Don't throw old spheres in the flower bed!

[ash2020]

I'm sure some of you will have seen this but I just came across it. From the Daily Telegraph:



By Nic Fleming
Published: 12:01AM BST 15 Sep 2004

Sweating with fear, and told not to let go under any circumstances, David Page tightened his right thumb's grip on the button of the suspected World War Two mine.
"Tell my family I love them if the worst comes to the worst," he told the police operator.
As he carefully taped his hand to the device to avoid letting go of what he thought was the trigger, police cordoned off roads within a two-mile radius and called in the Army.
The 40-year-old JCB driver and his wife Joanne, who refused to leave his side, then endured a terror-filled three hours until bomb disposal experts arrived at midnight - and told him the "mine" was a discarded Citroen car part.
Mr Page, a father of five from Coltishall, Norfolk, was digging near his home when he unearthed a rusting piece of metal resembling a camping gas cylinder and pushed a button at one end.
It was only then that it occurred to him that it might be dangerous and that he must not let go. He even put his hand, with the device taped to it, in a barrel of sand to lessen the blast.
"We thought if it does go off I'd hopefully only lose my arm," he said.
"I was absolutely terrified that I would be blown into a million pieces. The woman police operator kept saying it would be OK but I said to her, 'You're not the one holding the bomb'."
"I told her to tell my parents and children that I loved them if anything went wrong. I was crying and didn't know what to do. I just wanted to throw it away but knew I couldn't. The man from the Army said that he'd blown up a few similiar devices in the past because they looked so much like mines so it was an easy mistake to make."

[Peter.N.]

I took a sackful of them to the recycling centre and they regarded me most suspiciously.

[andmcit]

The older Ds/Cx estate rear sphere design is most dubious in it's appearance as it has a large
banded shoulder around it's maximum circumference and looks like some kind of ordnance!

I've always thought these were like cannonballs and could do some real damage even as Citroen
spheres as they resemble hefty cannonballs well - hurl one of these at someone you're not
happy with and they'll know all about it...

Andrew