have nodded at their "wise decision" and the incident wouldn't have even warranted an article? If it's a cartoon robot holding the gun, then it's a gray area and they need to think about it?

Where are the adults in Britain and what are they doing?

Re:Whiny bastards

[Metasquares]

When weighed against a possible loss of lives, the cost of an hour's business at a Windmill is insignificant.

Re:Whiny bastards

[speedtux]

I'm sorry, but the thought of a terrorist hiding a real bomb in a replica of the Holy Handgrenade of Antioch is just totally bizarre.

I mean, as this story shows, you shouldn't pick something that causes head scratching, but instead pick something that even the most uneducated would consider harmless: a dead gerbil, a water soaked book, a breadbox, whatever.

Re:Whiny bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

As a guess, I'd say probably hiding from all the cameras.

Re:Whiny bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to also paint the ends of the barrels on your weapons with orange paint. The momentary hesitation this may cause could save your life.

Re:Whiny bastards

[1u3hr]

When weighed against a possible loss of lives, the cost of an hour's business at a Windmill is insignificant.

This argument can be used to justify anything the police decide to do, even if as in this case, there was NO RISK AT ALL. As in the even sillier case of the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" hysteria in Boston. Even if the frontline staff know, or should have known, that there was no danger at all, the response by ass-covering bureaucrats is to declare a full terror alert.

And all the airline security measures, the idiotic restrictions on liquids because of a fantasy threat that could never have been carried out are the same. NO ONE IS SAFER because of this security theatre.

Re:Whiny bastards

[Dr. Hellno]

things as harmless looking as a box of chocolates or a book can be deadly ordinance if rigged up properly.

That's exactly the point. Normal people can't actually tell a book or anything else from a bomb, so unless there's a credible threat (a phoned-in threat, or a tip with some real substance and technical detail to it) it really is a waste of time and resources to investigate every little suspicion. If this had been a bomb, it's unlikely that anyone would have suspected as much just by looking at it.

Re:Whiny bastards

[gabebear]

The point wasn't that small volumes of liquid aren't dangerous, but that banning them is idiotic. For one, there is no way to actually stop people from having liquids on a plane. Secondly, you can use anything to bring down a plane; the 911 highjackers used boxcutters.

To get back to retchdog's point; banning liquids has cost several hundreds of millions of dollars. What have we gotten for that money? Has banning liquids made it any harder for you to bring down a plane?

Re:Whiny bastards

[colinrichardday]

Does the amount of human life saved by such security measures exceed the amount of human life lost due to extra security (in the form of waiting in line)?

Re:Whiny bastards

[dotancohen]

If you're in a war, and you're close enough to throw a grenade at them, you're doing it wrong. In the Land Of The Free, you sit home and bitch about the government while watching the news.

Not at all! The only way to "get the terrorists" and not hurt their brother or sister is to go in there and pull him out manually. I'm sorry, but the US-style of just bombing everyone and everything is murder. A soldier's job is first and foremost to protect civilians, whether those civilians be your own people or the other guy's. Yes, soldiers daily risk their own lives to protect the "other side"'s civilians. That is exactly what the job is about.

Re:Whiny bastards

[dotancohen]

I can imagine. Just think of all the lives they'd have put at risk by not taking every precaution necessary in disabling a potential grenade.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Whiny bastards

[shellbeach]

When weighed against a possible loss of lives, the cost of an hour's business at a Windmill is insignificant.

To take that argument to its logical absurdity, the safest way for us to live our lives would be for us all to stay in our houses and never go anywhere. Not only would that stop the terrorists, but it would eliminate the road toll, prevent mass murders and the worst anyone would ever have to fear would be cutting themselves on the cheese grater.

But we don't do that, because we accept that there will always be an element of risk in our lives, and that the compensation is a life that's happy, interesting and entertaining. Yes, it sucks if you're the one knocked down by a bus as you cross the road; but the chances of that happening are so small that we just accept the remote possibility and move on, safe in the knowledge that it's highly unlikely to happen to us. Considering that the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are even less than being hit by a bus, why should we view it in any other way than as an incredibly remote, and therefore acceptable, risk? If we start jumping at shadows for things such as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, then we've got problems ...

(Thankfully, the global financial crisis has pretty much shoved terrorism into the background where it belongs. Nobody cares about Osama anymore, when they've got more immediate worries like mortgages to deal with ...)

Re:Whiny bastards

[Shipwack]

Having been in the military, and actually involved in real security duty, I can assure you that almost all of the TSA restrictions are theatrics to show they are "doing something", and counter-productive at worst, including the liquid restrictions. Small volumes of liquids can't cause catastrophic damage, outside of a movie or TV show. While there are liquid explosives, they are neither easily obtainable, or easily made outside a laboratory. But... let's say this magic substance existed, and that it was only the fact that you can't bring more than a quarter ounce of liquids on board that keep a terrorist from manufacturing them in flight. The TSA regulations are -still- stupid because nothing prevents several people from bring a quarter ounce each and combining them. Or one person bringing a quarter ounce in a shampoo bottle, a quarter ounce of "medicine", a quarter ounce of "toothpaste", etc...

Re:Whiny bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

'...To take that argument to its logical absurdity, the safest way for us to live our lives would be for us all to stay in our houses and never go anywhere...'

Umm...no. Most accidents happen in the home. Most people die either at home or in hospital.

To thake the argument to its logical absurdity, we should close down all homes and hospitals, and have everybody live on top of Mount Everest, because comparitively few people die there. (quite a lot die getting up there, but that's another story)

Re:Whiny bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. You only have to look at the amount of money spent here to avoid the risk that, in the absolute worst case, a few Westerners might have died.

Compare that to the number of African lives that could certainly have been saved by putting the same amount of money into providing e.g. HIV treatment, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that very few people really believe that human life is sacred and priceless. What most people really believe is that the lives of their tribe are priceless, and nobody else is worth a damn.

Except maybe the more photogenic sort of starving children, who are worth tossing the occasional crust to, to assuage our own consciences.

Re:Wikipedia

[CannonballHead]

Some people post on slashdot, some people write on wikipedia. ;)

Re:London: So Boston finally has someone to laugh

[91degrees]

No they didn't.

They were playing slightly safer than they needed to. After confirming that everything was safe they laughed about it and didn't slam anyone with a trumped up charge to justify their hysteria.

Hell, it took them an hour and everything was back to normal.

Re:We live in fear....

[penguinchris]

I agree it's stupid, but it's not as bad as you made it out to be. They were not confused by a hot dog wrapper - the hot dogs were apparently wrapped in white packaging and taped up with duct tape, according to your second link. I certainly wouldn't have assumed it was bombs, as someone apparently did, but I wouldn't have thought it was just a bunch of hot dogs either.

Your choice of wording leads one to think that you're saying there was a hot dog wrapper, as in the thing that is wrapped around the hot dog when you buy it at the stadium. I'm sure you did this intentionally to make it seem more ridiculous, and normally that's fine - but you've kind of crossed into being dishonest about it.

On an off-topic side note, the third link you give - geez - so many puns and jokes in there I almost gagged. I really don't like how every news outlet competes for the most bad puns and jokes in their headlines and in the articles. Local papers are the worst, taking AP stories and "adding value" by writing a "funny" headline. I wouldn't think that is something that greatly helped the decline of newspapers, but it sure hasn't hurt it.