Replica Monty Python hand grenade causes bomb scare in London
Part of my neighbourhood in London was evacuated yesterday after someone mistook a replica of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (cf. Monty Python and the Holy Grail) for a bomb:
Pub evacuated after Monty Python prop mistaken for grenade (Thanks, Frank W and Frank!)Water company engineers spotted the object when they lifted up a fire hydrant cover during work on a street in Shoreditch, east London.
The road was cordoned off and a nearby pub was evacuated amid fears that the "grenade" could explode.
But after nearly an hour of analysis bomb experts realised that the cause of the scare was in fact a copy of the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" used by Eric Idle to slaughter a killer rabbit in the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
the latest
latest episodes
HaHaHaHa
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.
Security theatre's tribute to Monty Python?
They should have been more worried about the killer rabbit. They go for the throat, you know!
Run away! Run away!
Cue mass hysteria in one, two, five...
God help them if there was a coronation.
Look at the bones!!!!
To be fair(-ish), "bomb" in this instance may not be associated with naughty terrorists, but unexploded ordnance in general. Live grenades from WW2 or other conflicts still turn up in people's inherited memorabilia from time-to-time.
And, let's be honest, an explanation for why a replica Holy Hand-grenade should turn up under a fire hydrant isn't going to be more sensible than one for why an ordinary grenade would appear there.
Interesting that there is no outrage like we had in Boston with the lite-brite scare.
How can they be sure it is a replica, and not the real McCoy?
The killer rabbit had a name damnit...
#6, Agies:
Or if the pub served Chambord.
What is going on in the UK these days? Dalek parts turning up in ponds and holy hand grenades in fire hydrants. The BBC has a lot to answer for.
The article ridiculing Authorities has been removed, and the offending writer directed to re-education? (DT article page appears mangled at least.)
I was on another board talking about this and am just AMAZED at how many people, like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force incident, are of the opinion that people are freaking out over nothing. Well I have to say, the majority of the people out there DON'T know about these things or are immediately able to destinguish a connection to it's "pop culture" significance. Being a diehard Python fan, I highly doubt I'd immediately make this connection myself.
I agree with ProgRockTV and Nelson C. Why is a pop-culture reference assumed to be proof positive that there is no possibility of terrorist activity? Isn't an ironic, urbane terrorist at least plausible? And if it's plausible, isn't it "the authorities'" job to take it seriously and save your ironic hides?
@Progrocktv
Well, there are two different things. One is responding with caution to an unfamiliar device; the other is going completely apeshit and turning anything remotely non-standard into a terrorist threat. I'm not sure if this particular story was a case of overreaction, but the Aqua Teen Hunger Force deal and the MIT student with the light up shirt at the airport definitely were.
Forgive my ignorance of London fire-fighting infrastructure, but what the heck is a "fire hydrant cover"? Is it some kind of metal lid that covers a below-ground water main like a manhole cover, or are hydrants just really different over there?
Nelson:
Actually, here in London they find unexploded WWII German ordnance fairly frequently...it happened last year in Canary Wharf.
Actually, I was more imagining that the toy was covered by muck and grime after spending years(?) under the hydrant cover, and so not easily identifiable as anything other than an out-of-place object. Mad bombers with a sense of humour are more a Hollywood thing.
The publican and the Telegraph seem bemused that it took as long as an hour to identify the thing, but that seems quite reasonable, even a bit hurried, if the bomb squad was exercising proper caution.
As to why there hasn't been a shitstorm of reaction — beyond an ironical article in the Telegraph — you forget that this is Britain. The authorities and the public here have had experience with both real bombs and bomb-scares.
Brainspore: Kind of right both ways. This is the fire hydrant cover typically seen in British streets, and this is how they're marked. Don't ask me what the numbers mean.
So they found this outside a pub? I wonder who had the window seats?
And come to think of it, I wonder if the bomb people needed to evacuate the pub or were just sick of being laughed at and got their laugh in return.
Replica hand grenade found underneath a metal grate in a busy city. Bomb squad called to investigate.
Seems fair enough come to think of it.
Wonder if one of the bomb squad folks, on realizing what it really was, declared, with tongue-in-cheek,
"It's just a model.."
#5 TheOceaner wins.
Webmonkees@24:
Shhh!
Huh... Yesterday Cory?
Seems Like this may have involved some time travel.
Yesterday being March 22 (Sunday ) But... This Happened Thursday the 19th
Even the Link You Posted (Along with this one: www.thisislondon.co.uk: Pub is closed by Monty Python grenade ) says the 19th.
LoLz
Except that it wasn't a replica hand grenade. Nor did it look anything like any popular notion of a hand grenade, or any other explosive device.
What it does look like is a royal orb. (Or a bottle of liquor, as Beanolini pointed out.)
Is Monty Python so ingrained in the British collective unconscious that one would look at that and think it was likely to explode?
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Remember that the Brits have a long history of this stuff. Go back a few decades and quite a few suspect packages turned out to be IRA bombs. WW2-era unexploded bombs, shells and hand-grenades are still found pretty regularly underneath the big cities. It's this stuff that's ingrained in the British collective unconscious.
I'm betting your average drain engineer hasn't seen many hand grenades close-up and doesn't assume that all of them must look like the ones in movies. I'd be willing to bet that their training specifically covers what to do if you find a suspected explosive, along the lines of "err on the side of not getting blown up, back off slowly and let the experts check it out". Which they did within an hour.
I'm actually pretty happy about the response. And, crucially, it's being dismissed as a joke story rather than all the cries of "bomb hoax" that followed the stories about those LED decorations in Boston.
More depressing was an incident on the Tube a few months back. A young couple got off the tube, forgetting a carrier bag. I did what seemed the obvious thing and had a look in the bag to see if it was just rubbish, worth handing in to lost property, or contained something marked with a phone number. Most people around me looked nervous, a few people backed away slightly and two told me off for touching it because "it could have been a bomb". I tried pointing out that the ratio of "lost bags on the underground":"bombs on the underground" was pretty high, but they weren't convinced. Oh well.
#21, Nelson.C:
From the same website you linked to:
Fascinating.
Next story on Boingboing: U.K. officials talk about the importance of self-defense against passion fruit.
Bugs, so you are telling me that:
a) The British have a lot of experience with bombs that don't look like bombs, and therefore
b) this comedy prop was (mis)identified as a hand grenade because it looked like something other than a hand grenade?
Nefarious!
What happened to the original 3 comments on this post? I was number 3 and there were two people before me and none of them are here?
I am so confused.
If you follow a few links, the more outrageous thing is a man being placed undersiege for possessing a longbow..
Really UK, a longbow? You might as well outlaw meat pies. A drunkard with a chair is more dangerous than a nerd with a longbow.
I believe the International Discordian Conspiracy calls this a "Time-Release Mindfuck" XD
And the winner is… Aneurysm @ #35!
What would have happened if they had found one of these? Slightly NSFW.
What's this hand grenade doing among the royal jewels?
http://www.almanach.be/search/n/British%20Royal%20Jewels%20(Dr%20Tibor%20M.%20Celler).jpg
Good thing it wasn't Boston.
Tarlss, longbows kill; it's what they were designed for, after all. They've certainly killed more people than meat pies have.
As it happens, I knew a nerd with a bow, who got drunk one day and shot an arrow in the air, to fall to Earth... well, as I recall, it flew through someone's window and buried itself in their sofa. Luckily, it was late, and no-one was sitting on it at the time. The police were not pleased.
We few, we happy few...
Nelson.C, few things don't kill. And many, many things kill more than longbows these days.
Besides, the law (or at least royal fiat) requires all able-bodied Englishmen to practise their longbow skills regularly:
"Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery - whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises... that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows... and so learn and practise archery."
-King Edward III
Unusual (can I call you that?), and if the besieged person mentioned above had had one of those other deadly weapons you mention, how would the police response have been different? How should it be different? A longbow is not equivalent to a plastic replica of a fictional gold-plated, diamond-studded hand-frenade.
Nelson C: What's a hand-frenade?
I had a similar incident at the airport when my lips were dry, so I said I needed to apply a balm...
Good thing London's got all those sticky-beak cameras, eh? ohohohohohoh! Looking at the footage for those teeeeeeeerrrrrrrrorists, those naughty teeeeeeeerrrrrrrrorists, eh? Nudgenudge, winkwink 'e said, knowingly. Oooooo yes, quite holy, innit?
Phikus, it's like a grenade, but more frenetic.
My god... This will mean more Monty Python humorists!!