Friday, March 20, 2009

"Oh Lord. Bless This Hand Grenade, That With It Thou Mayest Blow Thine Enemies To Tiny Bits, In Thy Mercy"

"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.":
Police evacuated several buildings, cordoned off a street and called in explosives specialists after water company workers stumbled on the film prop under a fire hydrant cover in Shoreditch, east London.

But the dangerous-looking weapon turned out to be the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch that featured in the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

Officers had evacuated a pub and another building, while office staff in another building were stopped from leaving.

But when the bomb squad arrived, they quickly established there was no danger and the street was declared safe.

...Alberto Romanelli, who owns the Windmill pub nearby, said the police action in ordering his pub to be evacuated had been as ridiculous as the film scene.
'They evacuated the pub while they were doing X-rays and stuff,' he said.

The prop forced the Windmill pub to close for 45 minutes while police cordoned off the street. 'It all lasted about 45 minutes before they decided it was nothing - which I thought was pretty obvious from the start. I lost a good hour's worth of business.'

...An police spokeswoman said: 'There was no danger to the public. The device is believed to be an object known as a Holy Hand Grenade.'

Copies of the prop can be bought on the internet for £14 or you can make your own by following the instructions in a five-minute video on YouTube.

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