What are Words Worth?
June 29, 2007 by inspectorgadget
Only the Met could sieze so quickly upon a new term for the Heath-Robinson contraptions so lazily abandoned by those al-Qaeda wannabes in London last night.
Potentially Viable.
Potentially; if someone had made them properly.
Viable; they might have gone off. Or Not. Who Knows.
You have to hand it to us in the British Police. We may not have a clue what’s going on with our terrorists, but we have whole departments just standing by to invent/ copy politically correct terms for any eventuality.
You couldn’t make it up.
Potentially viable ? Impotently viagra, now there is some viable potency.
You’re ‘almost definitely’ right.
Apparently there is maybe a possibility that it might have exploded.
I have to say that on a balance of probability there is every chance that………Either these were devices or they were not! But I guess not much will be said until we find those that ran from the vehicles.
Clearly worded by the immensely talented Vroomfondel and Majickthise:-
A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded blue robes and belts of Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkie who tried to bar their way.
“We demand admission!” shouted the younger of the two men, elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat.
“Come on,” shouted the other one, “you can’t keep us out!” He pushed a junior programmer back through the door.
“We demand that you can’t keep us out!” bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him.
“Who are you?” said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. “What do you want?”
“I am Majikthise!” announced the older one.
“And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!” shouted the younger one.
Majikthise turned to Vroomfondel. “It’s all right,” he explained angrily, “you don’t need to demand that.”
“All right!” bawled Vroomfondel, banging on a nearby desk. “I am Vroomfondel, and that is NOT a demand, that is a solid FACT! What we demand is solid FACTS!”
“No, no we don’t!” exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. “That is precisely what we don’t demand!”
Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, “We DON’T demand solid facts! What we demand is the total ABSENCE of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!”
“But who the devil are you?” exclaimed an outraged Fook.
“We,” said Majikthise, “are Philosophers.”
“Though we may not be,” said Vroomfondel, waving a warning finger at the programmers.
I rest my case!
Does that me that we have some potentially viable senior management (and I use that term loosely).
On the other hand, I suppose it’s quicker to type than, “So amateurishly made that there’s only a 50/50 chance they would have gone off.” Also not as good for scaring people into letting New Labour abolish habeus corpus.
Our current crop of terrorists are my favourite kind… the incompetents.
Those in the know have been saying all along that making explosives is not trivial and the recent rush of amateurs that failed to kill themselves just vindicates them.
When I heard ‘potentially viable’ on the news last night; I thought that Inspector G would have something to say about it, you don’t disappoint nor do your colleagues.
uphilldowndale - I never like to let you down! when I heard it I thought “there’s the next post then, thanks!” As a would-be author, I like the fact that you now think of me when you hear nonsense on the media! Thanks. That made my day.
I hate to disappoint, but I think this term has comes from the Military, namely the EOD. I examined a controlled explosion earlier in the year and the EOD chappie told me ‘That it wasn’t a Potentially Viable Device.’
I can see how the Jargon sponges would like to absorb that sort of terminology though.
All I know is it means a lot of walking around in our bomb proof yellow jackets for a while, reassuring the public, who on large have already forgotten about it. In Westminster we get so many tupperware boxes turn up with the contents made to look like a bomb, it is a surprise to see one that is a potentially viable device. It was those words that made me sit up and think “by the grace of god go I” as I have both been to Tiger Tiger, once or twice, and Policed the vicinity. I remember the IRA’s words to Thatcher “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky always”
How about ‘IED’ for ‘Improvised Explosive Device’? Oh, you mean a home-made bomb…
I watched the first part of the two hander ’season finale’ of Dr Who last week, where John Simm played ‘The Master’ who had become the Prime Minister and was about to enslave humanity; and then later in the week and watched some of Gordon Brown’s ‘Victory’ speech. I know which one terrified me most! As for the rest of the Cabinet - what a truly terrifying bunch they are - they are so convince they know what is best for us all. The nightmare has really begun.
Hey what the hell is going on!!! Those bloody Sat Navs have got a lot too answer for. They have only gone and caused some poor bloody terrorists to lose their way whilst trying to navigate London!!! Buggers ended up colliding into some bollards in Glasgow ffs!
Another victory over the Al’Qincompetents!
Good to see nobody but the bag guys hurt though, but I must admit I did have a chuckle when Sky News were talking to some of our local glasgow weegies about what happened. You don’t hear such comments from incidents in Englad like ‘ aye its jist as well the polis got tae them first, coz the crowd were pretty angri and a’ that, em no gonna repeat what they were shout’n at the blokes but if the Polis hadnae arrev’d I dinna think they would hav been al’eve beh the time the polis picked up the pieces!’
I dont think Bin Laden has likely heard of Bannockburn or Hadrians Wall (to keep us out of England!!!)
Hang on stobelwort, I can’t cope with any more acronyms, I am still working on CSI UK’s ‘EOD,’ what it the EOD please? As a M.O.P I am hanging on to this thread by a whisker. JOCKthe cop’s comment is easier to translate, I can cope with the patter, I used to live in the shadow of the Wallace Monument. He means what he says, don’t mess with the Scots; remember the poll tax
Inspector G, glad to hear your having a nice day
EOD,Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or ‘bomb squad’.
Sorry, I Have tagged you in a little quiz thing on my page, was pushed for time and had to quickly pick so picked my fave blogs atm!!
Did anyone think that the news clip of Gordon Brown emerging from a room walking to the camera speaking a few lines and walking back to the room a bit strange?
Reminded me of that character out of the Fast Show ‘This season I will be mostly eating/wearing….’.
Yes. disapointing Gordon couldn’t even be arsed to sit down to speak to us. Shocking, cheeky git.
[...] What are Words Worth? Only the Met could sieze so quickly upon a new term for the Heath-Robinson contraptions so lazily abandoned by those […] [...]
EOD = 11 Reg RLC
Nice to know they’re so incompetent, if it wasn’t for the fact that they consider genocide a (non-potentially!) viable act of foreign and domestic policy, they’d be a laughing stock. Until they learn, like the IRA, the difference between dying or getting banged up forever in the act of actually achieving something for the cause, or just dying or getting banged up forever in the act of looking stupid while not really having a clue what you are doing, we won’t do too badly. Pious assholes. Religious fervour was never a good substitute for good old fashioned competence.
How about “Bomb”?!!!
Thankfully those buffoons clearly didn’t pay enough attention during their training.
As usual my Force’s response is the universal deployment of YELLOW JACKETS, apparently this is for “visibility” purposes or something.
I’ve never been able to work this one out, surely thats why we wear a UNIFORM which (apparently) makes us look different from everyone else??!!!
After gonorr’s comment that EOD = RLC, all the photos of the Glasgow scene had ROYAL NAVY on the side of their wagons
Oh and it could have been a pale blue van that walked sideways, or Royal Engineers