6 arrests in London, and a rather dramatic chemical incident on the M6 toll road.

Grim times.

To quote the breaking news ticker on the Guardian: M6 toll road incident is not terror-related, Staffordshire police say. More details soon ...

Maybe a hedgehog crossing the road?

Danny Baker ‏@prodnose
Journeying back to London, I finally opened my tupperware of porridge and was just applying a flask of hot milk when.. [urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18719962[/url

Six arrests? My word, that's one in ten million of the entire population. The country must be on the point of imminent collapse.

Yeah, but it might have been a TERROR HEDGEHOG

From the BBC:

"A police source told BBC Radio WM a passenger was seen pouring a liquid into a box, which then started smoking."

Probably pouring tea from a flask into a cup......

Mind you the photos of all the passengers sat on the opposite carrageway look pretty scary to me:

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18719962[/url

At least we know we'll be safe in the winter

Hedgehog internment could be the way forward for the Bullingdon clique?

I was in Belgium a few years ago and they closed a railway station because of "white powder" on one of the platforms. Turned out to be icing sugar off a pastry. Those were the good old days, we used to sell a lot of biowarfare equipment back then. A bit of paranoia is always good for business

It's the only language they understand, the spiny bar stewards

Mock if you like, but I've been there when a hedgehog went off. They're like nail bombs.

Back in 1973, I was working in that there Lunnon and staying in a B&B in Earl's Court. My mate & I got up one morning, went down stairs and found a deserted hotel: no one on reception, empty restaurant zilch.

On venturing outside we were grabbed by armed rozzers from Special Branch and asked where we'd come from and what we'd been up to. It took a while but they finally accepted that we were staying there and they hadn't done such a good job on ecavuating the hotel as they thought they had. Turns out one bloke who was in another room decided that life was a bit too much, so he filled the meter with 5p pieces and topped himself with the help of the gas fire (still on town gas in those days). Someone had smelled gas and once they opened the room, they found this geezer, lying stark bollock naked, in front of the fire. He had wires attached to his leg and the wires led to a brown paper parcel. The Bomb Squad and SB were called out and after some delicate manipulations, they discovered that it wasn't an IRA boby-trap, he'd simply ripped the battery wires out of an old Binatone radio and sellotaped them to his leg. He just wanted to leave causing the maximum disruption.

It was then I that remembered someone hammering on the door and telling us we had to get out immediately. In my fug, I yelled OK and rolled over and went back to kip.

update: [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18719962he was having an e-cig[/url

AAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! PANIC



But why haven't the police mentioned the hedgehog in that? Conspiracy afoot, methinks. What are they trying to hide?

They don't want people swerving all over the motorway just to avoid a puncture

Somewhere on my blog there is the story of how I slept, undiscovered through two fire evacuations at my hotel in Whitley Bay, and also the one about how I accidently set fire to the gas supply pipe in my room in another hotel on a cold winters night, it suddenly made the room very hot indeed - I left the next morning and never went back.

Believe it or not, one of my colleagues at our head office in Birmingham uses one of those - he has been asked to go outside into the street when he wants an "esmoke" along with all of the regular smokers.

Before the workplace smoking ban, at my workplace they banned smoking in the office but allowed smokers to use a special manky room.
The non-smokers said it wasn't fair that smokers could just slope off whenever they felt like it, so the employers thought they'd reward the non-smokers with extra hols instead.
I can't remember the number of days it came down to ... but a colleague worked it out that it was the equivalent of being out of the office for ten fags per working day, which wasn't fair, as he was a twenty-a-day non-smoker.

I'd considewred getting one to help quit smoking but after today's shenanegans, I don't think I'll bother. I'll take me chance, I've never heard of a hospice getting raided by armed police

Fooking right. Used to drive me potty. When I worked for a long defunct tour operator many years ago we almost had a mutiny, so many staff were spending hours each day outside, leaving the rest of us covering for them. Lazy smelly wasters with yellow teef.

6 cigs a day @ 15 minutes per cig = 1.5 hours x 5 days = 7.5 hours a week. A whole working day, each week, lost to fellating a cancer stick. 40+ish days per year (allowing for 4 weeks leave and Lubbock holidays). And why? "Because I'm an addict." Oh really, well let me just pop out ferra wee dram o' Jamiesons or a quick punt on Betfair.

Never hire smokers or women of a certain age.

Seriously though looking at the video of the M6 "incident" this must have set the taxpayer back a goodly seven figure sum of money apart from causing widespread disruption. It's ridiculous over-reaction to nothing. the most obvious point of all is that IF the smoker had in fact been a bomber then he'd have had a couple of hours to set off his bleedin' bomb. What was the theory - that he would try to sit it out, and hope than when they searched his smoking bag, they missed his bomb?FFS. Embarrassing and ludicrous.

It'll be written off as a decent training exercise.

Isn't everything like that now though?

When I was a kid I remember walking along the side of threepennies in Madely Street baths, to ge to ninepennies. As I walked along, a big blind eel came steaming past me. I pointed it out to the attendant, who grabbed a net, fished out the offending turd and everything carried on.

If that happened today, the pool would've been evacuated, then drained and subject to a deep-clean and everyone involved offered counselling.

I'm just off to put the kettle on. Someone let the polis know eh?