London Bomb Attempt

[spindr]

BBC are reporting a bomb attempt in London near the Haymarket.

SpinDr

[Twirly]

The Times is reporting on it too:

London escaped what could have been its worst terrorist attack this morning when a car bomb packed with nails, gas canisters and containers of petrol apparently failed to detonate outside a popular West End nightclub hosting a 'ladies' night'.

Police were called to Tiger Tiger nightclub in the West End shortly before 2am when smoke was seen coming from the inside of a Mercedes car parked outside. A man was seen running from the vehicle.

Inside officers discovered a "significant quantity" of petrol, nails and gas cylinders. They used a remote-controlled device to check the vehicle before bomb squad officers made it safe.

If the bomb had exploded, police said that the shrapnel would have killed or injured anyone within a wide area. The bomb itself could have caused a fireball as big as a house followed by a large shock wave.

[tsh]

Yawn - probably just an attempt at justifying all the tax we pay...

[Gus]

Yawn - probably just an attempt at justifying all the tax we pay...

Obviously you weren't around in London a few years back when another attempt at justifying was made .... seem to remember 50+ people paid with their lives and many of the rest of us were left wondering if that was the taste for things to come Not a laughing matter.

[Barry Shnikov]

Obviously you weren't around in London a few years back when another attempt at justifying was made .... seem to remember 50+ people paid with their lives and many of the rest of us were left wondering if that was the taste for things to come Not a laughing matter.

He was probably making a dig at how there often seems to be a preliminary over-reaction to these things and later it turns out to be rather more mundane than first appeared...like Jean Charles Menezes turned out not to live in the flat that was under surveillance, not to be armed, not to be carrying a bomb, not to have vaulted the ticket barriers, not to be running from the police, not to have failed to stop when ordered, not to have been wearing a suspiciously heavy coat on a hot summer day, and not to be associated with terrorism; and the other event in which a house was ransacked and someone was shot in the shoulder by the police and the press releases that morning also turned out to be a load of complete horse puckey.

Or maybe he's just an unfeeling sod.

[StokeBloke]

The Times is reporting on it too:

I don't like this type of 24 hour TV news channel reporting from The Times. You know the thing.... when the the TV news HAS to say something, but there is nothing to say.... but they say stuff anyway.... like "The bomb itself could have caused a fireball as big as a house..." A house? How big a house? I thought the standard newspaper measurement for volume was measured in double-decker buses, height in Nelson's columns and weight in elephants! Are houses now going to replace buses... oh my! This is going to get confusing

Police say it could have... should have.... maybe might probably have.... I long for the good old days when news stories in broad sheets were mostly based on some sort of fact and measured in elephants. Rather than this type of speculative drivel.

On a side issue, a Mercedes Benz for a car bomb? That seems a bit stupid, surely you want one of those cheap Korean things made of thin metal... but what would I know?

[Twirly]

Whatever the newspapers are saying, the police are taking it seriously. Just got this through at work (I work for a German bank - very conservative, not prone to scaremongering), and I would presume they got this from the authorities:

In the early hours of this morning a vehicle bomb was discovered and disabled in the Haymarket area of the West End.

We have now been advised that a second suspect vehicle is being investigated in the Park Lane area and that it is causing severe disruption to travel due to road and tube closures.
Staff are therefore advised to stay away from this area of London if possible and remain alert whilst travelling.

Suddenly, I'm very glad that I'm leaving London for a couple of days.

[tsh]

Oh, the Piccadilly fireball would have blown the car's windows out, and popped its doors open, and sent various bits like mirrors and so forth into the air at velocities possibly fatal to people nearby. It would have looked really cool, that's for sure. But an explosive event...a detonation? Not in a million years. Sorry lads: you failed car bombing 101; you did not attend a single lecture; you did not even open the textbook.

Beavis and Butthead in London jihad | The Register

[StokeBloke]

Beavis and Butthead in London jihad | The Register

THAT's the sort of reporting I am talking about! More fear biscuit anyone

[Gus]

Aye ... I supose its a two edeged sword. On one hand you don't want to trivilise it ... espcially as another atrocity and oss of life is looking increasingly inevitable ..... but at the same time its the Great British spirit thing that stops us being downbeat even when Johnny Foreigner is doing his worst and using humour to downsize the danger