Is it time to stop telling people to be scared...

[bobspud]

I think whoever said it was a pre olympic test hit the nail on the head.

Many years ago there was a chap leaving bombs in the city of london due to some spat with Barclays. I got on a train at liverpool street and there was a spare seat with a ruck sack on it. I looked to the chap sat next to it as if to say Please move your rucksack lest I use it for a suppository for you, and he said Oh no a chap left it here and said he was off to the toilet...
I said did you know him? No came the reply at that point I suggested that maybe he wasn't the brightest spark on the train and that letting a stranger give him his rucksack so he could go to a non existent bog on a train to Chingford was not the greatest thing he had done that day. All of a sudden there was lots and lots of spare seats all round this chap... He went to get up at which point I suggested that seeing as he had opted to look after the bag he should stay and do so. It was quite a tense few minutes until the owner of the sack poped back on the train having run off the length of the station to use a loo

I got a seat out of it though.

[MarillionFan]

M6 fake cigarette terrorism alert: 'We could have been shot' say passengers - Telegraph



So nobody thought to ask the person with the 'e-cigarette' what it is? Didn't the emergency services telephonists suggest to ask the chappy what he was doing?

I'm sad to see this; here in NL I often feel that I'm living in a nation that's becoming more and more asinine by the day, and my hope that Britain might avoid this trend is being destroyed.

It's always someone elses problem. Best to leg it then ask a simple question.

[Mich the Tester]

M6 fake cigarette terrorism alert: 'We could have been shot' say passengers - Telegraph

Miss von Kangur, 20, said: "Everyone was terrified. Some people thought it was a bomb, or a suspected terrorist attack while others thought we might have an escaped prisoner on board. Some people were cuddling their children and some were crying. We were very afraid."

So nobody thought to ask the person with the 'e-cigarette' what it is? Didn't the emergency services telephonists suggest to ask the chappy what he was doing?

I'm sad to see this; here in NL I often feel that I'm living in a nation that's becoming more and more asinine by the day, and my hope that Britain might avoid this trend is being destroyed.

[BrilloPad]

Why do people buy these really expensive fake cigarettes when they can get really cheap real ones at the local newsagent?

[the_rangdo]

The whole thing smacks of a pre-olympic test.

Convenient location, right after the tolls so the traffic would normally be slow and makes it easy to seal off the motorway.

No-one seems to know who the mystery reporter of the smoke is, even a suggestion it was called in by a passing car. None of the passengers interviewed on TV seemed to have a clue what happened.

War games.

</tin-hat>

[Mich the Tester]

I will in future only notify the police once I am well clear of the scene and out of the "unavoidable delay" zone.

whs

[Diver]

I will in future only notify the police once I am well clear of the scene and out of the "unavoidable delay" zone.

Unless of course there are small children and babies present, as these could potentially be used to construct a blast wall

Anyway, I'm surprised that nobody said to the passenger "Is there anything in your bag that could create smoke?"

and then tazered said passenger in the face

Just to be sure

[Mich the Tester]

Whatever next? Banning taking drinks on planes and having to take your shoes off at security?

Yeah that's a pain in the arris too. Fooking pointless seeing as modern terrorists just stick some chemicals in their undies and fail to detonate them.

[minestrone]

I create my trouble when I take my shoes off.

[MarillionFan]

Whatever next? Banning taking drinks on planes and having to take your shoes off at security?

[Spacecadet]

I wonder how many millions of pounds that all cost

[Mich the Tester]

...and to stop telling people to report anything remotely out of the ordinary, stop suspecting fellow citizens of wanting to blow things up, stop worrying and get on with life and accept that if, in the extremely unlikely event that you are caught up in an act of terror, there's probably bugger all you could have done about it?

Fake cigarette triggers major M6 anti-terror incident - Telegraph