Hero of the day

Sometimes fact is much stranger than fiction

The fate that almost befell the UK's capital city today is well recorded on the news sites, so I won't go into detail. But just imagine pitching this plotline to a film studio for development:

A woman drinks too much in a nightclub in London. So much does she drink, that someone at the club feels it necessary to call an ambulance. While on site, one of the ambulance personnel spots what they believe to be smoke inside a car parked outside the club. Thinking a car fire is imminent, the medic calls the police. The police turn up, have a good look, and apparently spot petrol containers, gas cylinders and masonry nails inside the car. One officer also spots a mobile phone somehow connected to this material, and without evacuating residents in the area, they have the foresight to disconnect the phone from the materials - in effect diffusing a potentially lethal terrorist bomb.

Meanwhile, a few streets away, and apparently none the wiser, a graveyard-shift tow truck scoops up an apparently illegally parked vehicle - no doubt with their usual care for the vehicle's condition - and drive it to a disused underground carpark not far away, now used as a pound. Later that day, perhaps 12 hours later, and becoming aware of the events outside the nightclub earlier that morning, someone working at the pound becomes sufficiently concerned about the smell of petrol emanating from the recovered vehicle to alert the police, who attend, repeating the same performance. It is in this way that London is spared the effects of two terrorist atrocities.

Talk about lucky! If that lass hadn't had one too many Bicardi breezers, who knows how many dead and maimed there would have been? Oh, and did I mention that Bruce Willis wasn't involved? Nah, I knew you'd never believe me!

For inadvertently foiling two terrorist attacks, today's heroes of the day are the lass and the medic, the hapless towtruck driver (9 lives?) and the bomb squad - thanks to them all.