back to article MoD: Frontline troops must have silent Xmas crackers

Friends of the UK forces seeking to send a bit of festive cheer to troops fighting on the front line have almost been thwarted by bureaucracy. Volunteers were forced to defuse 650 Christmas crackers before the British Forces Post Office would accept them, on "safety" grounds. "Christmas crackers are classified as dangerous air …

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  1. Paul

    What a shame.

    I was hoping that they had done the normal "defusing" thing to them. I.e. put the "explosive" in a safe place, attache an even bigger explosive to it, light the blue touch paper and stand well back. That would have been far more fun :-)

  2. Slaine
    Boffin

    Spontaneous Combustion not addressed?

    There are historically a number of documented cases of human beings bursting into flames... an event referred to as "spontaneous combustion". Whilst I recognise that this is not "quite" the same as "exploding" do we not now have reason to ban all humans from internal and international flights?

  3. Ian Ferguson
    Boffin

    Going 'bang'

    I suggest they fire a gun into the air at the same time as pulling the cracker. Same effect, and according to the RAF, safer all round.

    P.S. Your 'Remember me on this computer' still doesn't work.

  4. Ash

    Grenades?

    Classify them as short-fuse grenades and they should be fine.

    "An explosive device designed to create a small, localised detonation immediately upon activation."

    They'll ship them in by the thousands!

  5. Doug
    Joke

    @Ian Ferguson - Going 'Bang'

    You could use a paper bag to save the MoD money? Rather than firing the gun? For extra comic effect you could do this whilst a colleague is clearing a mine-field.

  6. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    @Ash

    I've just had an image of a couple of Jihadis in a heated argument about why their home-grown RPG (firework rocket, Christmas cracker and tape) has failed to blow a Land Rover to pieces.

    Thanks for the surreal moment.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Kabooom

    See why waste 300 squillion pound on a surface to surface missile? All we need to do is throw a few brightly coloured paper cylinders at the buggers. Then if the explosive fails to kill them, the sounds of laughter and bright hats will give their positions away, making it easy to target them with more advanced weapons, such as the fearsom cap gun or the brutal party popper!

  8. lansalot
    Pirate

    ooh err missus

    "The troops will just have to go 'bang' themselves when they pull them," said Ian Dalzel-Job of the Scots Guards Association

    Brilliant. I stopped reading at that point and thus have no interest in this story in case it doesn't turn out the way I assume it does.

    I thought it was just the sailors that were into all that saucy stuff? I can see I've been grossly mis-informed over the years.

  9. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    This is probably a move to ward off embarassing injuries....

    A few years back I was at a foreign army display along with a member of the BAT team who had been in-country instructing. Everything went fine until the twenty-one-gun salute went off nearbye, and our suave pongo promptly ducked in reflex, giving himself a nasty cut on the head when it came in contact with the back of the seat in front. This was all the more amusing given that he was the only one there to duck! Obviously, the MoD fears Christmas crackers could spawn a serious shortage of frontline troops if the same training has been applied....

  10. Eileen Bach

    Uncontrolled evacuation

    Troop-Visiting politicians are probably jumpy enough in these places. Can you imagine a 'bang strip' being stuck to the underside of a toilet seat with duct tape? It's not worth the fallout.

  11. Silas Humphreys
    Coat

    No doubt the troops have plenty of practice at shouting "Bang!"

    what with it being a standard training method, and about the only way to get a noise when you pull the trigger of an SA80...

  12. Mr Larrington
    Black Helicopters

    WW2 all over again?

    Does this tie in with Radiobonce's proposed WW2 austerity measures? ISTR Spike Milligan saying that in the opening overs of WW2, the Royal Artillery had to shout "BANG" in unison when training, due to a shortage of ammunition.

  13. Chris Cook
    Paris Hilton

    But... but... but....

    No, thats just silly.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    How things have changed

    Surely during the 1940s the RAF were the carrier of choice and among the leading importers of explosives into Germany.

    Must be a health and safety thing.

    I suppose thats what happens when people called Rupert with his handlebar mustash, leather flying helmet, and windswept wooly scarf who flies a spitfire made from paper mache, balsa wood, cow glue and canvas is replaced with people called Norman who wears a hi-vis jacket, and hard hat, carries a clip board and flies a desk.

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