Just reading the Loughborough University bomb threat procedure (yes, really) and in their guide to suspicious packages they say ...
5. The writing is in an unfamiliar foreign style. - Who's the intern at Pendraken just now?
7. A "jiffy" bag, or similar padded envelope, has been used. Yes
8. The item seems unusually heavy for its size. (Most letters weigh up to about 28g or 1 ounce, whereas most effective letter bombs weigh 50-100g and are 5mm or more thick). Yes
10. The item is marked "personal" or "confidential". I have all my packages from Pendraken marked that way
11. The item is oddly shaped or lopsided. Buildings or paints?
12. The envelope flap is stuck down completely ( a harmless letter usually has an un-gummed gap of 3-5 at the corners). Thorough lickers in Pendraken
15. There is a smell – particularly of almonds or marzipan. Only if Dave has been near it. If it's Leon, then it's sulphur.
16. The item feels and looks like a book. Worse I'd say?
So, Gentlemen, in order to protect you lives., I'm offering to have all your packets from Pendraken sent to me, and I shall ensure they're not dangerous, before sending what remains to you.
I know. I know, but hold the adoration. I'm just thinking of my Forum comrades.
Theft act 1968 - Dishonestly appropriate with intent to permanently deprive.
Looks very like this
Quote from: fsn on 19 February 2015, 01:42:18 PM
So, Gentlemen, in order to protect you lives., I'm offering to have all your packets from Pendraken sent to me, and I shall ensure they're not dangerous, before sending what remains to you.
Cheshire Police Runcorn will serve a warrant shortly.
IanS
We've just got big road signs (in red! with white lettering) stating that "This is a security vigilance area. Report all suspicious activity to the police" and it's also got the picture I use for my forum avatar on it, too.
Seeing the RLC Bomb Squad's white van whizzing past is near enough an everyday occurrence here (not just for suspected mortar attacks, which I believe is the modern parlance).
Maybe I live in a high catchment area for Pendraken customers :-\
Still, I miss seeing the armed Land Rover patrols we were treated to, once over. m/
Over here it used to be
Everyone out a bomb threat has been phoned through!
Which meant in reality we still had 40 minutes to finish our pints and get some chips before wandering off
My father was a safety officer and I remember him being horrified on visiting a new building to find that the standard instructions to staff in the event of a bomb threat was that they were to evacuate a building deliberately designed to be bomb resistant and to minimise casualties in the event of an explosion and to stand out in the car park where the glass shards generate by any sizeable explosion would scythe through the crowds. Instructions and window glass were swiftly replaced!
The standard instructions to all workers at the printing-ink factory in Aukland were - if the siren goes, get out asap, the solvents are highly flammable. On the one occasion the alarm sounded I did remember to hit the emergency stop button on the three-roll mill before legging it. The guy next to me didn't, and purple printing ink takes a whole lot of clearing up....
I remember, when I worked in the University Library, that the Rare Book Room had a Halon fire system. You had something like 60 seconds to get out before you were either doing an Indiana Jones roll under the descending fire-proof shutter or suffocating! Doubtless long since replaced on "Elven Safety" grounds :)
Of course this thread will have been 'flagged up' now by GCHQ, FBI, CIA, MI6, MI5, and just about EVERY intelligence agency in the world!
I mean all we have to do is start talking about guns, tanks, katyushas, bomb dogs, etc., and it will drive their systems frantic. ;)
Mind you it could be all a devious ploy by Pendraken to increase the visitor count and hopefully increase the customer base. :-\
I am sat at work, waiting to pick up daughter from swimming... my mouse mate ...gives me instructions ..
Action to be taken in receipt of a bomb threat... I laughed when I got it, thinking it was a p*** take...evidently not....
I need to record:
Date and time
Length of call
Exact text of the threat - Code word
If the caller does not hang up, try to keep them talking.... and so it goes on.....
My father also tells the tale of a bomb threat received by one of the telephonists where he worked at the height of the IRA campaign on the UK mainland.
The telephonist had made a note of the message but insisted she didn't have any further useful information.
"Any distinctive noises in the background? Traffic, trains, aircraft, machinery?"
"No"
"Anything distinctive about what he said?"
"No"
"Anything distinctive about the way he said anything? An odd pronunciation or anything like that?"
"No"
"Any trace of an accent?"
"No"
"What, no accent at all?"
"No"
"No accent? What did he sound like then?"
"He sounded just like me"
.... she was from Armagh!
School trip to France years ago.
Boys all bought BB guns from the market.
Promptly confiscated...
One of the teachers laid them all out on her bed, then was about to send Husband a photo on her phone.
We had to dissuade her, she was Irish Catholic from Newry, he was an RUC officer!
"Oh, I never thot of thaat!"
Had a student try to take smoke bombs he'd bought at a French market into Euro Disney...how we laughed...
NOT >:(
The exchange I worked in 'x' years ago......
The 'bomb' alarm went off.....
"Is that the drill, or the proper one ?"
"I dunno...Let's see what everyone else does....It's absolutely p***ing down outside."
So around six of us stayed inside, and watched through a window to see everyone else getting totally drenched.
(It WAS a drill.....We laughed...and weren't declared 'dead'.)
Cheers - Phil.
Quote from: Techno on 19 February 2015, 06:27:41 PM
(It WAS a drill.....We laughed...and weren't declared 'dead'.)
Cheers - Phil.
Debatable :D
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
What was mildly disturbing, Gareth, was that no-one had done a head count, to see whether everyone had actually left the exchange !
One day, I'll tell about the time (when I worked for the Post Office) when I was sure someone on the other side of the counter had pushed an explosive device, in a small package, to me.
That's the only time in my life when I've felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up ! (Raspy, raspy, raspy, against my collar.)
Terrified ?.....You bet ! (Not joking !)
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Techno on 19 February 2015, 08:34:46 PM
One day, ... (when I worked for the Post Office) .. I was sure someone on the other side of the counter had pushed an explosive device, in a small package, to me.
That's the only time in my life when I've felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up ! (Raspy, raspy, raspy, against my collar.)
That would be the mail menopause.
Quote from: Westmarcher on 19 February 2015, 08:48:46 PM
That would be the mail menopause.
;D ;D ;D
Well, Phil is of a "certain" age :D
Leon
Please could you do me a big favour?
When you are next sending a "Private and Confidential " order to Nobby at his University, PLEASE, PLEASE, let me know and the name of the university. I can them wait 24 hours and phone said University with details of a "suspicious package".
We can then all watch on the BBC while the Bomd Disposal team nutralise his pack of figures with serveral rounds from the rifle on the "Wheelbarrow" or if we are REALLY LUCKY detonate it in a controlled explosion ;D ;D ;D
And, just to make it even sweeter, can it be the day you ship his first Centurion bridge layer :D :D :D
Quote from: Westmarcher on 19 February 2015, 08:48:46 PM
That would be the mail menopause.
Dearie, dearie me ! ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: getagrip on 19 February 2015, 08:57:54 PM
Well, Phil is of a "certain" age :D
I'm well past that !....In my dotage, would be far more accurate. :'( :'(
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Techno on 19 February 2015, 08:34:46 PM
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
What was mildly disturbing, Gareth, was that no-one had done a head count, to see whether everyone had actually left the exchange !
Cheers - Phil
When I worked on the Ffestiniog railway we used to mooch about the slate mines, once a whole pile of us went underground. We duly counted heads on the way out.... However no-one counted them going in...30 years later I still have a niggling doubt that we left someone in there.
Quote from: Maenoferren on 20 February 2015, 11:01:42 AM
When I worked on the Ffestiniog railway we used to mooch about the slate mines, once a whole pile of us went underground. We duly counted heads on the way out.... However no-one counted them going in...30 years later I still have a niggling doubt that we left someone in there.
Tunnel doesn't come out in Runcorn does it??? :D
Quote from: Techno on 19 February 2015, 08:34:46 PM
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
What was mildly disturbing, Gareth, was that no-one had done a head count, to see whether everyone had actually left the exchange !
Cheers - Phil
When I worked on the Ffestiniog railway we used to mooch about the slate mines, once a whole pile of us went underground. We duly counted heads on the way out.... However no-one counted them going in...30 years later I still have a niggling doubt that we left someone in there.
Hmmm.....Why has that one echoed ? :-\
Oh...Slate mine....I geddit !
Cheers - Phil
As being both a Security Manager and a Health and Safety Officer in my working career it never ceases to amaze me how -when a building is evacuated because of the fire alarm- people will always congregate just outside the huge plate glass windows so that can watch events unfold. They used to get really indignant when I told them to get away from the glass.
I used to work for a large insurance company in the early 90's who received a large unexpected parcel to the post room.
Following procedure they x-rayed it in one of those airport style scanners - it appeared to have a bunch of electronics on one side of the box and an unclear solid mass on the other side.
Needless to say they evacuated the building and called the bomb squad who promptly destroyed the box (with a chunk of the post room ceiling) in a controlled explosion.
Turned out it was a box of promotional leaflets with free gift digital watches ordered by the marketing department. :o
Quote from: Vamboozle on 20 February 2015, 09:23:15 PM
I used to work for a large insurance company in the early 90's who received a large unexpected parcel to the post room.
Following procedure they x-rayed it in one of those airport style scanners - it appeared to have a bunch of electronics on one side of the box and an unclear solid mass on the other side.
Needless to say they evacuated the building and called the bomb squad who promptly destroyed the box (with a chunk of the post room ceiling) in a controlled explosion.
Turned out it was a box of promotional leaflets with free gift digital watches ordered by the marketing department. :o
Oops ;D
;D ;D ;D
Not first hand knowledge, so story may not be entirely as it happened, but it was said that one of our security guards was suspicious of a package but not entirely certain it was indeed a bomb.
So, being an enterprising soul, he called a cab, took the "bomb" in the cab to the local police station and popped it on the desk, announcing to the startled desk sergeant that he thought it was a bomb!
The sergeant cleared the area, called the bomb squad and whiled away the time 'til the squad arrived berating the security guard for his stupidity.
The "device" turned out to be .... a low-powered incendiary bomb! :o
I wonder if there's a local cabbie still going,"You'll never guess what I had in the back of my cab." :)
Once upon a time, many, many years ago on a Northumberland beach i found a shell/rocket/flare device, which as one does, promptly took to my Grandparents house. On arrival i was asked nicely to leave it at the bottom of the garden, whilst a discussion was held about just how dangerous this thing was. When i went back to look and poke at it (without parental/grandparental knowledge) it had disappeared, perhaps, even been stolen. Never did find out what it was or were it went. Hope it wasn't tooo dangerous.
The beach had been used during WW2 as a range and the dunes were strewn will .303 and other calibre slugs.
Ah the joys of youth. :)
Have a teacher friend who applied for a job in the Isle of Man and was called for interview so he booked the flight. He was a technology teacher and had taken some examples of the students' work to show what he could get them to do.
He was "somewhat alarmed" when he was stopped at gun point and asked to "come with me please."
Turns out, some of the work he was carrying contained mercury tilt switches (you can see where this is going) and they had lit up the scanners like a Christmas tree.
He didn't get the job.
In the mid-late 70s my little brother, who would have been 3 or 4, bought a 'Mr Delivery man' playset with his Christmas money. Halfway along Romford High St my mum noticed he wasn't carrying it. A brief panic and we return to C&A, where a crowd of people had gathered round this unattended carrier bag, unsure what to do (remember, mid 70s).
My mum marched into the middle of the crowd, picked the bag up and marched out again, leaving her annoyed at how stupid people were - what if it HAD been a bomb?
Quote from: Last Hussar on 21 February 2015, 05:42:42 PM
In the mid-late 70s my little brother, who would have been 3 or 4, bought a 'Mr Delivery man' playset with his Christmas money. Halfway along Romford High St my mum noticed he wasn't carrying it. A brief panic and we return to C&A, where a crowd of people had gathered round this unattended carrier bag, unsure what to do (remember, mid 70s).
My mum marched into the middle of the crowd, picked the bag up and marched out again, leaving her annoyed at how stupid people were - what if it HAD been a bomb?
Darwin award :D
Quote from: howayman on 21 February 2015, 05:23:00 PM
Once upon a time, many, many years ago on a Northumberland beach i found a shell/rocket/flare device, which as one does, promptly took to my Grandparents house. On arrival i was asked nicely to leave it at the bottom of the garden, whilst a discussion was held about just how dangerous this thing was. When i went back to look and poke at it (without parental/grandparental knowledge) it had disappeared, perhaps, even been stolen. Never did find out what it was or were it went. Hope it wasn't tooo dangerous.
The beach had been used during WW2 as a range and the dunes were strewn will .303 and other calibre slugs.
Ah the joys of youth. :)
It's probably in some rabbit's display cabinet.