This is...
chill(i)ing news regarding the state of the nation's terror police. I bet they are feeling pretty warm under the collar right now though. Did they check ownership of the chillis? Were they "hot"?
IGMC
Terror police lock down Soho to smoke out 9lbs of chillis
Police sealed off three streets in central London on Monday as they investigated a suspected chemical terror attack that turned out to be a Thai chef brewing up a particularly pungent burnt chilli sauce. The three hour lockdown in Soho saw a Hazardous Area Response Team Unit and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus engaging …
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 12:26 GMT Simon Painter
Anthrax?
A trail of white powder? Surely it's more likely to be a Hansel and Gretel style trail of Columbian Marching Powder to mark the way home from the office for all the east coast rich boys who work in NYC.
Seriously, anthrax is pretty hard to make and pretty hard to import into the US so the sort of quantities of flour which a running club use are never likely to be the sort of quantities used by the late Osama in his quest to scare the US into disposing of the primitive warlike terrorist Bush and embracing a peaceful life as God and Allah both intended.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 12:26 GMT Edward Rose
Disgregard for other people....
Good, hope the police lock 'im up for good. How dare he do something like this. It's well known that chillis give off rather dubious odours when cooked. Especially if burning them. Idiots like this should be locked up.
(Not sure if el'reg should put a big sarcasm tag here or something).
Bet the police et al were glad for the breathing kit.
And, on a more serious note: can't wait 'til I burn the toast next.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 13:11 GMT Law
Police did good...
The food sounds awful!!
On a serious note here though, if it was an actual attack and something blew up - the same people complaining about the police state or the state of our police (see what I did there?? ;) ) would be complaining about how our police suck and should have been ontop it instantly. Unfortunately, you can't please everybody - I bet they thought "better safe than sorry"... I would rather look silly than have people get blown to bits.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 13:11 GMT Sceptical Bastard
Shoot the bastard
Quote: "It's not the first time innocent cooking materials have morphed into potential bio-terror attacks."
Oh, you've heard about my wife's culinary skills then?
Living in London, that Thai chef is lucky he wasn't wrestled to the ground and shot in the head by our Brave Boys In Blue.
PS. Where's the Paris Hilton angle?
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 13:45 GMT Paul
Dam you...
for posting this at lunch time. My ham sarny is of no interest now all I can think about is some prawn crackers, sweet chilli sauce and an ice cold Tiger beer!
Also, nice job met police. Working together for a safer London my arse (Although to be fair I do feel a little sorry for them. They probably had a 999 call from some ideot who thought they were helping, and now they look silly for folloing it up)
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 13:45 GMT Dr. Mouse
MMmmmmm... Chilli
Now if that's not a recommendation for a Thai restaurant I don't know what is.
"Our food's so spicy, the anti-terror police have to cordon off the area when we cook it". (Or words to that effect, I dont think I have a carrer in advertising)
If I'm ever in London I'll be checking it out.
Hmm, just thought, is the place normaly busy? If so, maybe the cops just wanted a meal and couldnt be bothered waiting. Easy way, cordon off the area, have meal, then come up with some excuse.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 14:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
What would Jack Bauer do?
You brits are way too nice. If it was Jack Bauer, he would have found the guy, shot his knee cap off, made him talk by jamming 8 lbs of the "chilli" down his throat. And by the time the local flatfoot shows up, Jack would be off in a black ops helicopter to Thailand for the source of the weapon.... KC
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 14:35 GMT Alan Donaly
it happens
As a former professional cook I can tell you we got carried away once in a while with how much we made your Thai chef here seems to have been making an enormous batch of this stuff 9lbs is a lot of chilies they are hollow inside so they don't weigh that much per pepper more than likely he was trying to get ahead in his prep and it apparently turned out a bit disruptive. Don't sell the cooking odors short when it comes to chilies it can incapacitate a person with asthma and clear a dining room if you have enough cooking at once.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 14:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
What would Jack Bauer do?
You brits are way too nice, if it was Jack Bauer, he would have found the guy, shot his knee cap off, made him talk by jamming 8 lbs of the "chilli" down his throat. And by the time the local flatfoot shows up, Jack would be off in a black ops helicopter to Thailand for the source of the weapon.... KC
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 15:02 GMT kevin king
bbc recipe is a bit off
I got this from http://www.podrush.net/default.aspx?id=9f5347a5-dbb3-4bea-92f2-0770def2a6f6
The chef mixes the charred chillies with 4½ of garlic flakes, more than 2lb of dried shrimps, 6½lb of palm sugar, 2½lb of shrimp paste, more than 2lb of tamarind and 9 pints of vegetable oil. It is served cold.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 15:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
re: bbc recipe is a bit off
"The chef mixes the charred chillies with 4½ of garlic flakes, more than 2lb of dried shrimps, 6½lb of palm sugar, 2½lb of shrimp paste, more than 2lb of tamarind and 9 pints of vegetable oil. It is served cold."
Looks like the plod did the right thing then - a combination of 9lbs of Thai chillies, 4-and-a-bit pounds of garlic and the shrimp paste would indeed be enough to take out a small country, the tamarind is the proverbial icing on the proverbial cake.
Still going to give the BBC recipe a shot though - it's sugar-free, and being diabetic means that palm sugar is an absolute no-no, irrespective of how much chilli and garlic I choose to accompany it with.
Also, you don't *have* to serve fish with Thai chilli - it goes well with chicken and beef. Either will do for me, as I'm not much of a fish eater - there's a Thai restaurant in Leeds that does a beef/chilli combo that would probably put the London concoction to shame ;-)
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 17:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Title
"By Law
On a serious note here though, if it was an actual attack and something blew up - the same people complaining about the police state or the state of our police..."
It wasn't an actual attack, though. And, since the police want powers that are dangerous when misused even by mistake, each MISTAKE they make shows they should NOT have those powers.
The police can either be infallible and given "extreme" powers to persecute because they are infallible, or be fallible and have little extra power than the fallible public.
Pick one.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 19:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: mmmmm... chilli...
"Are you sure they weren't using the The Merciless Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango?"
Mmmm .... Guatemalan insanity peppers!
I wondered how long it would take for someone to include this particular reference[*]. The IT angle, should anyone care to want one, is that the referenced Simpsons episode also features Professor Frink's Virtual Chilli :-)
[*] - The Simpsons, of course. Episode 3F24, "El Viaje de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)" - one of the best Simpsons episodes there is, IMO. I'll get me coat, I've already booked the taxi ;-)
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 19:34 GMT Chris Goodchild
Reccy 1st
It is normal in military circles in a tactical situation when the enemy is suspected to be mounting some kind of threat, to make an initial reconnaissance in order to gauge the level of the threat and to have some idea of just what you are getting yourself into. Maybe the specially trained fuzz should undergo some BASIC training with the army before they are allowed to bugger about in a busy city like London. I wonder how much their knee jerk response cost the tax payers?
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 19:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Nam Prik Pao
So called because of the effect ensuing from contact with the g/f's rusty sherriff's badge lol (and there's lots of it). Terrorists obviously intent on subverting public morals.
@ Simon Painter - "has Osama bin Laden also died unbeknownst to me?!" Yup, and gone to Paradise, having succeeded in subverting purblic morals.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 21:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
I had that Hans Blix round for dinner the other day...
Well, no, I didn't, but he could have turned up, looking to inspect me. I cook a lot of thai curries. When you throw a big handful of chopped chillis into smouldering-hot oil in a wok, you do get a big cloud of what is effectively a chemical weapon. I often have to stagger outside coughing and gasping for air...
... tastes bloody great when it's done, though! :-)
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 22:30 GMT Jon Tocker
Dangerous Substances
Chillis are bloody lethal! The chef should be locked up for flooding the neighbourhood with noxious chilli fumes.
In seriousness: Good on the cops for responding. Obviouly someone would have noted the acrid stence and phoned in the threat. Cops were duty bound to check it out in case it was a real threat. As has already been said: "Better safe than sorry."
I say this from the point of view of a man who has eaten his dinner while sitting on the footpath within twenty metres of his front gate because armed police closed off the street (in the short period between me arriving at the fish and chip shop and my order being ready) and would not let me and my flatmates back into the area until they were satisfied it was safe.
Seems some total wanker had been heard to shout at his wife "I'll fucking shoot you, you bitch". The neighbour phoned it in and the cops turned out and cordonned off the area. Turned out the wanker didn't even have a firearm and was just mouthing off.
For my part, I don't mind eating dinner al fresco in the interests of the safety of others. If the cops handn't turned out and the threat had been real, at least one life would have been lost.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2007 23:32 GMT heystoopid
Dumb and dumber
Those Dumb and dumber Met cops who can't tell food smells from the real thing , perhaps some one should send them all including the dumb stupid idiot that cried wolf, an application form to sign up for remakes of the old Silent Max Sennett's Keystone Cops Comedy Capers one reelers!
What a bunch of thick empty headed planks they all are!
The whole thing sounds like a surreal scene from Mike Judge's movie "Idiocracy" , who would have thought that a comedy satire has now been translated back to real life !
As Nelson would say Ha ! Ha !
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Thursday 4th October 2007 11:00 GMT spiny norman
Plod
Is this the first time this restaurant has cooked chillies? If the police had officers patrolling on foot and taking notice of what is happening in the local community - which is what they keep telling us they are doing - they would have known what this was without having to close streets, search for 3 hours and break doors down.
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Thursday 4th October 2007 18:08 GMT Matthew Smith
Also @ Simon Painter
Wasn't the only non-imaginary anthrax attack traced to a native common or garden variety of homicidal nutter? He stole it from his employer IIRC. You had better pray the Caliphate doesn't extend its jurisdiction for slander cases into your state.
Also, did you manage to sell your stockpile of Cipro before it expired, or did you flush it into the sewers to help the alligator population breed new strains of MRSA?
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