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?

How long were those cigarettes?

If some idiot rings 999 and says "a bloke on our bus is preparing a bomb", what the feck do you expect them to do?

Not sure you can blame the authorities for this one. If they'd not bothered and the bus had exploded they'd be universally panned, investigated, heads would roll, etc.

Seriously? At the place I'm talking about it was 2-3 minutes to the exit, a moment to light up, probably up to 10 minutes minutes to smoke then 2-3 minutes back to the desk.

Whatever, if it's 10 or 15 minutes it still adds up to a load of time at work you're getting paid to kill yourself. You can kill yourself in your own time.

I expect them to use their well trained and well paid brains!

Well, I would ask them what they knew about feckin bombs to convince me that's what he was doing. Mostly, if I could, I'd do something that did not involve (as it here did) giving the putative bomber 2 hours to explode his putative device before anyone did anything.

Then, if I felt the moron was giving me at least enough suspicions that it might genuinely be something serious, I wouldn't instruct them to park up and make sure all passengers stayed on the bus until platoons of troops and police arrived, since the longer they stayed on the bus, the longer they stood a great chance of being blown to smithereens, gassed or whatever I suspected.

Mostly, I'd assume that if by pouring some liquid into some bag and producing smoke, nothing had either blown up, or gassed anybody at that stage, then it was almost certainly bollox, and not at all justifying such an outrageous response.

Under your expectation, (which is that on getting such a call, that is what they MUST do) the terrorists could bankrupt a country in a week, they just place 50 of those calls a day and soon the entire economy is fooked and the country is paralysed.

Obviously, there are some citizens in Bradford who are slightly behind the rlNEWS CURVErl whem it comes to matters terrorist....

Again, if someone reports vapour coming from someone's bag and reports it as a genuine concern, what do you expect the authorities to do? If there is a genuine threat, you don't ask a passenger to start checking out the suspect, answering questions while on the phone. Smoke/vapour was reported coming from the bags during the failed attacks on 21st July 2005 if you recall, so if something similar is being reported, what do you expect them to do?

It's similar to the overkill at airports. I've been on a flight where a lad joked to the cabin crew, "got a bomb in me bag, me." We then spent 2 hours parked up while he was arrested and his bags removed. The likelihood of him actually having a bomb is almost zero, but the threat is taken seriously. It has to be. Mentioned a bomb at the airport and you're in trouble. Mention one on a 999 call and the police will respond accordingly.

And can I point out the bleedin' obvious that the authorities are on a high state of alert and will be until at least 13th August. No, it's not ideal and it's an inconvenience but any report of such a threat has to be taken seriously. And if you've got a suggestion to improve their operational response, I'm sure they'd welcome your experienced advice.

Like I said, if they'd performed some sort of assessment on the initial phone call and decided there was no threat, only for the bus to explode, or for the suspect to travel to London and explode a bomb elsewhere, heads would roll.

As I recall it was you who posed me a question, not the police. If you don't want to know my opinion, then don't ask, you ignorant sarcastic plank.



But that is a proposition of the utmost stupidity. I did not say they should have decided there "was no threat". It is banal to state that [isome[/i response of [isome[/i sort was required. It is absurd for you to even suggest that any assessment there "was no threat" could possibly have been made. It does not help for you to set up such a ridiculous straw man for yourself to then knock down.

You understand very well my point that if this was the reaction every time such a call was received then the country would grind to a halt, and even just that one single reason clearly demonstrates, if not to you, why the response was completely OTT and absurd. Nor, if the man HAD had a bomb, would the chosen course of response have done anything to stop him detonating it, a point which you totally ignore.