Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Hemel Hampstead Explodes!

Because of my “real” Job, I have a somewhat unique perspective on a place that has been in the news this week: Hemel Hampstead. I know exactly where it is; which is more than I can say about places north of a line between Dublin and Kerry here. I’m intimately familiar with names of areas, major roads and even some of the newer housing estates that have been built over the past 5 years. I see it almost every day represented in a monotone 2 dimensional 1:500 scale. It’s easy to forget that each building in each estate on every road in every area of Hemel Hampstead is someone’s home, school or place of work.

Well everyone in that little place in Hertfordshire, understood the meaning of fear on Sunday as part of the Buncefield oil depot exploded. It became one of the hottest (get it?) news items everywhere and was quickly declared the largest peacetime fire in Europe, which is pretty scary. No doubt the poor folk with a HP2 address probably thought that al-Quaida had abandoned plans to destroy London and had turned on them instead.

I was disappointed that there wasn’t more looting after the evacuation though. I would have liked to have seen the good ‘ol Tommies of the British Army or even the Royal Marine’s (fully clothed this time) being deployed to “take care” of looters. Hey and if Blair didn’t want blood on his hands he could have called me. I could think of nothing better to do than to lead a tank column up St Alban’s Road or drop with paratroopers into Hemel Hampstead FC’s grounds under the cover of the black plume of smoke that can be seen 40km away in the centre of London.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And how many men would you have left to burn after that mission Colonel?

Anonymous said...

Give the low level of opposition there, he could have only justified a couple of hundred.

Unknown said...

I believe they should have called in Sex Piss Man (or l'homme de sex piss as the french call him)and with one mighty squirt could not only have put out the blaze but also impregnanted any ovulatiing females!!

Major General Creedon said...

@ Master Guns. I've had a pretty good record for the past 5 years actually Sergeant, you'd be amazed.

Anonymous said...

Sadly Creedon you still haven't gotte the chance to live the dream , rush into your office and say "My God Doncaster....it's gone" hemel hempstead just doesn't have the same edge does it.
By the way did anyone notice that Sky news were saying on sunday it could take up to two weeks to put the fire out "the biggest of its kind since the war" they were interviewing old men in their 80's asking stupid questions like "of course fighting fires with bombs falling round you is a bit more dangerous isn't it?" A BIT?!!! they probably had their major disaster look ready to go, hell their news dept were probably working on special theme music and by tuesday it was all over , that kind of screw up makes you feel all warm inside

Anonymous said...

Poor recon colonel, everyone knows that you never speak, write or make any reference to the 'Hempstead' part of the town's name. It should only ever be known as "Hemel" or if you come from the down wind side of the smoke "Emel".
Colonel be careful driving any tanks down the St Albans Rd. The Romans built that road and then Queen Bodecca used it to ride down to London and give them a good thrashing!

Major General Creedon said...

I had a feeling someone would bring that up. As I said; I do know the area and our clients have instructed us on some of the colloquialisms, including dropping the Hampstead. We never say Hemel Hampstead at work; I'd say "send a message to Barry in the Hemel office". I even originally had just "Hemel" in the draft of the article before I went to check my facts with the BBC and SKY News. Both news services however used the term "Hemel Hampstead", which I would assume to be for the benefit of folk not from such areas and especially international visitors so I put it in deliberately as most readers of this would fall into that category.

How fitting that St.Albans road could once again carry a destructive force only this time to give looters a good thrashing.