We'll meet again

[austin_dern]

A bomb left over from World War II was harmlessly exploded at a construction site near the East Coast Parkway on Monday. The eyebrow-raising part is the bomb was uncovered Sunday; nobody notified the police or armed forces for a day. Why? Since it was found on a Sunday, there weren't any managers around, and nobody was quite sure what to do about the unexploded shell, so the workers waited until Monday morning. I appreciate the desire in unusual situations to defer to the chain of command, but come on, guys, you're failing your initiative rolls here.

The jaw-dropping thing is some of the workers tried picking up the bomb; one said it felt like it massed about 80 kilograms. Granted Singapore has a looser attitude than North America when it comes to public and workplace safety -- for example, they leave largely uncovered the Monsoon Ditches, deep, steep-angled concrete channels to carry away heavy rainfall -- but come on. ``Don't touch a known or suspected bomb'' is kind of up there with ``don't wrestle porcupines'' and ``if you live in Gotham City don't learn Batman's secret identity'' as life-and-limb-saving pieces of advice you should only need to hear once, if you don't figure them out on your own.

Trivia: A first-class transcontinental railroad ticket from New York to San Francisco in summer 1869 cost US$150.00. In June 1870 it was US$136.00. Source: Nothing Like It In The World: The Men Who Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869, Stephen E. Ambrose.

Currently Reading: Louis Pasteur, Patrice Debré. It's a huge book, yes, and intensely detailed, but where else are you going to hear how the Franco-Prussian War affected Carlsberg beer?

Comments

[luckybunny007.livejournal.com]

"Where else are you going to hear how the Franco-Prussian War affected Carlsberg beer?"

You're always on the lookout for reading material; try George McDonald Fraser's Flashman series for just the above.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah? Thanks ... I'll poke about and see if I can fit them in.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

OSHA tells me I can't wear a watch on my wrist while preparing food due to potential bacteria creation of damage from the watch breaking or catching on edges.

They haven't said anything about bomb discoveries, though. So I'm free to make my own calls on that.

--Chiaroscuro, whose call would be "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

There you go. That's my call, in such cases, and while I don't expect to run across any in my line of work, which involves sitting at a computer all day, then going home and sitting in front of the same computer for recreation, it is a possibility.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I really wonder sometimes how some people survive to adulthood.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I wonder that about myself, although my insanely risky activities tended to be along the lines of riding a bicycle full-speed down a muddy, pebble-strewn, steep drop in a good-sized suburban woods, so a small loss of control could send me flying into a rock or tree, of course in the era before helmets or shin or elbow pads were even thought of. When I think about the fun I had I can't help imagining it going slightly wrong and sending my internal organs external ... not, of course, as fast as explosives would.

In defense of the workers, it does seem pretty chemically unlikely much explosive material would be left after 60 years of monsoons interrupted by heavy rains; and they found the bomb in a truckload of dirt that had been dug up and tossed around, so there's some reason to expect if it weren't a dud to start with it would be by now. I still wouldn't take the chance. But I tend to overdo things; when I worked at the nitrocellulose plant I kept my work station so damp you could get algae.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I can't help but feel that when The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is released in Singapore, there'll be some confusion as to why it turns out to be Arthur Dent whom the story revolves around, rather than Mr Prosser.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I can't deny the possibility, really ... the country is trying, rather self-consciously, to loosen up and be more flexible and encourage more initiative in people, but I can't help feeling like, well, any episode where Urkel tries to be cool. They'll get better at it, but right now it's kind of at the stage of, ``all right, listen up everyone, we're all going to be more individual starting now, got it?'' and everyone answers, ``OK'' in unison.