Everybody knows that unexploded munitions can be dangerous, so it comes as no surprise to hear that police officers proceeded with extreme caution when, yesterday, workmen found a suspicious looking object underneath a fire hydrant cover in Shoreditch. They evacuated the area and staff in nearby offices were prevented from leaving until the incident had been dealt with.
This involved calling out the bomb squad. The art of defusing bombs is always a stressful one, as there's always the potential for something to go wrong, so the police must have wondered what was going on when they saw bomb squad members stand back and laugh. It turns out that what they had discovered was none other than the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, last wielded by King Arthur (Graham Chapman) in Monty Python And The Holy Grail, when, in 1975, he was called upon to do battle with a particularly dangerous fluffy foe.
Despite the appearance of the object, the bomb squad were thorough and subjected it to x-rays before concluding that it was indeed the famous prop (or a copy of it). "Our Holy Hand Grenade was fictional and there were no plans for creating one. We don't want to add to the armaments of the world," Python spokesman Michael Palin reassured them.
In a statement, Islington police said ""There was no danger to the public. The device is believed to be an object known as a Holy Hand Grenade."
